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Discuss George Orwell as a novelist.

Give your assessment of George Orwell as a novelist.

George Orwell is one of the leading novelist of modern time. He used novel as a tool to satire on the political and social hypocrisies of the world. He used this device very effectively and skilfully. By the quality of his writing he has achieved international fame and recognition. When he began writing novels, he adopted simple narration. His ‘Burmese Days’ is a fine example of his simple narrative style. Later on, he used symbolic expressions also. His the most success-novel, ‘Animal Farm’ is the finest example of symbolic expression. But he has been criticised by many critics due to lack of sincere characteristics of novel in his novels. Tom Hopkinson comments on him, “Orwell’s reputation as writer rests largely on his novels, but his gifts are not those of a novelists and if the novel had hot happened to be prevailing literary from during the twenty years when he was writing, he would probably never have been attracted to it. Orwell had little imagination, little understanding of human relationship, little sympathy with individual human beings-though much with humanity in general.”

O.D. Leavis says about Orwell that “he had wasted a lot of energy trying to be a novelist. I think, I must have read three or four novels written by him and the only impression those dreary books left on me that his nature did not intend him to be a novelist.” Similarly, Edward M. Thomas also writes that “He did not possess the temperament of a novelist.” Thus, George Orwell, who desired to produce more than thirty novels, had to admit in his letter written to his friend, Julian Symons, “you are perfectly right about my own character constantly intruding on that of the narrator. I am not a real novelist anyway.” This failure became a matter of great dejection to him.

It does not mean that all the critics consider him not a true novelist. One of the great critic of his time, Laurence Brander writes about George Orwell that “Orwell helped to carry on two great traditions in English prose. He was an individualist and he cared for prose style. He did his work at a time when individualism was as unpopular as ever, and when more crude writing than ever before was getting into print. English is a very difficult language to manage and few succeed in writing it well. Orwell managed it with great skill concentrating his energies on expository prose because he recognized that he must give his energies to pamphleteering. By the time he wrote his later essays, he had tempered his style into a strong, fine supple instrument. He worked on his prose in the furnace of his intellect until it became a clear reflection of his character and what he had to say.”

In view of the above opinions of the various critics, it will not be absolutely wrong that Orwell had many weakness as a novelist. Orwell could prove himself much strong in plot construction. Plots of his novels, except ‘Animal Farm’ can not be said plots of a good novel. Similarly, his characterization is also very weak. But as a political writer, he did his best to create the best literary work. His use of symbolism was mechanical. Due to all these facts he has not been recognized as a true novelist at the literary world. But his contribution to the literature, regarding his political ideas, cannot be neglected as he himself declared, “When I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writings into an art … … looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably when I lacked political purpose that I wrote lifeless books” so, it can be said that George Orwell was a good political writer rather than a true novelist.