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Discuss the narrative technique of George Orwell as a novelist.

George Orwell did not have regard and interest for style and technique in the writing of fiction. He considered language as a medium of communication, and clarify the thoughts. He always criticized those writers who care a lot for the language. He says that “a good prose is just like a window pane.” The use of difficult language or use of Latin or Greek words in writing is nothing but to create obscurity. He himself comments on language that :

“Whosoever write English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and above all against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”

In fact, George Orwell believed that whatever he was writing, it must be understood by common man of the society. So he always tried to use the language of common man. When we go through the writings of George Orwell, we find following characteristics in his technique and language.

George Orwell had used plain, simple, lucid and spontaneous language for his writings. He shaped his style with the conscious purpose of making his language the medium of expression of his political and social views. A famous critic Muggeridge appreciates his style of writing as follows:

“George Orwell apart from being anything else, was the perfect twentieth century stylist. His dry sentences with their splendid clarity and smouldering indignation convey better than any other contemporary writer the true mood of our times.”

George Orwell did not take of any established rules of writing conception of technique and style. He made his own rules for writing and followed them strictly. He never used metaphors and similes in. his novels. He always prefered short and simple words instead of long and difficult words in his writings. The most remarkable thing which observe in his writing, is his reluctance for the use of passive voice. He always prefered to write in active voice. He took great care of style, clarity and precision. Like Jonathan Swift, he used proper words in proper places. When George Orwell wrote his novels, the writers of that period were habitual of using foreign phrase and scientific words. But George Orwell never like their use. In this connection, it appears that he followed H.N. Fowler and F.G. Fowler who suggested in their book, The Kings, English’ that the writer should prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched, the concret word to abstract, the single word to the circulation, the short word to the long, and the saxon word to the romance. The following passage from ‘Animal Farm’ is a fine example of his attempt at simple word is quite natural. He never seems deviated from the clear expression:

“Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments. Even Boxer was vaguely troubled. He set his ears back, shook his forelock several times and tried hard to marshall his thoughts but in the end he could not think of anything to say.”

Being a political thinker and writer, George Orwell had adopted the style and technique of political pamphleteers in his writings. He himself says about ‘Animal Farm’ that “it was the first book to use political and artistic purpose into one whole ……. so long as I remain alive and well, I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style.” As a novelist he paid his attention to political and social problems. He is the only writer in English literature who fused political theme into literature. His piece of fiction remains the result of simple prose in his eyes. He says that “If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst faults of orthodoxy”. Language was the most important part of his fiction writing, so he always used plained and simple language for it. He proved in his novel “Nineteen Eighty Four” how the official language become a source of tyranny.

The prose style of George Orwell is his individual and modern. All the great critics of his age like Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, Christophere Hollis, Arthur Koestler and V.S. Pritchelt had praised his modern and individual style. His phrases and diction is highly appreciated. Though, the early prose style of George Orwell was ornate and verbose, but later on his style was marked by immediacy and vigour and finally it shows very simple thoughts. The art of combining sense and sound in his novels is so much clear that words on a page become clear mental and emotional experiences. Though sometimes, we find a colloquial touch and a rhetoric tone in his novels, he really becomes carefree light or loose. His style is magnificent and argumentive.