Why I Write

George Orwell's essay Why I Write is both a general explanation of an author's purpose in writing, and Orwell's personal story of why and how he writes. The first part of the essay goes greatly into Orwell's back-story, and how even at a young age he knew he was going to be a writer. He wrote his first piece of poetry at the age of 5 about a tiger, and even though he acknowledges that it was close to plagiarism of Blake's poem "Tiger, Tiger", it was a start. Orwell reveals that he began writing at such a young age because he felt out of place, and undervalued. He had no friends, so he would hold conversations with imaginary ones. Writing was an extension of these imaginary conversations. Orwell was first published at age 11, a patriotic poem during World War One. All of the background Orwell gives the reader sets up his four main reasons that authors generally write.

His first reason is sheer egoism, believing that all authors want to be remembered and immortalized. Orwell claims that this trait is also shared with politicians, soldiers, lawyers, artists and scientists. Authors, unlike most working people, do not submit themselves to a life of routine, monotony, and drudgery, but remain determined top live their lives to the fullest, principally through their writings. Even if writing book after book could be considered monotonous, to a writer this is living life to the fullest, through the characters he or she write about. For a fiction writer, it is not about money, but about being remembered for your work.

The next reason to be a writer is to write for aesthetic enthusiasm. They write because they appreciate and want to share beauty in either the world, or in their writing. Beauty in writing would be the way certain rhymes seem to flow when reading them. Or the way words work perfectly together. Not many people write solely for this purpose, but Orwell believes that even authors of pamphlets and advertisements have certain words and "pet phrases" that they love to use. Words that help these authors sell their product, the way serious authors use beautiful words and phrases to sell their books. In many ways this writer has much in common with a painter or a musician.

Orwell also cites historical impulse as a reason for people to write. However he does not mention it any more than to explain what historical writers do. It is self explanatory as to what a historical writer does. While Orwell does not dwell deeply into this, he did write historically in the form of a personal memoir of his time in India and Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's. Tied in with history is the final reason a person writes, politics. Writing to explain your political views, to educate and sway the audience and most importantly to change to world. This desire to change the world can be tied into Orwell's first reason of egoism. It would be hard to find an author who does not want to change the world, or just a small part of it through their writing. And there is no greater way to be remembered that to be someone that changed something significantly through his or her writing. Orwell believes that no book can be entirely free of political bias. Orwell states, "The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics