Family Famous Writer George Orwell

George Orwell, the famous novelist, was born under the name Eric Arthur Blair from his parents Richard Blair and Ida Mabel Limouzin. Eric’s parents raised him in India but then decided that their children needed to have a better education. Because of the need for education, Mrs. Blair decided to move back to her hometown in England. Eric’s father was not able to accompany his family during the move due to his occupation, so Eric did not see his father very often. Eric’s family was described to be “lover-upper-middle class.” Eric was able to go to a private school that fed into larger high schools, but Eric did not enjoy his time there because the teachers would only teach to the test (White).

As time went on Eric was allowed into a good high school. In high school, Eric did relatively well so he was put into the class elite group which was called the “College.” This group excelled in the memorization of information and often looked down on other students that were worse academically than they were. People in this group ended up in jobs with a lot of political influence and intelligence heavy jobs. Even though Eric was in the “College,” he was unable to get any scholarships into any Oxford level schools. All of Eric’s grades were only slightly above average, except for his knowledge of the literature and history in Brittan (White).

After being diagnosed with bronchitis, Eric decided that he wanted to become an author. His parents did not agree that Eric should become a writer and were strongly against him doing so. Eric’s father wanted Eric to go into the military, so he could do something productive with his life instead of just writing. At this time, Eric had already started writing in newspapers. He wrote about poverty in almost an autobiographical sense, speaking on what he had gone through as a child. His story was only picked up after he scoured all the news agencies around him to get it published (White).

When Eric was being published he didn’t want to embarrass his father and the family name. He chose to go under the pseudonym of George Orwell. The name was chosen by a long list of names that the publisher had created. He got the idea for his last name through a river that he really liked, and he thought that George was a good working-class name (White). After this, he changed his name to George Orwell and was known as such from then on (Forman).

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