ABSTRACT
The Rebel incites the accepting Common Man; the Common Man tempers the fiery Rebel. The Rebel is an idealist's and young man's hero, a pure figure challenging Authority and agitating for a just world. George Orwell's reputation as The Common Man is a complicated joint creation of his style of life and writing, and of numerous indirect influences. By the 1970s, Jeffrey Meyers had dubbed Orwell "The Honorary Proletarian." A real champion of "decency and democracy" should recognize that "the people" include women too! His egalitarian call should extend to everyone; feminism, after all, is humanism. The anti-Western animus manifested itself clearly in Pravda's May 1950 review of Nineteen Eighty-Four, titled "Enemies of Mankind." In a phrase popularized by Stalin, Orwell became an "enemy of the people." The "Soviet Union's Orwell" might be said at first glance to be "all politics, no letters."
