George Orwell was a renowned writer who wrote many essays in his life which would become very popular in the literature world. The essays we have read were The Spike, A Hanging, Shooting an Elephant, Such, Such Were the Joys, How the Poor Die, and Marrakech. At first, when reading these essays, I quickly got bored and didn’t take much interest in them, but I later realized how good they were. The stories were interesting to read with his personal experiences and the detail put in the writing.
My favourite part of Orwell’s writing technique was detailed in the plot and each character, and the language use to carry out the tone of the essay. For example, in How the Poor Die, the words associated with “Death” like “Died”, “Dying”, and “Dead” carried a dark tone with imagery that’s sad and depressing, it shows a place that nobody wants to go to.
My favourite essay by Orwell was Marrakech. This essay is about the poor living conditions in Marrakech and the Jewish society living there. It gives a vivid description of the poor, and harsh living conditions which portray the poverty, discrimination, and death in the city. In the first paragraph, Orwell opens with the flies being attracted to the corpse being walked through the city in rags, then buried in a random spot.
“As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later”
It gives the reader that sense of pity for the people who are forced to live in poverty their entire lives. Orwell was very good at setting the tone through the first paragraph of the essay. He later goes on to describe the scene where he is in good detail.
“Many of the streets are a good deal less than six feet wide, the houses are completely windowless, and sore-eyed children cluster everywhere in unbelievable numbers, like clouds of flies. Down the centre of the street there is generally running a little river of urine.”
“In the bazaar huge families of Jews, all dressed in the long black robe and little black skull-cap, are working in dark fly-infested booths that look like caves”
Again, it gives that sense of guilt and pity to the readers that keeps them engaged which makes a good story. It also gives a good sense of reality and what people have to live and go through each day to get by which this essay clearly shows.