George Orwell

George Orwell was a writer, journalist, novelist and intellectual. He was born in India in 1903, he was the son of a colonial
official. At a young age, he was taken to England, where he was educated first at a preparatory school and where he began to
develop an independent-minded personality (open-minded), indifference to accepted values, and he professed atheism and
socialism.
After school, he passed the India Office examinations for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, where he started a social
experiment: living in poverty, in fact he started wearing second-hand clothes and living in common lodging-houses. In this way
he learned how institutions for the poor worked and British Imperial administration. After a period in Paris, he returned in
England where he devoted himself to writing full time and he published his works with the pseudonym of George Orwell.

• Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) in which he described his experience among the poor.
• Burmese Days (1934) based on his experiences in the colonial service.
• The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) a report on the conditions of miners in the industrial North.
• Homage to Catalonia (1938) based on his experience during the Spanish Civil War, theirs is conversion to socialism and the
ideals of brotherhood and equality.
• Animal Farm (1945) made him internationally known and financially secure. We can see Orwell's reaction to Stalin Purge trials,
Stalin signature of non-aggression with Hitler.
• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) his most original novel.

His experiences abroad helped him to see his country from the outside, so in him we can find the rejection of his English
background, but he accepted new ideas and impressions. His works are characterized by the presence of the conflict between
middle-class education and emotional identification with the working class.
He thought that the role of the artist was to inform, to reveal facts and draw conclusions from them, so writing interpreted
reality and served a useful social function. Orwell believed that the writer should be independent.
He was influenced by Dickens in the choice of social themes, realistic language, misery caused by poverty and depravation of
society. He insisted on the criticism of totalitarianism and violation of liberty.
 Nineteen Eighty-Four
It's a dystopian novel published in 1949, that shows a possible future society in a big totalitarian system. Through this novel,
Orwell denounced the dangers of totalitarianism by presenting a world in which human individuality has been cancelled by the
actions of an oppressive government.

1984 refers to the future and is the reverse of 1948, the year in which Orwell wrote the book. The novel examines the role of
power and domination in an imaginary future society that clearly reflects the totalitarian regimes that Orwell came to know in
the 1930s and ‘40s.

It is divided into 3 future worlds: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Oceania's political structure is divided into 3 parts:
-Inner Party: the ruling class
-Outer Party: the educated workers controlled by the Inner Party
-Proles: the working class who live in poverty

The plot:
The story takes place in London, capital state of Oceania, which is a desolated city governed by terror and the constant control
of big brother, who is the head of The Party. They govern over the citizens in a system of constant surveillance, violent policing
and psychological conditioning. Everyone is constantly observed by monitors called telescreen, which always show the face of
Big Brother, who looks like a combination of Hitler and Stalin.
The protagonist is Winston Smith, a journalist who rewrite old newspaper in order to support the new state policy, rebels
against the oppression of the regime. His name is symbolic, as Winston reminds of Winston Churchill and Smith is the
commonest English surname. He illegally bought a diary in which he wrote his thoughts and memories.
Winston fell in love with Julia, however, their brief affair is discovered by the Thought Police, by O'Brien who is a party spy who
believes them to be a member of the brotherhood. They both got arrested and subjected to merciless torture and brainwashing
until they are 'cured' in room 101. At the end, they both betrayed each other, gave up their identity and started supporting the
Party.

The instruments of power:

In order to control people's lives, the Party invented a new language, the Newspeak, which is formed with a limited number of
words. It involves the abolishment of irregular forms and word such as 'democracy' or 'freedom'. Another instrument of power
created that represent the cancellation of human conscience and rationality is doublethink, the ability of holding to
contrasting ideas at the same time. With this, the Party is able to erase the past and make people believe in its truths.

Themes:
The themes are the importance of memory and trust in a hierarchical society in which individuality and the sense of reality are
abolished. Orwell wanted to inform and reveal facts about the totalitarian regimes with a pessimistic tone which shows the cruel
reality about persecuted people.

Utopia: an ideal or perfect community

Dystopia: shows a future society that
isn't ideal
 Samuel Beckettt
He was born in Ireland in a protestant family in 1906. He studied at Trinity College and graduated in French and Italian. After
graduating he moved to Paris, where he met James Joyce. He then travelled in Britain, France and Germany, writing poems and
stories and finding occasional jobs. Beckett returned to Paris in 1937. He fought with the French Resistance until 1942, when
members of his group were arrested by the Gestapo and he was obliged to flee. After the war Beckett was awarded the ‘Croix de
Guerre’ for his bravery and settled in Paris. In 1969 he is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1989.

His works:
• Waiting for Godot
• Krapp's Last Tape, where a man listens to his own recording voice about his past happiness.
•Happy days, where Winnie is buried up to her waist in the first act and up to her neck in the second. It talks about the absurd
condition of loneliness and degradation.

The Theatre of the Absurd

Created together with other two artists who lived in Paris, Ionesco and Adamov, the Theatre of the Absurd expresses in its works
the idea that life is meaningless and that human beings are not able to communicate with each other. The Theatre of the
Absurd, in other words, tries to put into evidence the impossibility of real communication.

Themes:
• the negation of time: timelessness, endless present, repetitions of actions and meaningless clichés;
• the problem of perception: the fear of non-existence stands at the core of the characters’ obsession with never-ending
dialogues (or even monologues), whose aim is not to communicate, but to give them the certainty that they exist;
• the idea of imprisonment: life is like a prison and human beings are like ‘actors’ condemned to play a part until the end;
• the theme of ‘theatre’ itself: the ability of theatre to represent realistically.

Language and meaning

-Beckett’s characters use all kinds of styles, repetitions, high and low terms, well-known phrases and even silence, in a
desperate attempt to find a way to establish a form of true communication.
-The language is fragmented, meaningless, and totally unable to express any meaning; language thus becomes a means to
express the meaninglessness of life. After writing most his best works in French, Beckett self-translated them into English.
-For Beckett language was a ‘mask’, a ‘veil’ that, as he once wrote, ‘must be torn apart in order to get at the things behind it’.

Waiting for Godot

Originally written in French, Beckett’s first play was first published in 1952 with the title “En attendant Godot”, and later
translated by the author and published in English as “Waiting for Godot”. Waiting for Godot becomes the first play of the so-
called «Theatre of the Absurd». It is a tragicomic play in 2 acts with 5 characters: Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo, Lucky and a
messenger boy. The setting is an empty road which is divided by a bare tree. The stage is almost empty. Waiting for Godot
doesn't have a real plot; it is obsessed with the idea of the passing of time and the meaning of life.

The two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, "Gogo and Didi", are two tramps who are waiting for someone they have never
met, Godot. Pozzo wants to sell Lucky, his slave. A messenger boy tells Gogo and Didi that Godot will come tomorrow.
The next day Gogo and Didi are still waiting for Godot. Lucky became dumb and Pozzo became blind. Pozzo does not remember
meeting the two before and the messenger insist that he hasn't met them before.

The name "Godot" has a religious meaning because it has the same root of "God". Godot represents the search for something
spiritual, a divine entity; something or someone that can give answers, or a meaning to life. Vladimir and Estragon become the
symbols of humanity waiting for God to come to the world and save them or give their lives a meaning.

The characters interact but very little happen. There are many questions but there are no answers, and this is typical of the
Theatre of the Absurd.
At the end of the play, Godot does not arrive, and the two characters do not go away. They stay there waiting for Godot to
come. There is no explanation for their waiting.

The main structural features that are common to basically all of Beckett’s plays are:
• the absence of a traditional plot: Beckett’s plays are usually circular and tend to have no proper ending;
• the mix of comedy and tragedy
• the lack of proper action: the characters’ actions are pointless and meaningless;
• the pervading sense of meaninglessness of life.