He gives the examples of continued British colonization of India on both political and ideological lines, as well as Russian deportations of Jews and dissenting figures, and the United States’ decision to decimate Hiroshima with an atom bomb. He characterizes virtually all contemporary political speech and political prose as written to defend, minimize, or obfuscate atrocities and blatant inequities occurring in society. Orwell relates what he sees as a direct correlation between bad writing and oppressive thought. Read further analysis of 'Politics and the English Language' in the SuperSummary Study Guide for Why I Write. The essay appears in the essay collection, Why I Write. The essay is well known for being an unusually literal and didactic departure from Orwell’s usual subject matter, which employs extended metaphors that refer to economic and class issues. Moreover, he remarks that such a use of language masks truth even from the one who thinks of and deploys it. Orwell lambasts people who use language as a tool to obfuscate, rather than convey, truth, arguing that language, though political, should never be weaponized with the intent to exploit vulnerable readers.

George Orwell’s essay 'Politics and the English Language' (1946) is a critique of the conventions of written English in the modernist and post-World War II era, focusing specifically on the correlation between political correctness and intellectual and linguistic poverty.

Politics and the english language essay