Analysis Of George Orwell's Essay 'Politics And The English Language'

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To instruct a reader to not do something, and then to do it oneself, is to undermine the entire premise of an argument. Conversely, to instruct a reader to not do something, and to not show what should be done instead, is just as bad. George Orwell, in his essay “Politics and the English Language”, explains some of the flaws of modern language, and proposes what must be done to improve it. To summarize his essay, Orwell crafts a list of six rules that a writer must not break. He takes caution against writing in the very way that his six rules instruct a reader not to, and this works to his advantage.The rhetorical devices and strategies utilized by George Orwell enhance his overall argument on how to improve modern language by demonstrating real applications of what he believes to be proper English language. Orwell’s…show more content…
Instead of writing commonplace similes that the reader has likely already been exposed to in other pieces of literature, Orwell crafts novel, unique pieces that exemplify what he means by this rule. His similes are unique due to the fact that they draw connections between objects that seemingly have no relation to each other, and likely could not be found in any other piece of literature at the time, such as “an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink” (6). This combines both a unique simile and a reflection on his overall argument, which is to not use run-of-the-mill similes, creating a very potent piece of rhetoric. Being a comparison between “an accumulation of stale phrases” that “choke”, and “tea leaves” that “block the sink”, Orwell fashions a simile that draws a unique connection between dissimilar objects; tea leaves do not appear to resemble a phrase in any way to the average person, and an accumulation of phrases is hardly expected to choke a
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