How does the use of genre and writing skills support the main ideas in George Orwell's 'Why I Write'?

 

George Orwell, the author of the essay ‘Why I Write’, mainly talks about the motives for writing throughout this essay. He especially focuses on two motives for writing; aesthetic enthusiasm and political impulse, and concludes that he wishes to be a writer who can satisfy both motives by making political purpose into art. In order to deliver this to the readers successfully, the author uses various types of genres and writing styles in order to support his main ideas. Then, how did George Orwell use diverse genres and writing styles, and what effect does it have on the impression that the readers get by reading this essay?

 

Using the appropriate writing style and genre is very important especially for the author, as using different writing styles results in the readers getting different impressions about the author’s writing. For example, this essay shows traits of personal narrative essay when the author describes his own life and writing experiences. By talking about experiences from when he was young, George Orwell implies to the readers that he first started writing by focusing on descriptive writing. On the other hand, by talking about the experiences he had in his later life, such as going through poverty, having a job in Burma, and experiencing the era of Hitler and Spanish Civil War, he explains how he started to write with a political purpose. He concludes that his goal is to make political writing into an art, as he wishes to fulfill both the world views he acquired in his childhood and in his later life. The author has stated in the essay that one cannot assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of his development. Therefore, by using characteristics of a personal narrative essay, the author supports his main ideas about his own motives by providing readers of knowledge about the development of his own motives for writing.

The author also uses expository writing style in order to support his main ideas. This writing style is used in this essay when the author tells the readers about the four great motives for writing; sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. By choosing this writing style, the author successfully provides the readers with necessary information. As it is important for the readers to have knowledge about the motives in order to understand George Orwell’s main ideas about his own motives and goals, using expository writing style is very effective in supporting his ideas, as the role of an expository essay is to provide readers with new information and knowledge.

The poem that George Orwell introduces in the middle of the essay also acts as an important way for the author to deliver his main ideas to the readers. Through this poem, the author describes his dilemma got as he started to write in political purpose. The dilemma is about whether he should focus more on descriptive writing or on political writing, as he thinks that both of them are very important to him. By describing this through a poem, the author succeeds in making the readers get a stronger impression on the dilemma that the author was facing. This is because poetry has a characteristic of maximizing the emotion of the narrator by compressing it into a few well-selected words. As a poem is formed through putting these words together, a well written poem has to be able to provide readers with amplified emotions and feelings. As George Orwell has succeeded in this, the poem in this essay acts as an effective way to support the author’s main idea, as it gives the readers a strong impression on the conflict between the two motives which the writer thinks is most important to himself.

In order to give the readers the impression that the author has intended, the author must choose the most appropriate writing styles and genres in order as they effect the readers’ impression toward the literature greatly. Looking from this point of view, George Orwell has succeeded in this, which therefore lets the author deliver his main idea of his own motives for writing effectively to the readers.