In many ways, writing prose allows us to investigate ideas/technologies/social developments and explore the consequences of their implementation. Writing, among many other things, is a tool for thinking and refining that thinking. This is the need to investigate and record.
Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story.ĭo you know that feeling when you find exactly the right word? Or when you put words together in a sentence that just ‘flows’? Or when you combine words into a clever display of wordplay? Addictive, isn’t it? Historical impulseĭesire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement.
Without at least a small drive to be recognized for your passion, there would scarcely be any prose writers.
More than that, the majority of writers wants to be read and wants their writings to be enjoyed/respected/ revered. The majority of writers wants to be read. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Sheer egoismĭesire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. Upon reflection, Orwell identifies four motives for writing (“Putting aside the need to make a living,” he remarks): sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. He also mentions, however, that it is a writer’s job to “discipline his temperament”. Orwell considers that both the personal background of(prose) writers and the historical era they live in are fundamental in driving subject matter and motivation. The rest, as they say, is (literary) history. He also shares how he kept up a continuous inner narrative about himself - a “diary existing only in the mind”.Īt age 16, he “discovered the joy of mere words” when he read Paradise Lost, a feeling, I think, that all writers and avid readers can relate to. As time progressed, he began writing short stories. Throughout all this, though, he wrote incessantly.Īs he recounts in the essay, he knew he wanted to be a writer at age 5 or 6. Later, he was a bookshop assistant, went to serve in the Spanish Civil War, and worked in the BBC’s propaganda department during WWII. Orwell served as police officer in Burma, London, and Paris before becoming a teacher. Orwell (whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair) died prematurely at age 46 due to tuberculosis. The essay was part of a collection of famous writers’ personal motivations, published in the magazine Gangrel.
In 1946, George Orwell - of Animal Farm and 1984 fame - wrote an essay entitled ‘ Why I Write’.
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