The Life and Inspirations of George Orwell

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Born June 25th 1903, known by the name of Eric Arthur Blair only, George Orwell came to this world in the British colony of Motihari, Bengal located in India. After living there for a year he and his mother moved back to England without his father. Only seeing him on the rare occasions that his father Returned to England to visit. Although they are not mentioned much Orwell had two sister one older named Marjorie and another that was younger name Avril.

At the age of five Orwell was sent to a small Anglican school located in Henley, which his older sister had attended before him. After just two years Orwell was recommended by several teachers to the headmaster of St. Cyprian’s School located in Eastbourne, Sussex. Orwell also received a scholarship that allowed his parents to pay half of all usual fees. Doing so well at St. Cyprian’s Orwell received a scholarship to Both Wellington and Eton colleges.  Orwell would Later describe these years for his family before he went off to college as their economic status being “lower upper middle class.”

After a long thoughtful decision on which college to attend Orwell chose Wellington, but after just one term he transferred to Eton where he was “King Scholar” from 1917 to 1921. He was not liked much by a number of teachers due to his arguments and lack of “respect” towards them. Once his studies were finished, Orwell became part of the Indian Imperial Police inside Bruma. He did this until 1928 when he resigned for his position after growing to hate imperialism. His time there also inspired some of his books such as Burmese Days, published in 1934.

It wasn’t until 1933 that he actually adopted the pen name of George Orwell. He chose this name because one of his most treasured places to be was the river Orwell in Suffolk. Orwell lived in poverty working many jobs just to try and get by. Once the Spanish Civil war started in 1938, Orwell volunteered to fight for the republicans against Franco’s Nationalist uprising. It is unclear why he did this or what his intentions were. In 1936 Orwell married a woman named Eileen O'Shaughnessy.
  
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George Orwell and his wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy
The in 1941 Orwell was part of the Home Guard and began to work with the BBC Eastern Service, which had a goal of getting Indian and eastern Asia’s support for the allies. Throughout the years of the war Orwell was writing an anti- Stalinist allegory called Animal Farm which he finished in 1944. Orwell was able to live comfortably off the royalties of the book and then adopted a son named Richard Horatio Blair. The next year Orwell’s wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy died in an operation.

During that last three years of his life Orwell was in and out of the hospital. In 1949 Orwell remarried, this time to a woman named Sonia Brownell. Then the year after that Orwell died from tuberculosis which he had probably contracted during the period described in Down and Out in Paris and London. Orwell was only 46 years old at the time and buried in All Saints' Churchyard, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire.

It wasn’t till after his death that his book were more greatly recognized and the world appreciated him more. Then in 1983 he was on the cover of Time magazine for his book 1984.

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