The life and Legacy of George Orwell Essay Example for Free

The life and Legacy of George Orwell Essay George Orwell, a renowned novelist and essayist, is not only regarded for his multitude contributions to literature, he is well recognized as a â€Å"secular saint. † Fifty-seven years after his death, Orwell is acclaimed not only by thinkers and writers but also by the political left and right and those in between. He is a great story teller of truth and is revered by his moral courage, intellect and diamond-hard prose. Social historian Noel Annan once described him as â€Å"the first saint of our age† (Frankel, para. 2). Orwell, deprived of university training, is â€Å"quirky, fierce, independent and beholden to none. † Early Life and Works Born Eric Arthur Blair, this English author lived most of his life in poverty. He joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922 to 1927 before he returned to Europe to pursue his writing career (Widmann, para. 1). In 1936, Orwell (his pen name) joined the Republican forces in the Spanish civil war. He was wounded in fighting and later on had to flee Spain for his life. Orwell was always critical of communism and considered himself as a socialist. Over the next ten years, he would make his journey towards becoming famous—under a new name and with an altered identity. As Eric Blair, he experienced injustice and poverty and as George Orwell he began to look for their causes. His early experiences with totalitarian political regimes bore impact on his prose. After the publication of two of his greatest novels—Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, he confirmed his disgust over totalitarianism. In his essay Why I Write, he said â€Å"every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism†¦to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole. † During World War II, Orwell wrote a weekly radio political commentary where he countered German and Japanese propaganda in India (para. 5). His commentary work during the war at BBC gave him a solid taste of bureaucratic hypocrisy. This part of his life, many would later say, was his inspiration for his satirical, political novel Nineteen eighty-four, which had the most profound influence on historical revisionism. Until his death in 1950, Orwell would question almost every â€Å"official† or â€Å"accepted† versions of history. In his book Notes on Nationalism, he writes â€Å"if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. † Animal Farm and Nineteen eighty-four Orwell became a world literary giant after the publication of the book Animal Farm. He began his masterpiece in the final years of World War II. With this (and later with 1984), he started his â€Å"thematic series† concerning abuse of political power (Pyle, para. 3). In Animal Farm, Orwell exposed the Soviet myth by incorporating it into a story that could be easily understood. It is also the first novel written exclusively for political purpose and by this, Orwell entered into a new realm of creative invention. This slight fable, scarcely longer than a short story led directly back to his first days in Barcelona. It tells of the story of abused and overworked animals in a farm that rebel against their abusive farmer, Mr. Jones. The animals’ paradise, however, would soon be commandeered and betrayed by a pig that bears a fleeting resemblance to Joseph Stalin (Gray, p. 9). The clear anti-Soviet parody did not appeal to a lot of publishers. The Animal Farm was turned down by more than a dozen publishers in England and the United States. But those who took a chance at this satirical fable were very much rewarded. The Animal farm was a hit and has sold dependably for 40 years. The success of the Animal Farm gave Orwell some sense of financial relief. He cut back on journalism and was given the chance to devote more time on his next best-seller, Nineteen eighty-four. This is Orwell’s most final and most famous book. He was already on his deathbed when it was published in 1949. The task of typing and revising the manuscript took their toll on his health and his tuberculosis worsened. The original manuscript that would later on re-surface reveals that Orwell considered different titles for his masterpiece. He planned on calling it â€Å"The Last Man in Europe†, â€Å"1980† and â€Å"1982† (p. 1). Tens of millions, from different generations have read it. It has been translated into 62 languages. Nineteen eighty-four tells of the story of Winston Smith, a minor bureaucrat in the totalitarian state of Oceania. Smith is working for the Ministry of Truth during the wars of the superpowers and constant changes in alliances. He rewrote old newspaper stories to conform to the present party ideology. He uses Newspeak, the official language at that time. Newspeak is a version of English being pared down to make unconventional opinions that are impossible to conceive. There was no privacy and Smith, along with all Party members, worked on two-way tele-screens. Posters that declare â€Å"Big Brother is Watching You† are all over the place. Smith, however, would commit a â€Å"thoughtcrime. † He would live by the phrase â€Å"down with Big Brother† instead. He would also have a love affair with a co-worker called Julia, considered a heinous crime because all loyalty belongs to the Party. He will be relentlessly tortured in Room 101 until he could no longer take the pain. He would then suggest that all punishment would be inflicted on Julia instead. This abolishes his integrity but would make him a good Party member. The terms Big Brother, Ministries of Truth and Love, the thought crime and thought police, the memory hole, Room 101 and hate week have now become part of our vocabulary. Orwell, for his part, became the standard adjective when referring to the gap between political language and moral reality (Frankel, para. 7). Orwell fought the worst tendencies in politics and society, and in his two greatest works, he did so by using fundamental sense of decency (Gray, p. 10). Legacy and Contribution Orwell did not mean for Nineteen eighty-four to be his final work. Reports say that in one of his last conversations before he died, he said he have some more books to write. He even married a woman 15 years his junior while he was confined in a hospital. He believed that when one is married and has a wife, he would have more reasons to live. Orwell had three more months. He was only 47. Orwell’s childhood friend once said that the tragedy in the author’s life is that when he achieved fame and success, he was already a dying man and â€Å"he knew it† (Pyle, para. 2). But his mystical status as the greatest novelist of his time would outlive him. Orwell did not only write two of the greatest novels in history. He laid down the standards of a true classic. A Time Magazine cover story in 1983 described him as a man of letters who attempted to â€Å"change the world by changing the word. † Orwell is laso known for his insights about politics. He decried bureaucratic hypocrisy and totalitarianism for as long as he lived. He invented a different language through Newspeak to be able to shape reality. His friends would always regard him as an intellectual. He was always straight and solemn. He held back every emotion and he rarely smiled (Frankel, para. 15). As a novelist, they say, he hates being edited and no one ever tried mucking his works. After all, they say, his manuscripts do not need editing as they always come in perfectly, even the commas. From the start, his writing was essentially personal (Menand, para. 4). He put himself and his experiences at the center of his non-fiction works and many of his essays. He made use of personal anecdotes and stories and knowledge in political journalism to stress his points. Orwell, however, never intended to make himself a hero. What he has is a rare talent of relating with his audience, not as a literary man or a reporter, but as himself. In short, before he made the readers believe in his works, he made them believe, first of all, in him. In 1984, a new 17-volume edition of his complete works was published in the United States. A wax figure of the phenomenal author has also been installed at a museum in London. Scholars have continued debates on the political implications and literary genius of his novels. Orwell’s two final books immortalized him as one of the best novelists in history. More than half a century since he died, his works are still regarded as must-reads and have cemented their place on popular culture. The relevance of his novels has outlived him. Works Cited: Gray, Paul. â€Å"That year is Almost Here. † Time Magazine. (28 Nov. 1983). 2 Oct. 2007 http://www. time. com/time/covers/0,16641,19831128,00. html. Frankel, Glenn. â€Å"George Orwell at 100: Revisiting a Life Steeped in Contradictions. † Washington Post Foreign Service. (25 June 2003). 02 Oct. 2007. Menand, Louis. â€Å"Honest, Decent, Wrong: The Invention of George Orwell. (27 Jan. 2003). 02 Oct. 2007. http://www. newyorker. com/archive/2003/01/27/030127crat_atlarge. http://www. netcharles. com/orwell/articles/col-revcon. htm. Pyle, Steve. â€Å"George Orwell’s Animal Farm: The Little Book that Could. † The Antigonish Review. (23 Feb. 1999). 02 Oct. 2007. http://www. antigonishreview. com/bi -111/111-pyle. html. Widmann, Richard. â€Å"George Orwell: Background. † 02 Oct. 2007. http://codoh. com/thoughtcrimes/tcportorw. html.

Embryonic Stem Cells Unnecessary for Medical Progress :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Embryonic Stem Cells Unnecessary for Medical Progress Reporting on new research by Dr. Donald Orlic of the National Institutes of Health and others, indicating that adult bone marrow stem cells can help repair, and restore function in, damaged hearts: "Until now, researchers thought that stem cells from embryos offered the best hope for rebuilding damaged organs, but this latest research shows that the embryos, which are politically controversial, may not be necessary. 'We are currently finding that these adult stem cells can function as well, perhaps even better than, embryonic stem cells,' Orlic said." - "Approach may repair heart damage," MSNBC, March 30, 2001 (www.msnbc.com/news/552456.asp) * * * "Umbilical cords discarded after birth may offer a vast new source of repair material for fixing brains damaged by strokes and other ills, free of the ethical concerns surrounding the use of fetal tissue, researchers said Sunday." - "Umbilical cords could repair brains," Associated Press, February 20, 2001 * * * "PPL Therapeutics, the company that cloned Dolly the sheep, has succeeded in 'reprogramming' a cell -- a move that could lead to the development of treatments for diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The Scotland-based group will today announce that it has turned a cow's skin cell into a beating heart cell and is close to starting research on humans... The PPL announcement...will be seen as an important step towards producing stem cells without using human embryos." - "PPL follows Dolly with cell breakthrough," Financial Times, February 23, 2001 * * * "[O]rgan-specific adult stem cells appear to display much more plasticity than originally thought. Stem cells isolated from one tissue can differentiate into a variety of unrelated cell types and tissues... These findings raise the exciting possibility of using bone marrow transplantation to treat a wide variety of disorders, such as muscular dystrophies, Parkinson disease, stroke, and hepatic failure." - E. Kaji and J. Leiden, "Gene and Stem Cell Therapies," Journal of the American Medical Association, February 7, 2001, p. 547 * * * "[S]ince adult bone marrow has recently been found to contain stem cells of previously unrecognized 'plasticity' that are able to form a variety of types of cell -- muscle, liver, neural, bone, cartilage, endothelial, and perhaps others -- it may be possible to use marrow stem cells in cytotherapeutic approaches to a wide spectrum of diseases, such as cardiac disorders, muscular dystrophy, liver disease, neurodegenerative conditions, and joint diseases.

Criminal Justice

I put myself in the situation of the investigators in he TV shows and think of what I would actually do. My dad used to work in the department of CSS for the Texas police Department so I have some background knowledge and terminology of what is going on. I frequently asked questions and I felt like I somewhat knew the life of a crime scene investigator. They get calls in the middle of the night and they have to go out to the scene. Let is a very stressful and traumatizing job. When it comes down to the two shows of First 48 and CSS, they deal with crimes that involve murders and have investigation element.CSS is full of trained investigators trying to examine the evidence. They find the missing pieces that will solve the case. â€Å"A criminal investigator is a person who conducts investigations for criminal cases. This person is responsible for collecting and assessing evidence for a case to pinpoint guilty parties. If you have ever watched an episode of CSS, you have seen criminal Basic Carnally Investigation 2 investigators in action. The ones In the real world do roughly the same work, but they don't always have dramatic cases to deal with. This explains the Job of a criminal investigator and the Job duties will vary depending on what type of crime there is. When It comes to every crime scene, it goes through steps before It Is considered solved or unsolved. If It Is unsolved, they have tried numerous times to solve the case, but had no leads or no witnesses. The steps are evaluating the case,collecting the evidence,analyzing the forensics, identifying the suspect, if you have a suspect, interrogate him/her, then you bring the case to court for trial and lastly, depending on if the criminal investigators did their Job right justice will be served.Most investigators want to put the suspect in Jail, but that is not always the case. I explain the procedures and process of a crime scene investigator because this is what the the show CSS deals with. Though, CSS is not like Law and Order where they interrogate a suspect, go to trial , and show if the suspect goes to Jail or not. CSS has added drama and it deals more with investigating the actual crime scene. It is a scripted TV show and you can tell some of the scenes are over dramatic and side of the road on a highway.It is about how the team of investigators find out the woman was once a man who underwent a sex change. They investigate and go out figuring out the life of transgender. The way they showed reconstruction of the crime scene is how they would picture the crime in their head. They focused on the evidence in the car and they Basic Criminal Investigation 3 tried to find the fabrics in the car if there was any evidence left behind. They find out who the suspect is, but they do not let the viewers know what happens to the suspect. They have the viewer assume.When they show how the evidence is transferred on to a body part, that is when determination and special effects come into p lay. They show the victim in the crime lab, and they investigate the possibilities f what may have happened. This episode was more realistic because they found the killer in a reasonable time because the suspect confessed. Usually, they would find out the suspect in the same amount of time, but it was unrealistic. SSL makes up more their unrealistic scenes by doing what actual Crime scene investigators do.Watching an Episode of the First 48, this episode was on 9/7/12 and it was about a scene that occurred in Dallas Texas and two friends were walking in the woods and discover a dead body. Let was near the rail road tracks and they call the police. It was ruing May 5th. The body was burned and it had no arms. It is missing the head and hands. The criminal investigator has experience of 19 years. First 48 is based on real life situations and and it is filmed on site, This show focuses more on catching the criminal and investigating what happened within the first 48 hours.This is more realistic because the time frame is actually a real scenario. There is no determination to it. This is actual real life homicides that happen in different cities. The investigators actually use forensic evidence, and witnesses to find the suspect. Though only says 48 hours, it goes on more than that and could even lead into years. The investigate the body and Basic Criminal Investigation 4 they actually go into the scene. They did not show any crime lab or any special investigating on the body.They focused on more investigating the case and how it happened. Watching both shows there are definitely more differences than there are similarities. When it comes to CSS, they find the body to open up the show rather than scene and then they take the body to the forensic lab. They actually take the time to observe the body and find out possibilities and theories of what could have happened in the lab. That is how they portray the scene by going through what they think had happened.Watching First 48, it actually a whole real life scene. Someone calls the police, they set up a crime scene, and they start to investigate instantly. They take the body to the forensic lab. Both shows are different in a way where CSS actually shows you what they do in the lab, and First 48 does not show you the lab and they focus more on the crime scene. The two shows both have reconstruction crime scene, UT the way CSS does is that they dramatist the scene of the evidence.You can tell that there are unrealistic possibilities in CSS rather than watching First 48 where everything is what would actually happen. Both shows used the proper equipment for the scene. SSL is a lot shorter and the way they find the suspect is unrealistic because they show it in a half an hour time frame rather than an actual 48 hours. SSL leaves you wanting more as well as First 48, but First 48 will always be in favor of real Crime scene investigators because it is documentary based rather and a Hollywood reality TV show. Criminal Justice I put myself in the situation of the investigators in he TV shows and think of what I would actually do. My dad used to work in the department of CSS for the Texas police Department so I have some background knowledge and terminology of what is going on. I frequently asked questions and I felt like I somewhat knew the life of a crime scene investigator. They get calls in the middle of the night and they have to go out to the scene. Let is a very stressful and traumatizing job. When it comes down to the two shows of First 48 and CSS, they deal with crimes that involve murders and have investigation element.CSS is full of trained investigators trying to examine the evidence. They find the missing pieces that will solve the case. â€Å"A criminal investigator is a person who conducts investigations for criminal cases. This person is responsible for collecting and assessing evidence for a case to pinpoint guilty parties. If you have ever watched an episode of CSS, you have seen criminal Basic Carnally Investigation 2 investigators in action. The ones In the real world do roughly the same work, but they don't always have dramatic cases to deal with. This explains the Job of a criminal investigator and the Job duties will vary depending on what type of crime there is. When It comes to every crime scene, it goes through steps before It Is considered solved or unsolved. If It Is unsolved, they have tried numerous times to solve the case, but had no leads or no witnesses. The steps are evaluating the case,collecting the evidence,analyzing the forensics, identifying the suspect, if you have a suspect, interrogate him/her, then you bring the case to court for trial and lastly, depending on if the criminal investigators did their Job right justice will be served.Most investigators want to put the suspect in Jail, but that is not always the case. I explain the procedures and process of a crime scene investigator because this is what the the show CSS deals with. Though, CSS is not like Law and Order where they interrogate a suspect, go to trial , and show if the suspect goes to Jail or not. CSS has added drama and it deals more with investigating the actual crime scene. It is a scripted TV show and you can tell some of the scenes are over dramatic and side of the road on a highway.It is about how the team of investigators find out the woman was once a man who underwent a sex change. They investigate and go out figuring out the life of transgender. The way they showed reconstruction of the crime scene is how they would picture the crime in their head. They focused on the evidence in the car and they Basic Criminal Investigation 3 tried to find the fabrics in the car if there was any evidence left behind. They find out who the suspect is, but they do not let the viewers know what happens to the suspect. They have the viewer assume.When they show how the evidence is transferred on to a body part, that is when determination and special effects come into p lay. They show the victim in the crime lab, and they investigate the possibilities f what may have happened. This episode was more realistic because they found the killer in a reasonable time because the suspect confessed. Usually, they would find out the suspect in the same amount of time, but it was unrealistic. SSL makes up more their unrealistic scenes by doing what actual Crime scene investigators do.Watching an Episode of the First 48, this episode was on 9/7/12 and it was about a scene that occurred in Dallas Texas and two friends were walking in the woods and discover a dead body. Let was near the rail road tracks and they call the police. It was ruing May 5th. The body was burned and it had no arms. It is missing the head and hands. The criminal investigator has experience of 19 years. First 48 is based on real life situations and and it is filmed on site, This show focuses more on catching the criminal and investigating what happened within the first 48 hours.This is more realistic because the time frame is actually a real scenario. There is no determination to it. This is actual real life homicides that happen in different cities. The investigators actually use forensic evidence, and witnesses to find the suspect. Though only says 48 hours, it goes on more than that and could even lead into years. The investigate the body and Basic Criminal Investigation 4 they actually go into the scene. They did not show any crime lab or any special investigating on the body.They focused on more investigating the case and how it happened. Watching both shows there are definitely more differences than there are similarities. When it comes to CSS, they find the body to open up the show rather than scene and then they take the body to the forensic lab. They actually take the time to observe the body and find out possibilities and theories of what could have happened in the lab. That is how they portray the scene by going through what they think had happened.Watching First 48, it actually a whole real life scene. Someone calls the police, they set up a crime scene, and they start to investigate instantly. They take the body to the forensic lab. Both shows are different in a way where CSS actually shows you what they do in the lab, and First 48 does not show you the lab and they focus more on the crime scene. The two shows both have reconstruction crime scene, UT the way CSS does is that they dramatist the scene of the evidence.You can tell that there are unrealistic possibilities in CSS rather than watching First 48 where everything is what would actually happen. Both shows used the proper equipment for the scene. SSL is a lot shorter and the way they find the suspect is unrealistic because they show it in a half an hour time frame rather than an actual 48 hours. SSL leaves you wanting more as well as First 48, but First 48 will always be in favor of real Crime scene investigators because it is documentary based rather and a Hollywood reality TV show.

Analysis Of The House Of Mirth By Lara Saltz - 1522 Words

Selden, in The House of Mirth, is a character that is part of the Elite class, but that doesn’t allow the constraints of the elites shadow his vision. In her essay, Lara Saltz argues â€Å"Selden is able to see â€Å"real,† poetic Lily because he possesses both an acute eye for what is materially in front of him (Saltz 1).† She continues on with this thesis, arguing that Selden posses a balance between realism and imagination, that allows him to see the real Lily, during her performance of Sir Joshua Reynold’s pain, Mrs Lloyd. Evidence in the novel showing that Selden can see past the illusions of high life, can be seen in Lily realizing that Selden is detached from the social world, the discussion of love between Lily and Selden and Lily’s final confrontation of Selden and subsequent death. These three pieces of evidence support Saltz’s assertion that Selden can see things for what they really are due to his ability to balance realism and imagination. The first, being Lily’s observation that Selden is detached from the social class. The party, being thrown by Mrs. Trenor, is the stage in which Lily discovers that Selden is detached from social class. The entire affair, starts with Lily being asked to help, it seems, to plan the weeding. during this planning, it is discovered that Mrs. Trenor has scheduled the party in conflict with another character’s own party. They move in this sense, not really caring about who will be offended and even offer their own view to placate any