from politics to literaturea consideration of jonathan swift and george orwell
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From Politics to Literature
A Consideration of Jonathan Swift and George OrwellAparna Mahanta
Since its origins in the seventeenth century English Revolution, political journalism in England
has not only had a significant impact on the growth of modern English political institutions but hasalso influenced the development of English literary culture. This has been a process of mutual benefit
and enrichment Political journalism, which functions as a branch of rhetoric in that its aim is to per
suade, draws on the traditional resources of literature like irony and satire to achieve its effects. At the
same time, being also an attempt at objective reportage of contemporary social reality, political jour
nalism helps to widen the scope of creative literature by introducing elements into it which had earlier
been outside its purview.
This paper attempts to study the close connection, and at times even creative fusion, between
political journalism and creative literature by bringing together two representative artist-journalists,
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) and George Orwell (1903-50), from among the many that literary history
has to offer, for comparison and contrast of their works both as to the content and the methods of
their art and reportage.
I
Political Journalism
T H E bifurcation of the reading public in
to two mutually exclusive groups, the
vulgar low-brow public and the superior
high brow one, has been a feature of the
last two centuries in England but really
became pronounced in the later half of
the nineteenth century and the first three
decades of the twentieth century. Cor
responding to the disintegration of theconcept of the 'common reader' has been
the polarisation of literature into the ex
tremes of journalism and imaginative
literature, the former coming more and
more to include all the cheap literature,
thrillers, mysteries, crime-stories and
literary hack-work while the latter
gravitates towards exclusiveness and
superior refinement. In the process, both
reflect an equal indifference to the
development of true taste and culture in
the reading public as a whole.'
In modern times jour nali sm and litera
ture have almost nothing in common,even though It is obvious that the major
literary form of modern times, the novel,
derives from the same rootstock as jour
nalism. Journalism is assumed to be the
lower species, concerned with the surface
phenomena of life, with the trivial and the
transient, in contrast to creative litera ture
which is supposed to deal with higher
values, penetrating the surface of life to
discover the true reality. Even though in
many cases the same persons may be
simultaneously engaged in both jour*
nalism and lite ratu re, they are believed to
be practised on entirely different planesas far as choice of subject matter, its ar
rangement and the style of writing are
concerned.
Charles Dickens provides an example
of the way in which journalism can at
times help the creative writer as a kind of
preparatory exploration through which
he finds his bearings in an unknown and
complex situati on. In 1854, while wr iti ng
Hard Times on the theme of industrial
relations, Dickens went to Preston to
cover a famous strike of the cotton mill
workers there. He reported the strike in
his journal Household Words in Feb
ruary 1854, His impressions there are
sympathetic to the workers who are
orderly and disciplined, though his poli
tical conclusion is conservative in that he
thinks it is a huge waste, "encroaching"
on the livelihood of thousands and
deepening the "gulf of separation" bet
weenH
those whose interests must be
understood to be identical or must be
destroyed," In the novel, Hard Times,
which was also published in weekly in
stalments in Household Words, the
creative artist takes over, transforming
and fleshing out the bare facts. He
decides not to make the strike the centreof the action as he had earlier intended,
and concentrates on individual relation
ships. His general impersonal sympathy
for the strikers becomes a deep pity for all
workers, the misguided (as he now shows
them) union members and the boycotted
wor ker , wh o are al l seen as victim s of the
general dehumanising process of in
dustrialism. In doing so Dickens distorts
aspects of the factual truth in the interests
of what he felt was the essential reality of
the situation. In his report Dickens ad
mires the order and discipline of the
strikers; in the novel they are representedas a stolid, unthinking mass swayed by
unscrupulous demagogues.
The political journa list , unlike the pro
fessional jour nali st or writ er is comm itte d
to, sometimes narrow, political interests.
The practice of political journalism pre
supposes a dedicated and often exclusive
interest in politics which is not to
everyone's taste. Theoretically politics
should be the concern of every ind ivi dua l.
The creation of the rational and free
society which is the goal of human endea
vour demands the involvement of all in
dividuals in community and national af
fairs, even if this means no more than
helping to form a consensus of opinions
thro ugh reading and discussion. In actual
practice, however, even in democratic
societies, where all political rights have
been conceded in theory, active political
activity on the part of the masses by and,
large is discouraged in the interests of,
class-domination and rule.
As against popular journalism, jour
nalism concerned explicitly and ex
clusively with political issues has from the
beginning assumed a high level of poli
tical commitment, at times passionate in
volvement, on the part of the writer.Though commercial inducements even to
the committed political journalist have
not been lackin g (the eighteenth centu ry
was notorious for bribery and horse-
trading), some kind of personal convic
tion was necessary to brave the dangers
associated with the profession right up to
the early nineteenth century. Political
jo ur na li st s had indeed to endure whi p
ping, fines, imprisonment, the pillory,
occasionally even the gibbet. Even if at
times dimly, the concept of the "public
good", in Swift's sense of the term, has
always guided polit ical journa lists.
Politi cal journ alis m in England may be
viewed as an outgrowth of the seven
teenth century revol ution . The overthrow
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of the Star Chamb er in 1641, and wit h it
of all the traditional restraints on the
dissemination of religious and political
knowledge among the common people,
which had been enforced by a rigid con
trol over and censorship of all printed
matter, opened the way for the regular
and uninterru pted fl ow of printed matter
dealing with politics and theologicalspeculation. Parliamentary censorship was
reimposed by Crom wel l in 1643 and con
tinued in one form or another t i l l 1695,
when the official censorship finally laps
ed. Parliament continued to devise ways
and means, like the notorious Stamp
Act s, t o keep the press under con tr ol , and
even as late as the early nineteenth cen-
tury, commi tted politica l journalists like
William Cobbett and Richard Carlile
continued to suffer long spells of im
prisonm ent i n defence of the libe rty of the
Press.2
Polit ical journa lism thrives only when
certain conditions exist. It presupposes a
high level of political consciousness
among the general public such as is made
possible in revolutionary periods when
the continuing class struggle or struggles
between pol iti cal groups assume the fo rm
of open conflict whether in outright
revolution or through other forms of
political activity. The 17th century was
ju ch a pe ri od wh en the emergent bo ur
geoisie in England rose in revolt against
the feudal order to overthrow it and
assume political power. During a revolution the wh ole of society is convulsed and
i l l classes are draw n in to the struggle.
Political journalism flourishes in such a
period as each faction attempts to win
over, through oratory and the written
wo r d, the va cilla ting masses to its side. In
such times political journalism achieves
itature as an extension of full-fledged
political activity. Thr ough the medium of
jo ur na li sm po li ti ca l ideas and strategies
go round between the masses and their
leaders in the battlefield and the parlia
ment.
In times of strife and struggle, the full-ength book needing time and leisure to
Arite or to read proves less useful than the
lastily written pamphlet, broadsheet or,
n modern times, 'he daily or periodical
Dress, as the medium for disseminating
nformation and ideas. Ideally, to suit its
purpose, political journalism has to be
brief, concise and readable. When truth
itself becomes an object of contention
between opposed world-views, persu-
isiveness becomes a critical factor. The
successful poli t ical journalist must
therefore be able to convinc e his wavering
leaders, wi th every tr ic k at his com man d,
whether , by a greater show of factualit y or
hetori c, that his version of events or their
plerpretation is preferable to that of
writers fr om the opposite camp. Buil t on
undisguised partisanship, the best poli
tical journalism therefore tends to appear
as a war of wits , copiously dischargi ng its
loaded shafts on the object of attack.
The rela tion between the wr ite r and the
reader of political journalism is a
straightforward and direct one. The
political journalist speaks to and for aparticular class, a religious sect or a
political faction. He must speak within
the language and cultural ethos he shares
wi th his readers. Breaking the monopo ly
of the clerical or learned class, the write rs
of the seventeenth century who ventured
to write on religious and politi cal affairs
in a po pular , manner came f ro m every
stratum of society and included unedu
cated soldiers, itinerant preachers, small
tradesmen and craftsmen as well as
educated gentry. T hey pioneered the style
of writing which the Royal society was
later to recommend to its members:.. .a close, naked, natural way of speak
ing; positive expressions, clear senses; a
native easiness; bringing all things as near
the mathematical plainness, as they can:
and preferring the language of Artizans,
countrymen, and mcrchants,bcforc that of
wits and scholars3.
While the general rules of clarity, intelligibility and simplicity apply to all
jo ur na li st s w ho have an y wish to be h eard
and taken note of in the crowd, or to
reach the largest public, they must also
take care to adapt their style for their in-tended audience. The plain style of the
seventeenth century radical propagandist
would not appeal to the sophisticated
gentlemen of the eighteenth century. The
styles and methods of political jour
nalism change with each age depending
on its special needs, as the focus of
political activity moves from one group
or class to another4.
Underlying the rise and development
of political jour nali sm is the concept of a
public or a general readership. This
public in 17th and 18th century England
was not the inert mass of the moder n consumer society but an active, vigorous
body that expressed itself through 'public
opinion'a concept which developed
alongside the other political institutions
of eighteenth and nineteenth century
England as the safeguard of the people's
rights and liberties. A t its best publi c op i
ni on acted as a cor olla ry to representative
government. So long as public opinion
was looked up to for guidance and ap
proval when the Government initiated
any political action, the people's liberties
were safe. When public opinion was neg
lected or ignored, an age of political
repression ensued. From this point of
view the political journalist became the
conscience keeper of the na ti on. Hi s voice
was heard most loudly in moments of
pol iti cal crisis and repression, organi sing,
shaping and directing public opinion
towards reasserting the people's rights
and liberties.
POLITICAL M A N
Political journalism is concerned withpolitics in its modern sense. In Shakes
peare's plays the words ''politics" and
"politicians" convey an evil impression
of manipulators, schemers, and ambi
tious self-seekers. The seventeenth cen
tury Revolution which gave birth to the
democr atic idea di d away wit h this idea of
politics as an exclusive or conspiratorial
activity. It posited the idea of political
man , uphol ding the doctrine that ail men
are free and equal, possessing in equal
degree the gift of reason. If all men were
equal in reason, they possessed the right
of political self-determination, that is,
they were free to choose how and by
wh om they were to be rul ed. The ideas of
representative government and adultat
that time, manhoodsuffrage, around
which all political activity has since cen
tred in England, first appeared in the
seventeenth century. The forms of
political struggle change from age to age,
sometimes open war, sometimes the
peaceful forum of parliamentary debate,
or violent or non-violent agitation .
In seventeenth century England, a man
could at once be a writer , politic al jour nalist and actor in the main drama. The
supreme example that comes to mind is of
Joh n M i l t on , whose peers and even lesser
men shared this renaissance capacity to
live life to the full. Milton's Areopagitica
is a work of literature but it is also a
poli tica l pamphlet writ ten on a particular
occasion, condemning a certain course of
pol iti cal actio n and suggesting another. I t
continues to be read for the Miltonic
grandeur and vigour of the prose, the
sweeping rhetoric and the thundering
denunciation. For literary critics, its
form, based on the Areopagic discourseof Isocrates and its complex logical
developmen t of the argum ent, is extreme
ly satisfying. At the same time it is no
mere literary exercise; its magnificent
and stirring ideas have continued to in
spire later genera tions. It remains at once
a work of art and a work of political jour
nalism.
With so many writers, some of them
the most notable talents of their age,
engaged in political journalism, it is
something to wonder at that such a fusion
as in Milton's Areopagitica does not oc
cur more often. Addison and Steele were
gifted writers but their political jour
nalism rarely rises beyond the mediocre.
Samuel Johnson's journalistic work is
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dull. Literary skill by itself does not en
sure automatic success in political
writing. Some of the best examples of
politica l writi ng come fr om writers with
little or no acquaintance with literature.
The writings of the seventeenth century
Levellers and Diggers like Gerald
Winstanley, Richard Overton, William
Walwyn are truly eloquent and worthy ofbeing called good liter ature , though com
ing from men of humble non-learned
backgrounds. Their work is simple and
direct writing straight from the heart and
thei r language is the liv in g language of the
common people, restrained and ordered
by sobriety and good taste. The underly
ing reason and logic of their arguments
give their style muscle and tone. Here for
instance, is a Leveller, probably William
Walwyn, protesting against the imprison
ment of the Leveller leader, John
Lilburne, in Newgate, in a pamphlet en
titled A Pearle in a Dounghill (1646):It is easier to discerne who are their Cre
atures in the House of Commons, and how
they were made theirs, constantly mani
festing themselves by their will and per-
nicious partaking against the Frcedome of
the People, by whose united endeavours,
Monopolies in Trades and Merchandize,
Oppressions in Committees, Corruption in
Courts of Justice, grosse abuses in ourLawes and Lawyers are maintained, and the
Reformation intended in all things, per
formed by halves, nay, quite perverted, and
a nicer shadow given for a substance, to the
astonishment of all knowing free-born
Englishmen, and to their perpetuall vexa
tion and danger;5
The forthrightness, directness and lack of
ornament is engaging and carries convic
t ion .
The premises governing the writing of
political journalism and literature are dif
ferent. The polit ical journa lis t dealing for
the most part with known events and per
sonalities must keep close to the facts,
paying attention to even minute details so
as to prove his credibility. Politics in the
true sense is based upon the principles ofreason, so the politica l jou rna lis t must be
skilled in logical argument. The style of
political journalism should be clear, con
cise, and direct. Images, metaphors, fig
ures of speech are usually avoided,
tho ugh when used they are usually for i l
lustrative purposes, and care is taken at
all times that they do not, as rhetorical or
naments, distract attention from the
main argument or obscure its meaning in
any way. The most persuasive thing is a
fact, failing that, an intelligent and
logical surmise. Rhetorical tricks can
enhance a good argument, but rarely can
they shield a bad one. Insincere logic is
seen through more easily than false facts
or misrepresentation.
Assumi ng the distincti on between pol i
tical journ ali sm and creative literature to
be absolute, it may be generalised that
polit ical jour nal ism has mainly to depend
upon the language of thought, of closely
reasoned argument, while literature
draws upon the associative power of
language, its ability to call up images and
feelings. The creative imagination is notbound to solid facts, it uses them as the
stepping stones to a richer and more
substantive reality, while facts are the
very life of journalism. Political jour
nalism attemps to find a rational order in
the domain of everyday, mundane reality
while creative literature endeavours,
through words, images and figures of
speech, to suggest the complexity and
multiplicity of human feeling and res
ponse to a given situation and also to lay
bare the contradictions of existence. It is
true of political journalism as of all
political writing, that it involves a one
sided approach to the problems of life in
contrast to the rich complexity of creative
literature. The partisanship which is a
prerequisite of political journalism im
plies a certain imbalance, though that in
deed is necessary if the poli tic al journa lis t
is to correct, as he desires to, the im
balances of an unjust and exploitative
society.
Journalism, political journalism and
literature interpenetrated most closely
and creatively in eighteenth century
England. At times it is difficult to drawthe boundaries of each, if only for the
simple reason that the same authors were
simultaneously engaged in all three. The
jo ur na li st , the po li ti ca l jou rn al is t and the
creative writer dealt with the same social
reality, the differences arising over the
angles from which they viewed itthe
narrowly social, the political or in terms
of a literary mode. More importantly,
they shared a common public and hence a
common language.
The eighteenth century English reading
public, though a narrow one by modern
standards, comprising the gentry and theeducated classes generally, was a very
homogeneous one, with a high level of
political consciousness nurtured by the
flourishing coffee-house culture. The
coffee-houses served as the centre for
political discussion, and general conver
sation on public matters. Party rivalry
between the Whigs and the Tories also
served to keep political excitement at a
high pitch all through the reign of Queen
Anne and into the reign of the Georges.
Party supporters appropriated coffee
houses for their exclusive use as rallyingcentres and for the distribution of poli
tical papers and pamphlets.
In the age of Alexander Pope and
Jonathan Swift, political interest was
hardly less pervasive than the literary.
Swift and Addison could assume in their
readers a developed literary taste backed
up by a good classical education and an
acquaintance with general history and
political theory. Without being a pedant,
the average eighteenth century reader was
well versed in the Greek and the Latin
classics, if not in the originals, at least inthe excellent contemporary translations
like those of Alexander Pope. Used to
reading the best literature, he was fam
iliar with literary methods and techniques
like irony, parody, satire and so on.
The close interaction in eighteenth cen
tury England between the writer and his
social environment produced a popular
style sutiable for journalism and also for
literature. This style is modelled on con
versation developed to the level of a fine
art. Seeking to follow the norms of reason
and common sense in all things the best
writers of eighteenth century England
sought clarity and good sense rather than
ornament or dazzling virtuosity in their
writings.
The novel form emerged out of the
close alignment of journalism and liter
ature in the eighteenth century. Just as
jo ur na li sm draws upon tr ad it io na l li te r
ary techniques like irony and satire for
persuasive effect, its efforts to adapt itself
to the needs of a rapidly changing society
lead to the discovery of new techniques of
realistic prose narrat ion. The relationship
between journalism and prose fiction isso obviousand so little noticedthat
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe still appears as
a fortuitous discovery rather than as a
smooth and almost natural transition
from Defoe's lifelong practice as a jour
nalist. The journalist's close attention to
every minute and trivial detail of the pass
ing scene foreshadows the novelist's con
centration on circumstantial detail to
achieve that 'direct impression of life',
that intense feeling of the lived moment
which is the essence of the novelist's art.
The jour nali st, using the literary skills of
characterisation and description to createfictional characters and situations an
ticipates the novelist's use of the techni
que of narrative fiction to create whole
new worlds populated with the creatures
of his own imagination. The difference
between the journalist 's and the
novelist's use of essentially similar techni
ques is that the journalist works within
the given pattern of social and political
reality using recognisable social and
political character types or, rather, per-
sonae, while the novelist or artist
discovers ever new and meaningful patterns through creative exploration of the
social reality, and seeks to fashion
characters at once uniquely individual
and also representatives of recognisable,
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social types.
I I
Journalism and Literature
Being journalists as well as creative
writers, Jonathan Swift and George
Orwell serve as singularly apt examples to
draw attention to the problems confronting the writer who attempts to bring
about a creative fusion of jou rna lis m and
creative literature. At the same time,
Swift and Orwell had both given careful
thought to the 'problematic nature' of the
relationship between creative literature
and journalism in their own times, and of
the impact of a rapidly developing jour
nalism on the future of creative literature.
In A Tate of a Tub ,6
Swift uses the
weapon of satire to castigate, along with
religious sectarianism, the deficiencies of
'modern' learning. In the figure of the
Grub street hack, the pseudo-'author'of the treatise, ie, the Tale itself, Swift
presents the ironic apotheosis of the
'modern ' wri ter-journalist , complete
with all appurtenances of garret-lodg
ings, semi-starvation, misplaced cocki
ness, dullness of intellect and so on. This
'freshes t' of 'mo derns ', i n the sense of be-
ing the latest, earnestly defends his age
against the imputation of being "alto
gether unlearned, and devoid of writers in
any kind", by referring to lists of titles
even though he is unable to produce the
original works which had been "hurryedso hastily off the scene, that they escape
memory". Throughout the dedication to
Prince Posterity too, Swift draws atten
tion to the ephemerality of modern pro
ductions which indeed is the hallmark
and bane of modern journalism, as
against the permanence of the classics.
The egoism of the modern writer, so
absorbed in his own writings, like the self-
sufficient spider in the Battle of the
Books, is ridiculed in the person of the
"modern author", who boasts of his
compendious treatise, written after ''long
sollicitation", to supply the "momentous defects" of modern learning, per
sisting despite all the latter's wonderful
achievements. The proud "modern"
promises that the "judicious reader" wi l l
find his treatise neglects nothing that can
be of use "upon any emergency of life"
and that it has "included and exhausted
all that human imagination can rise or fall
t o " .
This wide and delusive expansiveness
goes alongside a superficiality charac
teristic of "modern" writing, by which
Swift means the writings of his own age.
The superficiality of the modern writer is
complemented by the "superficial Vein"
in readers who, quite rightly, refuse to
"inspect beyond the Surface and Rind of
Things", because in truth, there is
nothing beneath. With the typical satiric
exuberance of the Tale, Swift exposes the
ridiculous discrepancy between "inside"
and "ou tsi de" , of pompous inflated style
stretched over a yawning vo id of nothing
ness. As in the best parody Swift's style
expresses the essence of what is being
parodied:.. .whereas, Wisdom is a fox, who after
long hunting, will at last cost you the Pains
to dig out; 'Tis a Cheese, which by how
much the richer, has the thicker, the hom-
lier, and the courser Coat; and whereof to a
judicious palate, the maggots are the best.
Tis a Sack-Posset, wherein the deeper you
go, you will find it the sweeter. Wisdom is aHen, whose Cackling we must value and
consider, because it is attended with an Egg;
but then lastly, 'tis a Nut, which unless you
choose with judgement, may cost you a
tooth, and pay you with nothing but a
Worm.
In his indiscriminating satiric attack of
literary "modernism", Swift may have
been less than fair to the scientific, if
pedantic scholarship of Richard Bentley
and others like him, but he is able, with an
astonishing prescience to hint at the pro
blems faced by a modern writer, striving
to achieve some significant order in a
bewilderingly complex wo rl d. A mon g
other things the modern writer is faced
with the problem of transcending the
fluid temporality of an insistently
material reality to discover the universalin the flux and flow of life.
Swift's intention in the tale was partly
polemical, to expose the "illiterate Scrib
blers" who made it their business to at
tack the church and the clergy through
scurrilous and ill-manner ed pamphlets. It
is to Swift's purpose to reveal the "Er
rors, Ignorance, Dullness and Villany"
of these scribblers. This he does by paro
dying their style and manner. Then, and
later, as a Tory journalist, Swift expresses
more positively and forcibly his belief,
that these "illiterate Scribblers", by
whom he means the Whig pamphleteersand writers, were a factor in the decay of
good taste, good writing", and good
language. In his lament on the decay of
good literature in the modern Whig-
dominated age, Swift was reacting more
as a writer dedicated to the classical stan
dards of literature as voiced by the Bee in
the fable of the Spider and the Bee in the
Battle of the Books, than as merely a
defeated Tor y. I n his political jour nalis m
Swift continued to stress the connection
between shallow, false thinking, and
superficial or muddled wr it in g as in his at
tacks on Steele and other Whig writers.
Swift saw the rising commercial values,
evident in journalistic hack-work and the
shelving of all true humane values in
favour of superficial pedantry as all part
of the same Whig ethos that was the spirit
of modernism.
In the twentieth century the spirit of the
eighteenth century Grub Street has spilled
over the historical confines of the actual
Grub Street. For Orwell too in the 1930s
the chief enemy of good writing and crea
tive literature was the rising commercialethos. Orwell acutely felt in his own per
son the problems faced by a modern
writer-journalist, on one side the eco
nomic pressure to produce for the market
and on the other the difficulty of shaping
the materials of modern reality, seeming
ly so very inimical to art, into a mean
ingful pattern. Keep the Aspidistra Fly
ing, an early novel which Orwell later
tried to suppress as it was so ill-written, is
a barely disguised autobiography. The
hero, Gordon Comstoek, struggles to
write poetry, good poetry, his magnum
opus being a long poem entitled London
Pleasures. He works in a book-shop
where the volumes of poetry inclu ding his
own Mice go unsold, while the demand
for the 'best sellers' is unabated. With a
heavy-handed symbolism that runs
through and ruins the book, the epitome
of modern hack-work is seen as the adver
tising jingle, a meaningless assemblage of
euphonious and soothing words, against
which the abstract imagist poetry of the
type Gordon aspires to write is rather
crudely set off. The book is about the con
flict in the mind of the hero betweenwriting unproductive, unpaying poetry,
and selling his soul to Mammon in the
advertising office. The hero muses as he
struggles through poverty and hardship
and isolation from his fellow beings, in
quest of his artistic ideal:
Of all types of human being, only the
artist takes it upon him to say that he "can
not" work. But it is quite true; there are
times when one cannot work. Money again,
always money! Lack of money means dis
comfort, means squalid worries, means
shortage of toabcco, means everpresent
consciousness of failureabove all it meansloneliness. How can you be anything but
lonely on two quid a week? And in lone
liness no decent book was ever written.
Gordon finally succumbs to the lure of
family life, fatherhood and respectability
symbolised by the aspidistra and in a final
symbolic gesture tears up the manuscript
of his long poem and throws it into the
gutter exclaiming, "Poetry! Poetry in
deed! in 1935".
When Orwell turned to politics and
political journalism in the mid-thirties,
he began to see that the threat to literature
was now also political. For Orwell lit
erature was the repository for certain
values inherent in its form and style as
much as in the content. In a series of
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essays and articles written between 1938
and 1945 Orwell attempted to define his
concept of good lit erature throug h a k ind
of sociological-critical analysis of con
temporary trends in popular literature
and the arts spanning such diverse fields as
boys' magazines, crime thrillers, comic-
post-cards and the art of Salvador Dali.
In his essay, 'Inside the Whale' (1940),Orwell sums up the main literary tenden
cies of the twenti es and thir tie s and comes
to the conclusion that it is no longer "a
writer's world", and that literature "as
we know i t " , is coming to an end. As
totalitarianism attempts to control the
minds and thoughts of its subjects, it
makes literature as the record of an in
dividual's inner life, an impossibility.
But from now onwards the all important
fact for the creative writer is going to be that
this is not a writer's world. That does not
mean that he cannot help to bring the new
society into being, that he can take no part inthe process as a writer. For as a writerhe is a
liberal, and what is happening is the destruc
tion of liberalism.7
In this state of affairs the only course of
action possible to a sincere writer is to
"get inside the whale", to surrender to
the world process, "stop fighting against
it or pretending that you control it; simply
accept it , endure it, record i t " .
On the level of popular literature the
outlook is more frightening. As examples
of the infiltration of totalitarian ideas in
the popular imagination, Orwell instances Americanised crime thrillers like
No Orchids for Miss Blandish and the art
of Salvador Dali. In both, a high degree
of technical polish is allied to an utter
amorality and lack of any positive values.
Orwell saw these trends in popular art as
an indication of the way people were be
ing conditioned to accept sadistic vio
lence, cruelty and, inevitably, totali
tarianism.
Both Swift and Orwell had a true in
stinct for literary form and techniques.
But all the same it is the political impulse,
expressed through their political journalism that has provided the direction for
their literary endeavours. Their outlook
on life, their choice of literary form and
their conception of the function of
language were shaped and determined by
their involvement as men and as jour
nalists with the great political issues of
their time. Orwell expresses the nature of
the relationship between his artistic im
pulse and his commitment to a political
ideal when he asserts that he had never
abandoned the pure artistic impulse in all
his writing and that his endeavour in the
past ten years since 1936 had been to"make political writin g into an art. " The
task had been as he saw it to reconcile the
complex of thoughts, feelings and ideas
that expressed his unique strength as a
writer with the "essentially public, non-
ind ivi dua l activities that this age forces on
all of us."8
The question is whether Orwell, like
Swift before him, was able to achieve his
purpose of breaking the barriers between
the private world of the writer and the
public world of social and political compulsions through journalism and liter
ature. As Swift does in his famous
Drapier Letters, Orwell too is able to
achieve, particularly in a series of war
time articles entitled "As I Please" writ
ten for the Tribune, a high level of com
mitted jou rna lis m. In his weekly columns
dealing with all kinds of subjects from
roses to Shakespeare, air- raids to the fate
of refugees, war-time propaganda to
books and magazines, all written in a
pleasant and casual manner, Orwell em
bodies the values for which the war was
being foughtfreedom of speech, democracy, socialism. He addresses ordinary
people with the conviction of being
understood and listened to. In their
creative writing too, persistently in
Swift's and increasingly in Orwell's, it is
possible to discern the impact of their
political beliefs, revealed and clarified
through their political journalism, both
as to content and in the organisation and
shaping of their material and in their
choice of words and images.
As the politics of their time showed
signs of getting increasingly depersonalised and abstract, Swift and Orwell, being
primarily writers rather than politicians,
helped to humanise politics. They visua
lised political issues in terms of concrete
situations and real individuals, reminding
politicians what they are very apt to
forget, that politics is a human activity
and that it is ultimately concerned with
real felsh and blood individuals. Politi
cians and intellectuals too often forget
that " i t is men that change circumstances
and that the educator himself needs
educa t ing" .9
For all their political
mistakes and shortcomings, Swift andOrwell never forgot this basic principle in
their political journ ali sm, where their aim
is consistently to involve the ind ivi dua l by
appealing to him personally and directly.
By depl oying ''persona'' in partic ularise d
situations based on the prevailing poli
tical reality, Swift and Orwell brought
politics to the level of "practical,
human sensuous activity".1 0
The Irish
common people could, for instance, easi
ly identify with the Drapier in his
resistance to English oppression and
learn from him. The writer too can par
ticipate in the political upheavals by help
ing to destroy myths and illusions, by un
covering the true face of reality and in
general by creating the consciousness far
social change. This can be done not in
isolation but in active participation with
the political movement, as fighter, as
jo ur na li st and as wr ite r.
I l l
Swift and Orwell
There are striking similarities betweenthe literary methods used by Swift and
Orwell. There is no doubt that Orwell was
deeply attracted to Swift, even more than
he cared to admit, and that in indirect
ways he was influenced by Swift's
method of satiric attack. Orwell did not
however consciously set up Swift as a
model; indeed, despite his general famil
iarity with Swift's writings, he does not
show much awareness of Swift's great
ness as a polemic writer, as the author of
the Drapier's Letters or as the Tory jour
nalist.
Both Swift abd Orwell shaped andused prose as the medium of reasoned
and at times impassioned argument.
Their extra-literary purpose which sub
sumes the purely literary gives a vigour
and direction to their writings and ac
counts for the quality of their prose*
described in Swift's case as "con-
scisencss" and the ability to drive home a
point. Indeed, Herbert Davis, Swift's
editor, clinches this point when he traces
this quality directly to Swift's experience
as a political journalist. "Swift's ex
perience as a political journalist hadformed his style and made it rigorously
functional, because he had learned in that
school similarly to be concerned 'to drive
some one particular point', for the im
mediate purpose of supporting or oppos
ing some definite course of action"1 1
. In
the case of Orwell, too, the practice of
polemical writing leads to the ideal of
"good prose like a windowpane". Orwell
frankly admits in a retrospect of his
writing career that it was only when he
lacked political purpose that he "wrote
lifeless books and was betrayed into pur
ple passages, sentences without meaning,decorative adjectives and humbug
general ly* '1 2
. In Orwell and Swift
generally, the consciousness of political
purpose results in an extraordinary
awareness of the nature and content of
literary style.
There is no doubt a certain loss when a
creative writer confines himself to the
purely political aspects of man's multi
farious being. Swift was probably not
aware of this, as he was so intensely and
personally involved in the political situa
ti on of his time. It is true his brillia nce and
wit give a surface sharpness and bright
ness to his work, but the surface hides a
certain emotional thinness, a schematism
that is opposed to the depth and multi-
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dimensionality of response and expres
sion to be found in Shakespeare, Tolstoy
or Balzac. While Swift thoroughly ex
plored the possibilities for art in his
chosen field of human experience, he,
unlike the twentieth century artist, is less
self-conscious of the enfeebling conse
quences on his art of the restricted vision
imp lie d in satire. Indeed Swift exhib its, asappears to the modern critic and readers,
a certain obtuseness regarding the ra
tionale of art functioning on various
levels over and above its avowed purpose
of mendi ng the wo rl d. Havin g the benefit
of a shared, organic world-view common
to his age Swift shows a self-confidence
hot available to his modern counterpart
who is faced with a bewildering array of
disparate experiences and sensations. Un
like Swift, Orwell, living in the frag
mented twentieth century and with a
more specialised concept of literary craft,
felt acutely the contradictions inherent inthe situation of an artist torn between his
love for the music of words and interest in
individual relations characteristic of the
novelist and his commi tmen t to a politica l
ideal of a free and just society which de
mands some sacrifice of his individualist
bias.
Thus when one places Swift and Orwe ll
side by side and looks closely at the condi
tions of their life and work, it becomes
lear that in times of political and social
crisis as in Swift' s and Orwe ll' s wor ld , the
sincere artist cannot create enduring lite
rature while ignor ing poli tical and social
reality. Besides, the artist's active as well
as imaginative commitment in such times
to the process of social change entails for
his art a certain one-sidedness, a narrow
ing down of vision even in case of gifted
men like Swift and Orwell It also in-
:roduces to the work a certain lack of
balance and deprives it of a strength that
comes from a complete and assured in-
cegrity achieved -t hro ugh the ar tistic
realisation of a movement towards a posi
tive rhythm in the life of man. Bertolt
Brecht, writing during the period ofHitler's Germany in the thirties, while
facing the same predicament as an artist
and a committed individual, expresses the
dilemma of an artist in an unjust, ex
ploitative society, which makes unmixed
Approval and delight in a "many sided
wo rl d" impossible:
And yet we know
Hatred even of meanness
Contorts the features Anger, even
against injustice
Makes the voice hoarse Oh, we
who wanted to prepare the ground
for friendliness
Could not ourselves be friendly.
Swift attacking the Whig hegemony
under Walpo le, and Or wel l, exposing the
horrors of Fascist and totalitarian
ideologies, decided that the appropriate
literary expression for these deviations
from the norms of reason demanded no
thing less than the image of a universal
madness. In the name of reason, civilisa
tion and progress, capitalism and its
modern descendant, totalitarianism
(which Orwell considered a form of state-capitalism) have allowed the basest
human instincts, avarice and power-lust,
to flouri sh, ignor ing the claims of justice
and equality and suppressing individual
liberty and freedom. In their political
jour na lism bo th Swif t and Orwe l l fought
with vigour against the rising trends
towards political despotism. As creative
artists, both used the form of satire to ex
pose and destroy what they saw as the
perversion of the rational ideal in their
contemporary societies.
Reason as a commonsensical and prac
tical apprehension of material reality bas
ed on the laws of nature, is used as the
satiric norm by both Swift and Orwell.
Swift keeps in mi nd an ideal of a pure and
uncorrupted reason which is set off
against the weak and fallible reason of in
dividual men: "Reason itself is true and
jus t, but the Reason of every particular
Man is weak and wavering, perpetually
swayed and turned by his Interests, his
Passions, and his Vices".13
In place of
reason Orwell uses the analogous concept
of "objective truth", the "common basis
of agreement, with its implication thathuman beings are all one species of
animal" .1 4
At various times Swift and
Orwell, taking up the Hobbesian analogy
of reason with the laws of arithmetic or
geometry, refer to the equation " t wo plus
two equals four" as a symbol for reason
and common sense. Swift for instance in
his pamphlet, Sentiments of a Church-of-
England-Man refers to "Hoboes' com
parison ofReasoning with Casting up Ac
counts; whoever finds a Mistake in the
sum total, must allow himsel f out ;
although after repeated trials, he may not
see in which article he hath misreckon-ed". Similarly Orwell in a book review
refers to the necessity for keeping close to
the "ordinary world where two and two
make fou r" . At the same time, bot h Swift
and Orwell did not discount the irra tion al
drives that are a part of the human make
up. To ignore the basic human impulses
as the Deist philosophers in the eigh
teenth century and rationalist intellec
tuals in the twen tie th di d was seen by both
Swift and Orwell as foolish. What was at
issue was the suprem acy of reason and its
ability, and indeed, duty, to control and
guide the passions.
In their societies Swift and Orwell saw
reason being systematically swept away
by irrational and crude forces of profit
and domin ati on. Neither of them fully
accepted the widely advertised concept of
progress in their societies as leading un
failingly to the betterment of human
society or happiness. Like many of his
humanistic contemporaries, Swift was dis
turbed at the "aggressive demands of a
utilitarian and mechanical science", as
well as by the local aberrations of individual virtuousos and quacks, the riff
raff that accompanies every movement.15
In Orwell's day too mechanical advances
were not leading to an increase in human
happiness, but to what Orwell called "the
frightful debauchery of taste", the
general debasement of standards and
values in a commercialized and profit-
oriented environment. Everyone's worst
fears about the dangers of the scientific
revolution appeared finally to be con*
firmed with the exploding of the first
atom bomb in Hiroshima in 1945. To
humanists who believed in the future of
reason in bringing human happiness, all
these developments appeared l ike
madness,16
Delusion or madness as the perversion
or abuse of reason is a dominant theme in
the creative literature of both Swift and
Orwe ll. F rom the attack on poli tica l delu
sion in their journ ali sm, Swift and Orwell
go on to create a literary image of mad
ness as a contemporary social pheno
menon. Their premise, arising from their
political reading of their society, is that
not only individuals but whole nationsand communities and social groups are
capable of collective madness. The
hysteria that grips a nation in times of war
and political crisis is akin to madness in
that the whole community behaves in an
irrational manner resorting to lynchings
and pogroms and condoning the worst
brutalities of their rulers. In the Examiner
No 24, Swift, referring to the hectic
political atmosphere then prevailing,
speaks on the theme of the people's mad
ness when pol itici ans whi p the people into
a frenzy by raising false hopes and fears.I7
Madness is indeed endemic in A Tale of aTub in the crazy structure, in the antics of
Jack and in the climactic "Digression
on madness" which draws together the
satire on the abuses of religion and learn
ing which had been the theme respectively
of the allegory and the digressions, under
the one blanket term of madness. Bedlam
becomes the symbol of the world's mad
ness. Jack in his tatter ed rags and encrus
tati on of fil th is an inmate of Bedlam; our
'author', the hack writer from Grub
Street, coyly reveals that he also has been
an inmate at one time. With devastating
satiric effect Swift equates the talents of
the Bedlamites for irrational behaviour
with the requirements for holding civil
and military office in the state. For in-
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stance, it is the madman, tearing his
straw, "Swearing and Blaspheming,
biting his Grate, foaming at the mouth,
and emptying his Pispots at the Spec
tator's Faces", who fulfils the require
ments of an army officer and should be
sent to "Flandersamong the Res t", Ma d
ness itself is traced to the effect of certain
peccant vapours that ascend to the brainfrom the lower regions, and transpose its
parts, so that the "Fancy gets astride on
his Reason,... Imagination is at Cuffs
with the senses, and Common sense is
Kick't out of Doors"
The voyage to Laputa in Gulliver's
Travels has the most affinities with the
Bedlam scenes in A Tale. The mad philo
sophers of Laputa with their eyes turned
inward and upward are lost in inhuman
abstractions and, like the philosopher in
the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit,
are in constant danger of falling into the
Kennel, so absorbed are they in the con
templation of the stars. As they converse
learnedly or listen to the music of the
spheres, their wives elope with the ser
vants and their dependencies revolt. The
projectors in the Academy at Lagado, a
satire on contemporary virtuosos and ex
perimentalists of the Royal society, arc
shown as a species of madmen absorbed
in senseless and futile experiments like
softening marble for pillows, petrifying
the hoof of a living horse, sowing land
with chaff, and breeding woolless naked
sheep. The standard of reason and commo n sense is used by Swif t to set o f f the
folly and madness of much of the con
temporary experimental science. Even
while the projectors of Lagado were
engaged in their insane projects, the com
mon people were reduced to starvation as
crops failed and houses went to ruin, and
they,exhibiting the classic appearance of
madness, "walked fast, looked wild,
their eyes fixed, and were generally in
Rags", though in fact it was their leaders
and not they who were mad.
In the fourth voyage of Gulliver's Tra
vels, the voyage to the land of the Houy-hnhnms, the theme of madness is explor
ed in a more subtle psychological level.
The Yahoos are not mad. Not possess
ing reason, they can only behave in an ir
rational manner. Their shameless naked
ness, their shrieking, gibbering and wild
gestures, their playing with excrement,
their careful hoarding of shiny coloured
stones, and their fights over precedence
are used f or a satiric reflecti on on the fo l
ly and vice of the huma n k in d in general.
Gul live r's fin al madness is expressed wi th
more complexity. A l l through the voy
ages Gulliver, the representative of ra
tional eighteenth century man, adapts
himself to the strangest situations, shar
ing in the palace intrigues of men six in
ches high, boasting, like a stru ttin g cock,
before giants, extolling in various ridi
culous postures the glory of his own
human kind. At great cost, even at the
cost of adopting his host's perspective,
whether that be adapting to the outlook
of a midget or a giant, he is able to main
tain his human dignity. He finally meets
his match in the Land of the Houy-hnhn ms. In this last voyage the use of il lu
sion and perspective are more tricky and
complicated, beginning with the central
fiction of the reversal of the man-beast
relationship. Gulliver is nonplussed by
the loathsome beasts that looked so sug
gestively familiar, and the beasts which
refuse to behave like animals. For the first
time in his travels, Gulliver wonders
whether his brain has been disordered by
his sufferings and misfortunes. Gulliver,
true to his rational image, is able once
again, to adapt himself to the novel cir
cumstances of Houyhnhnm-land but
again at the cost of a violent, and as it
turns out, irreversible, dislocation of
reality. He shuts the Yahoos out of his
sight, refusing to loo k at his reflect ion in a
pool, because he is afraid of being re
minded of his resemblance to a Yahoo.
He needs a Houyhnhnm to guard him
from the Yahoos and flees in terror when
a female Yahoo makes amorous advances
towards him . Recoiling from the Yahoos,
he goes to the other extreme of imagining
himself a Houyhnhnm, blindly imitating
them, in their gait, intonation and habits.Expelled from Houyhnhnmland he hides
in a cave in a desert island, and has to be
dragged out and put in chains by the
sailors who rescue him. Back in England
he retreats into isolation, keeping aloof
from his family and friends, and spending
his time in conversation with his horses.
In this corrosive satire on the folly and
vice of mank ind , Swif t specifically had in
mind the perversions of eighteenth cen
tury European man, even a 'reasonable*
man, of whom Gulliver is an example. In
positing the rational Houyhnhnms and
the irr atio nal Yahoos, Swift ironi cally exploits the discrepancy between the ra
tional mask, which eighteenth century
European man presented to the world
and the reality of a crude society in which
the irrational forces of greed and power-
lust actually prevailed. Swift's anger and
horror at the irrationality rampant in his
society find an outlet in the explosive im
age of Gulliver's final madness with
which he shatters the complacency of his
unsuspecting readers.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell, not
unlike Swift in Gulliver's Travels presents
a nightmare visi on of a society in whi ch a ll
the norms of reason have been totally in
verted' The three slogans th ai sum up the
nature of Oceanian society point to this
reversal of all values. Here "War is
Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ig
norance is Tru th ". The three ministries in
charge of political, economic and educa
tional affairs arc the Ministry of Plenty
which presides over an economy of scar
city, the Minis try of Tr ut h, the main busi
ness of which is to falsify the records, and
the Ministry of Love in charge of supress-ing dissent and heresy. In a distinction
reminiscent of Swift's Houyhnhnms and
Yahoos, the population of Oceania are
divided into "proles", manual labourers
supposed to live on a purely animal, in
stinctive level, and the intellectuals, the
party members, in whom all the emo
tions, love, filial love, friendship and
loyalty arc dead or are supposed to be
dead. Reason in Oceania is synonymous
wit h party orth odoxy , which is constantly
changing and demands of the citizens the
dexterity of a juggler or a rope-dancer to
keep abreast with it. Even the most
stupidly loyal party member or the most
skilled could hardly keep up with the
rapid and totally illogical changes.
Almost anyone can commit a heresy and
end up liquidated; Parsons, the stupid
athlete, Symes, the cynical linguist,
Ampleforth, the vague poet, and finally
Winston Smith, the hero, all ultimately
suffer this fate.
Winston Smith is Orwell's version of
Everyman, the ordinary human being,
whose responses are normal, and who at
tempts to hold on to reason, reality, thetruth that two plus two makes four des
pite the party's distortions and its at
tempts, backed by torture and electric
shock therapy, to prove him wrong, Win
ston is not as self-assured as his eight
eenth century counterpart, Gulliver.
Gulliver, representative of an ascendant
ideology, has the supreme self-confi
dence of his facile rationalism. As he
steps into Houyhnhnmland, Gulliver is
almost a parody of the European Tra
veller, fingering his beads and baubles,
the white man confident of single-
handedly subduing any number of savages and Indians. Winston, a product of
the more introspective twentieth century
is tort ure d by doubts and despair. Unsure
of himself, he is reduced to a state where
his ow n past takes on an air of unrealit y so
that he wonders wheth er he is recalling ac
tual events that really occurred or only
imagining incidents that never took
place. Winston desperately clings to ob
jec ts out side hims el f wh ic h are imbued
for him with a material solidity by virtue
of their antiquity and their identification;
with human endeavour and history. They
are tangible objects in a world where ob
jec ts g oing in to a 'me mo ry hol e' are o bl i
terated, without trace even in human
memories. Winston's diary, writter
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laboriously in an old notebook with an
old-fashi oned pen, the glass paper-weight
which he carries about with him like a
fetish, the etching on the wall of the room
above Mr Carrington's shop and the
scraps of half-forgotten nursery rhymes
symbolise for him an integrity of being
which he as an individual has lost.
Gullive r is at home in the wor ld. W insto nhas to build a private world of his own,
safe as he thinks, from the snooping eyes
of the Party. Winston finally realises that
his security is an illusion and that he can
not hope to retain his sanity amidst the
prevailing madness. This is underlined by
the use of irony in the climactic scene
where Winston, safely ensconced as he
thinks, in his cozy love-nest above
Mr Carrington's shop, with the heretical
;book of Emmanuel Goldstein in his
hand, reflects with some complacency
that "there was truth and there was un
tr ut h, and if you clung to the trut h against
the whole world, you were not mad". At
almost the very next moment the Thought
Police come crashing into his room to ar
rest him and Julia.
Whi le the twenti eth century man is the
.victim of an increasing alienation, there
'has been a corresponding advance in self-
awareness and a sharpened sensibility.
Emotionally Gulliver is hollow. Much is
left to the reader's imagination, and in
deed Swift seems hardly aware of the
limited consciousness of his hero. Since
Swift's time love, particularly sexualjlove, has come to assume a larger share in
the modern imagination, Gulliver , reflec
ting a Swift-like fastidiousness, flees in
terror from the amorous approach of a
female Yahoo. In Nineteen Eighty-Four
Winston's revolt is largely sexual and
directed against the puritanical attitudes
of the Party. Though Gulliver is finally
Alienated from his family the possibility
of a healthy normal life remains. Such a
normal life is no longer possible in
bceania. Love is suppressed so that it ex
ists either as gaping lust as in Winston's
encounter with a toothless old prostitute
in a squalid alley or as the unnatural
fchastity of the Junior Anti-Sex League,
or, worse st il l, as the fri gid it y and sex-
essness of Katharine, Winston's estrang
ed wife . It is a pity an d this is the novel's
Weak pointthat the only possible alter
native that is offered is Wins ton' s love for
lulia. Instead of stressing the obvious
point, that in such a sick society no
wealthier love is possible, Orwell seems,
by his non-ironic treatment of the whole
episode, to be romanticising what is
essentially a sordid affair.For O'Brien and the Party, Winst on is
Insane and needs to be cured through
beatings, torture and electric shock.
Winston's cure takes place within the
windowless Ministry of Love, the white
tiles of its rooms and the long corridor
strongly reminiscent of a hospital.
Winston's antagonist, O'Brien, refined
and benevolent, presides over the cure as
doctor, psychiatrist, and Grand Inquis
ito r. T he aim of all the ghastly tortures is
to make Winston see that two plus two
make five if the leader says so. Winston iseventually broken down by the greater
psychological expertise of the Party. Us
ing an ancient Chinese torture device aim
ed at Winston's totally irrational fear of
rats, a vestige of some forgotten childish
trauma, his tormentors are able to reduce
Winston to an "insane, a screaming ani
mal", "bl ind, helpless, mindless".
Worse still, in his broken state, he is ready
to betray everybody and everything. The
Party achieves its purpose, it has destroy
ed Winston's individual ity, his humanity,
his faith, as they had earlier smashed the
glass paperweight which Winston had
cherished as a symbol of integrity, into
pieces. The end of the book shows Win
ston a gin-sodden physical and mental
wreck, aimless, troubled by false memor
ies, lost in tearful adoration of Big
Brother.
The perversion of reason can lead to ir
rationality or bestiality or it can develop
into a rigid and inhuman mechanism.
Both states are ultim ately anti -hu man. In
A Tale of a Tub, Swift ridicules Disenting
preachers for mechanically using physical
stimuli to arouse spiritual sensations. Onthe analogy of the philosopher "who,
while his Thoughts and Eyes were fixed
upon the Constellations, found himself
seduced by his lower parts into a Ditch",
all pretenders to reason, who exalt the
spirit at the cost of the senses, have the
same trap of carnality awaiting them. In
Gulliver's Travels reason and the irra
tional impulses are polarised and em
bodied respectively in the Houyhnhnms
and the Yahoos. Gulliver, by refusing to
acknowledge the Yahoo in man and as
pir ing to the pure and somewhat mechan
ical reason of the Houyhnhnms (reason
among them is not a "point problem-
etical") forgets his basic humanity,
behaving alternatively like a beast, shun-
ning human company and hiding in a
cave, or like a mechanical creature keeping
aloof from his wife and family.
In A Modest Proposal Swift makes a
searing attack on human beastiality. The
sober matter-of-fact manner in which the
humane 'modest' projector outlines his
scheme for butchering babies at one year
old for table-meat belies the horror
aroused in the reader by the whole affair.Swift uses the technique of shock and
irony to strike at the reader's unsuspected
callousness. The Irish who live like
beasts, the readers who unwittingly ac
quiesce in the system, all come under the
satiric net. The basic satiric fiction
equates humansand to their disadvan
tagewith animals. The projector's
'modest' boast is that his scheme wi l l raise
the value of human beings to that of the
more profitable animals like black cattle,
swine and sheep. It may be remembered
that, during this period, whole com mun ities were being driven off the land to
make sheep-walks and cattle-runs which
were more profitable for their owners.
Swift's savage indignation at man's in
humanity to man overflows in bitter but
controlled satire as when he lists as one
among the advantages of his scheme that:
Men would become an fondof their wives,
during the time of their pregnancy, as they are
now of their Mares in foal, their cows in
calf, or sows when they are ready to farrow;
nor offer to beat or kick them, (as it is too
frequent a practice) for fear of a miscar
riage.In the projector's mechanical drawing-
boar d all human values, love for wife and
children arc assumed to be non-existent
(an early example of the satire on the
statistical, Blue-book dominated Utili
tarian approach, made for instance, by
Dickens in Hard Times), even though the
projector is himself married and the
father of children. The ultimate ironical
touch is the 'modest' proposer's profes
sion of disinterestedness on the ground
that he himself falls outside the purview
of his scheme, his wife being past child-
bearing, and his youngest child nine years
o l d ,
IV
Words and Ideas
As political journalists, Swift and
Orwell got first hand experience of the
manipulation of language for political
purposes. They themselves saw language
not as a natural growth that came spon
taneously but as an instrument to be con
sciously shaped and used for the human
good. As language could be specifically
used for persuasion or enlightenment, itcould equally well be misused to deceive
and mislead. As practising journalists
they were aware of their opponents'
shortcomings in this respect as well as
their own need to use words as correctly
and precisely as possible in order not to
leave any scope for misunderstanding or
misrepresentation.
In this connection it might be useful to
recapitulate the Hobbesian and Lockian
synthesis concerning the nature and func
tion of language. As in other areas of
human thought, the seventeenth centuryrevolution affected a profound change in
the attitude to language. Hobbes particu
larly, in Leviathan, shows a keen interest
in the political use and abuse of language.
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He devotes a chapter to tracing the ev olu
tion of speech, "the most noble and pro
fitable invention of all other", without
which in fact there would be "neither
Commonwealth, nor society, nor con
tract, nor peace no more than amongst
Lyons, Bears and Wolves". Hobbes
carefully tabulates the uses and abuses of
speech and contents that "True an d Falseare attributes of speech, not things"
Since speech is the expression of and in
fact is equivalent to man's cognition of
reality, errors in speech arc more
dangerous than they might ordinarily ap
pear, and can do incalculable harm if
allowed to go unchecked. Acc ordi ngly , if
a man sought truth, his first concern was
to take care of the precise meaning and
ordering of his words, "or else he wi l l
find himself entangled in words, as a bird
in lime twiggs, the more he struggles the
more be-limed."1 8
In other words clear
and rational thinking and expression are
prerequisites for a rational choice of ac
tion
Hobbes' conception of language is pri
mari ly utilit ari an, as was also Locke's, in
that they used language to disperse the
mists of error and superstition and reveal
the tr uth as they perceived it. Hobb es dis
claimed the use of ornament and elo
quence in his writings because these tend
ed to obscure meaning, though in his
plain way he was a highly eloquent and
persuasive writer. Indeed Hobbes did not
exclude from among the uses of language (to know, to communicate, to com
mand) the use of language as a source of
pleasure and delight. Politically and as a
writer, Swift's affinities are with Hobbes
rather than Locke. Echoes of Hobbes
abound in his writings as for instance the
reference in A Tale of a Tub to "Hobbes',
Leviathan, which tosses and plays with all
other schemes of Religion and Govern
ment." Elsewhere Swift speaks disparag
ingly of Locke's "new style of writing",
as when attacking Tindall's book he
refers to the latter's "canting, pedantic
way, learned from Locke11.As essentially creative writers, Swift
and Orwell delighted in the artist's use of
language for the extension and enrich
ment of the human consciousness, and
considered this use of language amongst
the most important. However they were
always acutely aware of language as a
political instrument.
For both Swift and Or wel l, language is
inextricably bound up with human
values. It embodies their deepest poli tic al
beliefs, and its abuse is felt as a moral
bl ig ht . Swif t's lifelong crusade to protectand preserve the English language did not
arise from a grammarian's pedantic con
cern for correctness but was only one
aspect of his overall political and moral
criticism of contemporary society. He
equated the decay of the English tongue
as he perceived it with the rise of money
and materialistic values which he asso
ciated with the Whig hegemony. In his
ow n wri ti ng he sets a positive standar d of
correctness and good taste believing, as
he puts it in his letter to a Young
Cler gyman, that "when a man's thoughtsare clear, the properest words will
generally offer themselves first; and his
own judgment will direct him in what
order to place them, so that they may be
best understood".
The misuse and perversion of language
is a central theme in Swift's and Orwell's
satiric visio n. I n each case the corr up tio n
of language is traced to the pol iti cal vices
against which Swi ft and Orw el l were con
tending. Once again the basic issue in
volved in linguistic perversion is a desire
to disto rt, or a refusal to sec realit y. L ang
uage, instead of being used as a means to
revelation and knowledge, is used as an
instrument to distort and pervert truth.
Thi s is done eit her by delib era te misuse of
words or by the use of an obscure and in
flated style in which all meaning is des
troyed. Language loses its vitality and
becomes a mechanical churning out of
phrasesduckspeak; this also makes pol
itical conformity that much easier. Hence
the fight for a pure uncontaminated
language was a political imperative as
Swift and Orwell both realised. By fight
ing for a pure language they were in effectfighting for the rational ideal of politics.
As Or well put i t, " to t hi nk clearly is a
necessary first step towards political re
generation so that the fight against bad
English is not frivolous and is not the ex
clusive concern of professional wri
ters".19
V
Some Conclusions
As political journalists and finally as
creative writer s, Swift and Orw ell fought
for political justice and freedom againstunjust, despotic regimes, or against a
dominant ideology. Literature itself
becomes subversive when it boldly ques
tions prevailing assumptions and refuses
to be bou nd to any ort hod oxy . Swift and
Orw ell never comprom ised wi th the pre
vailing orthodoxies. Like the greatest
literature their writings, because of their
uncompromising honesty, have the
power to shock and disturb. They attack
ed complacency, particularly of that in
sidious variety cloaked in reason. By in
sisting that man is a creature of impulsewho can, and does, behave at times like a
beast, realists like Swift and Orwell tear
away the com for tin g illusi on of man's in
herent rationalism which is used as the
cover for the worst excesses of irrational
pride. In the writings of both Swift and
Orwell the image of stripping away the
layers of illusion to arrive at the dis
agreeable reality is a compelling one.
Swift's famous images in A Tale of a Tub
of the "Woman flayed" and the carcass
of "a Beau stript" to reveal "So many
unsuspected faults under one Suit ofClo ath s" , ironically underscore his satiri
cal observation that "Cre dul ity is a more
peaceful Possession of the Mind, than
Cur ios it y" . Gulliver too is stripped of his
clothes to reveal his kinship with the
Yahoos. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, W i n
ston Smith, after prolonged torture in the
ministry of Love, is made to'look at
himself in a mir ror . Tho ugh reduced to a
physical wreck, Winston is still not cow
ed. He persists in claiming that the spirit
of man will defeat the forces of tyranny
and oppression. He feels a giddy pride as
he draws attention to the fact that he has
clung to his humanity. With a brutal
gesture, O'Brien, Winston's tormentor,
makes him stand before a mirror after
stripping off the filthy rags, all that re
mained of his clothes and tells him, "do
you see that thing facing you? That is the
last man. If you arc human, that is
humanity". Winston is not convinced.
He persists in his belief that his spirit re
mains indomitable. Only the final epi
sode of the rats strips him of all his
defences, and he is left helpless and nak
ed, screaming bundle of insane fear. Byits perversion of reason and h uma nity the
party is able to destroy reason, even more
easily, when it is embodied in one frail
human individual.
The assumption throughout this paper
has been that in both S wift and Or we ll the
creative writing by which they are
remembered and which is most typical of
their genius grew out of their journa lis tic
endeavours. In studying their choice of
theme, their treatment of the subject and
particularly their attitude to language,
the impact of their practice of political
jour na lism mus t be taken in to account if
ju st ic e is to be do ne to their un iq ue
achievements as writers. It is of course
meaningless to speculate on what they
would have written had they not been in
terested in political journalism, but it
must be admitted that the manner and
form of what they wrote was affected by
their practice of the journalistic style of
writing which has characteristic features
of its own that have been developed
throu gh the centuries. As politi cal jour
nalists they maintained a practical link
with ordinary human life such as wasbecoming increasingly difficult to the ar
tist committed to the conception of art as
specialised activity. In the writings of
Swift as well as of Orwell, the reader is
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aware throughout of a speaking human
voice directl y addressed to hi m. This is
not an illusion but results from these
writers' conception of language as a
means of direct communication between
writer and reader.
Value judgments remain. Swift is un
doubtedly the greater writer, with a
greater imaginative scope and controlover language. Further, it appears that
Or wel l as a writ er lacks that resilience, the
co-existence of laughter even with des
pair, that makes Swift such an inspiring
figure. Swift has an astringency, an in
tellectual toughness which is absent in
Orwell. This may have been due, as
Orwell himself suspected when referring
to the paucity of good polemical litera
ture in the twentieth century, to the
degeneration of the standard of English
prose style. The journa lis tic revol utio n of
the twentieth century has made it botheasier and harder for writers aspiring
to create good literature. While facility
becomes commonplace, it gets harder to
arr ive at the tellin g phrase, or achieve that
control over language that is the mark of
good writing.
Notes
1 See Q D Leavis, "Fiction and the Reading
Publ ic" , London, 1932, for a highly sti
mulating discussion of the whole pro
blem.
2 E P Thompson, "The Making of the English Working Class", Penguin, 1963. See
especially chapter 16, section I, 'The
Radical Culture', pp 719-804.
3 Thomas Sprat, "History of the Royal
Society", quoted in B Wiley "Seven
teenth Century Background", London,
1934, p 212.
4 This point is admirably illustrated by
James L Boulton in his book on the late
eighteenth century political journalists,
"The Language of Polities", London,
1963.
5 A L Morton (ed), "Freedom in Ar m: A
Selection of Leveller Writings", SevenSeas Book, Berlin, 1975, p 84.
6 "A Tale of a Tub e" edited by A C Guth-
kelch and D Nichol Smith, Clarendon
Press, Oxford, 1958. All references are to
this edition.
7 "The Collected Essays, Journalism and
Letters of George Orwell", edited by
Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, Penguin
Books, Harmondsworth, 1970 (hence
forth CEJL), Vol 1, p 576.
8 Ibi d, I, p 28
9 Kar l Marx, 'Theses on Feuerbach', Marx
and Engels, "Selected Works", Vol I,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, p 13.
10 ib id , p 14.
11 Herbert Davis, "The Conciseness of
Swift in "Essays on his Satire and Other
Studies", Oxford University Press, 1964,
p 218.
12 CEJL,I,p30
13 'On the Tr ini ty' , The Prose Works of
Jonathan Swift, Vol IX, edited by
Herbert Davis et al, Blackwell, Oxford,
1939-68, p 116.
14 CEJL , I I , pp 295, 296.
15 See R F Jones, T he Background of theAttack on Science in the Age of Pope', in
"Eighteenth Century English Literature"
(ed) James L Clifford, OUP, 1959, p 77.
16 "The Philosophies that have been in
spired by scientific technique are power
philosophies, and tend to regard every
thing non-human as mere raw naterial.
Ends are no longer considered; only the
skillfulness of the process is valued. This
also is a form of madness." Bertrand
Russell, "History of Western Philo
sophy", 1946, p 482.
17 The Prose Works, I I I , pp 64-65.
18 Hobbes 'On Speech', in Leviathan,
Everyman's Library, pp 12 ff.19 'Politics and the English Language',
CEJL, IV, p 157.
On this point see also M S Prabhakar,
'Orwell, Swift and the English Lang
uage', Journal of the University of
Gauhati, XIX; Arts, 1969.
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