The Banality of Virtue: A Multifaceted View of George Orwell as Champion of the Common Man

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Issue Date
2007-10-11Author
Veale, Thomas Francis
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
184 pages
Type
Dissertation
Degree Level
PH.D.
Discipline
English
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This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
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This dissertation focuses on several aspects of the life and works of one Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell. It views Orwell as a servant of empire, as a revolutionary, as an intellectual, as an optimistic skeptic, as a writer, as a sort of prophet, and as a critic. It makes the case that Orwell wrote with the interests of the common people at the forefront of his mind, and that the threats to humanity and the liberal Western tradition existing in the 1930s and 1940s still exist today, albeit in a form that would have surprised Orwell himself. The passing of the year 1984 prompted a sigh of relief in Western societies who celebrated Big Brother's failure to arise in that celebrated year. As we end the first decade of the twenty-first century, we should consider whether or not we truly have avoided the perils of totalitarianism and the possible nightmare world that Orwell envisioned. This work engages Orwell's past, his present, and his unseen future: our own present. It applies Orwell to the postmodern world in an effort to emphasize that his work still matters.
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