ABSTRACT
George Orwell was born Eric Blair on June 25, 1903 in Bengal, where his father, Richard, was employed by the Indian Civil Service. To account for Orwell’s bleak perspective, literary critics have suggested that the novel is based upon the experiences of its author at an English public school he attended from age 8-13 where he faced persistent hardship and humiliation. In May, 1946, he lost his older sister, Marjorie, due to nephritis, and from that time until he died in January, 1950, Orwell continued with his writing, despite long periods spent recuperating from bouts of tuberculosis. In 1949, Orwell wrote in a notebook about himself: The conversations he overheard as a small boy, between his mother, his aunt, his sister and their feminist friends. In view of Orwell’s early object relationships, his capacity for intimacy and trust were limited. His character structure evolved along basically compulsive lines, a prominent feature being pronounced “pseudo-independence.”
