Talk:George Orwell

Jews, antisemitism and zionism
His relationship to Jews has been a recurring topic in various publications. Texts with an obvious antisemitic slant, as well as texts with a determined rejection of antisemitism, from different periods of Orwell's career, and his comments about the increasing conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine under the British Mandate are quoted.

Under the headline "Orwell's evolving views on Jews", Raymond S. Solomon draws an arc from Orwell's first book Down and Out in Paris and London up to Nineteen Eighty-Four. Anshel Pfeffer asks "Was Orwell an anti-Semite?" in the Israeli daily Haaretz. Paul Seeliger, editor of the compilation of Orwell's texts On Jews and Antisemitism, describes his relationship to antisemitism and Jewish issues as "ambivalent".

Writing in early 1945 a long essay titled "Antisemitism in Britain", for the Contemporary Jewish Record, Orwell stated that antisemitism was on the increase in Britain and that it was "irrational and will not yield to arguments". He argued that it would be useful to discover why anti-Semites could "swallow such absurdities on one particular subject while remaining sane on others". He wrote: "For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. ... Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own anti-Semitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness." In Nineteen Eighty-Four, written shortly after the war, Orwell portrayed the Party as enlisting anti-Semitic passions against their enemy, Goldstein.

Sexuality

Sexual politics plays an important role in Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, people's intimate relationships are strictly governed by the party's Junior Anti-Sex League, by opposing sexual relations and instead encouraging artificial insemination. Personally, Orwell disliked what he thought as misguided middle-class revolutionary emancipatory views, expressing disdain for "every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniacs".

Orwell was also openly against homosexuality. Speaking at the 2003 George Orwell Centenary Conference, Daphne Patai said: "Of course he was homophobic. That has nothing to do with his relations with his homosexual friends. Certainly, he had a negative attitude and a certain kind of anxiety, a denigrating attitude towards homosexuality. That is definitely the case. I think his writing reflects that quite fully."

Orwell used the homophobic epithets "nancy" and "pansy", for example, in expressions of contempt for what he called the "pansy Left", and "nancy poets", i.e. left-wing homosexual or bisexual writers and intellectuals such as Stephen Spender and W. H. Auden. The protagonist of Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Gordon Comstock, conducts an internal critique of his customers when working in a bookshop, and there is an extended passage of several pages in which he concentrates on a homosexual male customer, and sneers at him for his "nancy" characteristics, including a lisp, which he identifies in detail, with some disgust. Stephen Spender "thought Orwell's occasional homophobic outbursts were part of his rebellion against the public school". Biohistorian15 (talk) 12:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)


 * It might be a good Idea to spin it off into its own section as WP:Crits says, "In some situations the term "criticism" may be appropriate in an article or section title, for example, if there is a large body of critical material, and if independent secondary sources comment, analyze or discuss the critical material," which certainly does apply as a full 11 sources detail his views with 9 being secondary and two being a "large enough body of critical material." XCBRO172 (talk) 00:20, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

English or British
Does it make more sense to use British as the adjective for Orwell or is English fine. 2600:1700:65A0:7330:381D:A2FA:94B8:3EF4 (talk) 02:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Cultural identity is determined by context. English is fine for the context in the lead and is appropriately used through most of the article (as distinct from British) in my view. I would tend to leave it as it is.Geneus01 (talk) 05:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello Geneus01! Thanks for your reply! 2600:1700:65A0:7330:3568:4256:F713:57EB (talk) 07:13, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You are welcome - it is an interesting point because George Orwell developed a dislike for the Scots, particularly after his time in Burma, so his identity as British was flawed. That changed completely later in life, as he came to live on the Scottish Island of Jura but Orwell's changing viewpoints on many topics and how those opinions developed though his experiences are part of what makes him such an interesting study.  It is fair to say that his identity is complex. Geneus01 (talk) 05:41, 7 June 2024 (UTC)