Things to Consider:

• Use of Language
• British Imperialism

• What was Orwell's real name?

• What are "smelly little orthodoxies" (2836)?

• Explain: "The decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes" (2836).
• Explain: "To think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration" (2836).

• Explain: "Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more phrases tacked together like the sections of a pre-fabricated hen-house" (2837).
• What is a "dying metaphor"?

• What are "operators or verbal false limbs"  (2838).
• What is pretentious diction?

• What are meaningless words?

• Explain: "The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness" (2840).
• Why is it sometimes easier, according to Orwell, to use larger words and phrases?

• Explain: "Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style" (2841).
• How is a "reduced state of consciousness" actually "favourable to political conformity" (2841)?

• Explain: "The clear enemy of clear language is insincerity" (2842).
• Explain: "If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought" (2842).
• Why does Orwell admit to committing the very faults he is criticizing?

• Explain: "Let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around" (2843).
• Explain rule vi.
• Explain: "If your simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy" (2843).

• Describe Orwell's attitude toward the Burmans.
• Describe Orwell's attitude toward his job.
• Why does Orwell use latin phrases on this page and the next?  How does this usage relate to the ideas he presents in "Politics and the English Language"?

• Explain this description of the East:  "A story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes" (2845).

• Why does Orwell request an elephant gun?  What is he originally planning to do with it?
• Explain: "When the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys" (2846).

• Explain: "My whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at" (2847).

• In the end, are Orwell's actions justifiable? Does he think so? Explain.