From Politics to Literature

A Consideration of Jonathan Swift and George Orwell

Aparna 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 has also 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 persuade, 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 journalism 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 into two mutually exclusive groups, the vulgar low-brow public and the superior high brow one, has been a feature of the last t w o centuries in England but really became pronounced in the later half of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth century. Corresponding to the disintegration of the concept of the 'common reader' has been the polarisation of literature into the extremes 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 journalism and literature have almost nothing in common, even though It is obvious that the major literary f o r m of modern times, the novel, derives from the same rootstock as journalism. Journalism is assumed to be the lower species, concerned w i t h the surface phenomena of life, with the trivial and the transient, in contrast to creative literature 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 literature, they are believed to be practised on entirely different planes as far as choice of subject matter, its arrangement and the style of writing are concerned. fessional journalist or writer is committed to, sometimes narrow, political interests. The practice of political journalism presupposes a dedicated and often exclusive interest in politics w h i c h is n o t to everyone's taste. Theoretically politics should be the concern of every individual. The creation of the rational and free society which is the goal of human endeavour demands the involvement of all i n dividuals in community and national affairs, even if this means no more than helping to form a consensus of opinions through 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, journalism concerned e x p l i c i t l y and exclusively with political issues has from the beginning assumed a high level of p o l i tical commitment, at times passionate i n volvement, on the part of the writer. Though commercial inducements even to the committed political journalist have not been lacking (the eighteenth century was notorious for bribery and horsetrading), some kind of personal conviction was necessary to brave the dangers associated with the profession right up to the early nineteenth century. Political journalists had indeed to endure whipping, fines, imprisonment, the pillory, occasionally even the gibbet. Even if at times dimly, the concept of the "public g o o d " , in Swift's sense of the term, has always guided political journalists. Political journalism in England may be viewed as an outgrowth of the seventeenth century revolution. The overthrow 919

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 situation. In 1854, while writing Hard Times on the theme of industrial relations, Dickens went to Preston to cover a famous strike of the cotton m i l l workers there. He reported the strike in his journal Household Words in February 1854, His impressions there are sympathetic to the workers who are orderly and disciplined, though his political conclusion is conservative in that he thinks it is a huge waste, "encroaching" on the l i v e l i h o o d of thousands and deepening the " g u l f of separation" between H those whose interests must be understood to be identical or must be destroyed," In the novel, Hard Times, which was also published in weekly i n stalments in Household Words, the creative artist takes over, transforming and fleshing out the bare facts. He decides not to make the strike the centre of the action as he had earlier intended, and concentrates on individual relationships. 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 worker, who are all seen as victims of the general dehumanising process of i n 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 admires the order and discipline of the strikers; in the novel they are represented as a stolid, unthinking mass swayed by unscrupulous demagogues. The political journalist, unlike the pro-

A n n u a l Number M a y 1983 of the Star Chamber in 1641, and w i t 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 cont r o l over and censorship of all printed matter, opened the way for the regular and uninterrupted flow of printed matter dealing w i t h politics and theological speculation. Parliamentary censorship was reimposed by Cromwell in 1643 and continued in one form or another till 1695, when the official censorship finally lapsed. Parliament continued to devise ways and means, like the notorious Stamp Acts, to keep the press under control, and even as late as the early nineteenth century, committed political journalists like W i l l i a m Cobbett and Richard Carlile continued to suffer long spells of i m prisonment in defence of the liberty of the Press.2 Political journalism thrives only when certain conditions exist. It presupposes a high level of p o l i t i c a l consciousness among the general public such as is made possible in revolutionary periods when the continuing class struggle or struggles between political groups assume the form of open conflict whether in outright revolution or through other forms of political activity. The 17th century was juch a period when the emergent bourgeoisie in England rose in revolt against the feudal order to overthrow it and assume political power. During a revolution the whole of society is convulsed and i l l classes are drawn into the struggle. Political journalism flourishes in such a period as each faction attempts to win over, through oratory and the written w o r d , the vacillating masses to its side. In such times political journalism achieves itature as an extension of full-fledged political activity. Through the medium of journalism political ideas and strategies go round between the masses and their leaders in the battlefield and the parliament. In times of strife and struggle, the f u l l 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, persuisiveness becomes a critical factor. The successful p o l i t i c a l j o u r n a l i s t must therefore be able to convince his wavering leaders, with every trick at his command, whether, by a greater show of factuality or hetoric, that his version of events or their plerpretation is preferable to that of
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ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY writers f r o m the opposite camp. Built on undisguised partisanship, the best political journalism therefore tends to appear as a war of wits, copiously discharging its loaded shafts on the object of attack. The relation between the writer and the reader of political journalism is a straightforward and direct one. The political journalist speaks to and for a particular class, a religious sect or a political faction. He must speak w i t h i n the language and cultural ethos he shares w i t h his readers. Breaking the monopoly of the clerical or learned class, the writers of the seventeenth century w h o ventured to write on religious and political affairs in a popular, manner came f r o m every stratum of society and included uneducated soldiers, itinerant preachers, small tradesmen and craftsmen as well as educated gentry. They pioneered the style of w r i t i n g which the Royal society was later to recommend to its members: .. .a close, naked, natural way of speaking; 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. W h i l e the general rules of clarity, i n telligibility and simplicity apply to all journalists who have any wish to be heard and taken note of in the c r o w d , or to reach the largest public, they must also take care to adapt their style for their intended audience. The plain style of the seventeenth century radical propagandist w o u l d not appeal to the sophisticated gentlemen of the eighteenth century. The styles and methods of political j o u r nalism change w i t h each age depending on its special needs, as the focus of political activity moves from one group or class to another 4 . Underlying the rise and development of political journalism 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 modern 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. At its best public o p i nion acted as a corollary to representative government. So long as public opinion was looked up to for guidance and approval when the Government initiated any political action, the people's liberties were safe. When public opinion was neglected or ignored, an age of political repression ensued. F r o m this point of view the political journalist became the conscience keeper of the nation. His voice was heard most loudly in moments of political crisis and repression, organising, shaping and directing public o p i n i o n towards reasserting the people's rights and liberties.
POLITICAL M A N

Political journalism is concerned w i t h politics in its modern sense. In Shakespeare's plays the words ' ' p o l i t i c s " and " p o l i t i c i a n s " convey an evil impression of manipulators, schemers, and ambitious self-seekers. The seventeenth century Revolution which gave b i r t h to the democratic idea did away w i t h this idea of politics as an exclusive or conspiratorial activity. It posited the idea of political man, upholding 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 w h o m they were to be ruled. The ideas of representative government and adultat that time, manhoodsuffrage, around which all political activity has since centred 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, political j o u r nalist and actor in the main drama. The supreme example that comes to mind is of John M i l t o n , whose peers and even lesser men shared this renaissance capacity to live life to the f u l l . Milton's Areopagitica is a w o r k of literature but it is also a political pamphlet written on a particular occasion, condemning a certain course of political action and suggesting another. It continues to be read for the M i l t o n i c grandeur and vigour of the prose, the sweeping rhetoric and the thundering denunciation. For literary critics, its f o r m , based on the Areopagic discourse of Isocrates and its complex logical development of the argument, is extremely satisfying. At the same time it is no mere literary exercise; its magnificent and stirring ideas have continued to i n spire later generations. It remains at once a work of art and a work of political j o u r nalism. W i t h 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 M i l t o n ' s Areopagitica does not occur more often. Addison and Steele were gifted writers but their political j o u r nalism rarely rises beyond the mediocre. Samuel Johnson's journalistic work is

ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY d u l l . Literary skill by itself does not ensure automatic success in political w r i t i n g . Some of the best examples of political writing come from writers w i t h little or no acquaintance with literature. The writings of the seventeenth century Levellers and Diggers like Gerald Winstanley, Richard Overton, W i l l i a m Walwyn are truly eloquent and worthy of being called good literature, though coming from men of humble non-learned backgrounds. Their work is simple and direct w r i t i n g straight from the heart and their language is the living language of the common people, restrained and ordered by sobriety and good taste. The underlying reason and logic of their arguments give their style muscle and tone. Here for instance, is a Leveller, probably W i l l i a m W a l w y n , protesting against the imprisonment of the Leveller leader, John Lilburne, in Newgate, in a pamphlet entitled A Pearle in a Dounghill (1646): It is easier to discerne who are their Creatures in the House of Commons, and how they were made theirs, constantly manifesting themselves by their will and pernicious 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 our Lawes and Lawyers are maintained, and the Reformation intended in all things, performed 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 vexation and danger; 5 The forthrightness, directness and lack of ornament is engaging and carries conviction. The premises governing the writing of political journalism and literature are different. The political journalist dealing for the most part w i t h known events and personalities 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 of reason, so the political journalist must be skilled in logical argument. The style of political journalism should be clear, concise, and direct. Images, metaphors, figures of speech are usually avoided, though when used they are usually for i l lustrative purposes, and care is taken at all times that they do not, as rhetorical ornaments, 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. Assuming the distinction between political journalism and creative literature to be absolute, it may be generalised that political journalism 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 not bound 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 journalism 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 response 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 onesided approach to the problems of life in contrast to the rich complexity of creative literature. The partisanship which is a prerequisite of political journalism implies a certain imbalance, though that indeed is necessary if the political journalist is to correct, as he desires to, the imbalances 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 draw the boundaries of each, if only for the simple reason that the same authors were simultaneously engaged in all three. The journalist, the political journalist 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 the educated 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 conversation 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 coffeehouses for their exclusive use as rallying centres and for the distribution of political papers and pamphlets. In the age of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, political interest was

Annual Number May 1983 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 in the excellent contemporary translations like those of Alexander Pope. Used to reading the best literature, he was familiar with literary methods and techniques like irony, parody, satire and so on. The close interaction in eighteenth century England between the writer and his social environment produced a popular style sutiable for journalism and also for literature. This style is modelled on conversation 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 literature in the eighteenth century. Just as journalism draws upon traditional literary 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 narration. The relationship between journalism and prose fiction is so 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 journalist. The journalist's close attention to every minute and trivial detail of the passing scene foreshadows the novelist's concentration 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 journalist, using the literary skills of characterisation and description to create fictional characters and situations anticipates the novelist's use of the technique of narrative fiction to create whole new worlds populated with the creatures of his own imagination. The difference between the j o u r n a l i s t ' s and the novelist's use of essentially similar techniques is that the journalist works within the given pattern of social and political reality using recognisable social and political character types or, rather, personae, 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, 921

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ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY social types. T h i n g s " , because in t r u t h , there is nothing beneath. W i t h the typical satiric exuberance of the Tale, Swift exposes the ridiculous discrepancy between " i n s i d e " and " o u t s i d e " , of pompous inflated style stretched over a yawning void of nothingness. 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 homlier, 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 a Hen, 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 " m o d e r n i s m " , Swift may have been less than fair to the scientific, if pedantic scholarship of Richard Bentley and others like h i m , but he is able, with an astonishing prescience to hint at the problems faced by a modern writer, striving to achieve some significant order in a bewilderingly complex w o r l d . A m o n g other things the modern writer is faced with the problem of transcending the fluid temporality of an insistently material reality to discover the universal in the flux and flow of life. Swift's intention in the tale was partly polemical, to expose the "illiterate Scribblers" who made it their business to attack the church and the clergy through scurrilous and ill-mannered pamphlets. It is to Swift's purpose to reveal the " E r rors, Ignorance, Dullness and V i l l a n y " of these scribblers. This he does by parodying 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 pamphleteers and 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 Whigdominated age, Swift was reacting more as a writer dedicated to the classical standards 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 T o r y . In his political journalism Swift continued to stress the connection between shallow, false thinking, and superficial or muddled writing as in his attacks on Steele and other W h i g writers. Swift saw the rising commercial values, evident in journalistic hack-work and the shelving of all true humane values in

Annual Number May 1983 favour of superficial pedantry as all part of the same W h i g ethos that was the spirit o f modernism. In the twentieth century the spirit of the eighteenth century Grub Street has spilled over the historical confines of the actual G r u b Street. For Orwell too in the 1930s the chief enemy of good writing and creative literature was the rising commercial ethos. Orwell acutely felt in his own person the problems faced by a modern writer-journalist, on one side the economic pressure to produce for the market and on the other the difficulty of shaping the materials of modern reality, seemingly so very inimical to art, into a meaningful pattern. Keep the Aspidistra Flying, 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 including his own Mice go unsold, while the demand for the 'best sellers' is unabated. W i t h a heavy-handed symbolism that runs through and ruins the book, the epitome of modern hack-work is seen as the advertising jingle, a meaningless assemblage of euphonious and soothing words, against which the abstract imagist poetry of the type G o r d o n aspires to write is rather crudely set off. The book is about the conflict in the mind of the hero between writing unproductive, unpaying poetry, and selling his soul to M a m m o n 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 "cannot" work. But it is quite true; there are times when one cannot work. Money again, always money! Lack of money means discomfort, means squalid worries, means shortage of toabcco, means everpresent consciousness of failureabove all it means loneliness. How can you be anything but lonely on two quid a week? And in loneliness 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 i n 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 l i t erature was the repository for certain values inherent in its form and style as much as in the content. In a series of 923

II 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 journalism 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 o w n times, and of the impact of a rapidly developing j o u r 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 ' m o d e r n ' w r i t e r - j o u r n a l i s t , complete with all appurtenances of garret-lodgings, semi-starvation, misplaced cockiness, dullness of intellect and so on. This 'freshest' of 'moderns', in the sense of being the latest, earnestly defends his age against the imputation of being "altogether unlearned, and devoid of writers in any k i n d " , by referring to lists of titles even though he is unable to produce the original works which had been "hurryed so hastily o f f the scene, that they escape m e m o r y " . Throughout the dedication to Prince Posterity too, Swift draws attention to the ephemerality of modern productions which indeed is the hallmark and bane of modern j o u r n a l i s m , as against the permanence of the classics. The egoism of the modern writer, so absorbed in his own writings, like the selfsufficient spider in the Battle of the Books, is ridiculed in the person of the "modern a u t h o r " , who boasts of his compendious treatise, written after ' ' lo n g sollicitation", to supply the "momentous defects" of modern learning, persisting despite all the latter's wonderful achievements. The proud " m o d e r n " promises that the "judicious reader" will find his treatise neglects nothing that can be of use " u p o n any emergency of l i f e " and that it has "included and exhausted all that human imagination can rise or fall to". This wide and delusive expansiveness goes alongside a superficiality characteristic of " m o d e r n " w r i t i n g , by which Swift means the writings of his own age. The superficiality of the modern writer is complemented by the "superficial V e i n " in readers who, quite rightly, refuse to "inspect beyond the Surface and Rind of

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ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY essays and articles written between 1938 and 1945 Orwell attempted to define his concept of good literature through a kind of sociological-critical analysis of contemporary trends in popular literature and the arts spanning such diverse fields as boys' magazines, crime thrillers, comicpost-cards and the art of Salvador D a l i . In his essay, 'Inside the Whale' (1940), Orwell sums up the main literary tendencies of the twenties and thirties and comes to the conclusion that it is no longer "a writer's w o r l d " , 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 individual'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 in the process as a writer. For as a writer he is a liberal, and what is happening is the destruction 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 i t , 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 D a l i . 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 being conditioned to accept sadistic violence, cruelty and, inevitably, totalitarianism. Both Swift and Orwell had a true i n stinct for literary form and techniques. But all the same it is the political impulse, expressed through their political j o u r nalism 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 j o u r nalists w i t h the great political issues of their time. Orwell expresses the nature of the relationship between his artistic i m 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 writing into an a r t . " 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, nonindividual activities that this age forces on all o f us." 8 The question is whether Orwell, like Swift before h i m , 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 literature. As Swift does in his famous Drapier Letters, Orwell too is able to achieve, particularly in a series of wartime articles entitled " A s I Please" written for the Tribune, a high level of committed journalism. 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 embodies the values for which the war was being foughtfreedom of speech, democracy, socialism. He addresses ordinary people w i t h the conviction of being understood and listened to. In their creative w r i t i n g t o o , 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 visualised 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. Politicians and intellectuals too often forget that " i t is men that change circumstances and that the educator himself needs e d u c a t i n g " . 9 For all their p o l i t i c a l mistakes and shortcomings, Swift and Orwell never forgot this basic principle in their political journalism, where their aim is consistently to involve the individual by appealing to him personally and directly. By deploying ''persona'' in particularised situations based on the prevailing political reality, Swift and Orwell brought politics to the level of "practical, human sensuous activity". 1 0 The Irish common people could, for instance, easily i d e n t i f y w i t h the Drapier in his resistance to English oppression and learn from h i m . The writer too can participate in the political upheavals by helping to destroy myths and illusions, by uncovering the true face of reality and in general by creating the consciousness far

A n n u a l Number May 1983 social change. This can be done not in isolation but in active participation w i t h the political movement, as fighter, as journalist and as writer.

Ill Swift and Orwell

There are striking similarities between the 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 familiarity with Swift's writings, he does not show much awareness of Swift's greatness as a polemic writer, as the author of the Drapier's Letters or as the T o r y journalist. Both Swift abd Orwell shaped and used prose as the medium of reasoned and at times impassioned argument. Their extra-literary purpose which subsumes the purely literary gives a vigour and direction to their writings and accounts for the quality of their prose* described in Swift's case as " c o n 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 experience as a political journalist had formed 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 i m mediate purpose of supporting or opposing some definite course of action" 1 1 . In the case of O r w e l l , 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 purple passages, sentences without meaning, d e c o r a t i v e adjectives and h u m b u g g e n e r a l l y * ' 1 2 . I n O r w e l l and S w i f t generally, the consciousness of political purpose results in an e x t r a o r d i n a r y 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 m u l t i farious being. Swift was probably not aware of this, as he was so intensely and personally involved in the political situation of his time. It is true his brilliance and wit give a surface sharpness and brightness to his w o r k , but the surface hides a certain emotional thinness, a schematism that is opposed to the depth and m u l t i 925

A n n u a l Number M a y 1983 dimensionality of response and expression to be found in Shakespeare, Tolstoy or Balzac. While Swift thoroughly explored the possibilities for art in his chosen field of human experience, he, unlike the twentieth century artist, is less self-conscious of the enfeebling consequences on his art of the restricted vision implied in satire. Indeed Swift exhibits, as appears to the modern critic and readers, a certain obtuseness regarding the rationale of art functioning on various levels over and above its avowed purpose of mending the w o r l d . Having 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. U n like Swift, Orwell, living in the fragmented twentieth century and with a more specialised concept of literary craft, felt acutely the contradictions inherent in the situation of an artist torn between his love for the music of words and interest in individual relations characteristic of the novelist and his commitment to a political ideal of a free and just society which demands some sacrifice of his individualist bias. Thus when one places Swift and Orwell side by side and looks closely at the conditions of their life and w o r k , it becomes lear that in times of political and social crisis as in Swift's and Orwell's w o r l d , the sincere artist cannot create enduring literature while ignoring political 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 narrowing down of vision even in case of gifted men like Swift and O r w e l l 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 incegrity achieved -through the artistic realisation of a movement towards a positive rhythm in the life of man. Bertolt Brecht, writing during the period of Hitler'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, exploitative society, which makes unmixed Approval and delight in a "many sided w o r l 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 W h i g hegemony under Walpole, and Orwell, exposing the 926

ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY horrors of Fascist and totalitarian ideologies, decided that the appropriate literary expression for these deviations from the norms of reason demanded nothing less than the image of a universal madness. In the name of reason, civilisation and progress, capitalism and its m o d e r n descendant, t o t a l i t a r i a n i s m (which Orwell considered a form of statecapitalism) have allowed the basest human instincts, avarice and power-lust, to flourish, ignoring the claims of justice and equality and suppressing individual liberty and freedom. In their political journalism both Swift and Orwell fought with vigour against the rising trends towards political despotism. As creative artists, both used the form of satire to expose and destroy what they saw as the perversion of the rational ideal in their contemporary societies. Reason as a commonsensical and practical apprehension of material reality based on the laws of nature, is used as the satiric norm by both Swift and Orwell. Swift keeps in m i n d an ideal of a pure and uncorrupted reason which is set o f f against the weak and fallible reason of i n dividual men: "Reason itself is true and just, but the Reason of every particular Man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his Interests, his Passions, and his Vices". 1 3 In place of reason Orwell uses the analogous concept of "objective t r u t h " , the " c o m m o n basis of agreement, with its implication that human beings are all one species of a n i m a l " . 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 w o plus two equals f o u r " as a symbol for reason and common sense. Swift for instance in his pamphlet, Sentiments of a Church-ofEngland-Man refers to "Hoboes' comparison of Reasoning with Casting up Accounts; whoever finds a Mistake in the sum total, must allow himself o u t ; although after repeated trials, he may not see in which article he hath misreckone d " . Similarly Orwell in a book review refers to the necessity for keeping close to the "ordinary w o r l d where two and two make f o u r " . At the same time, both Swift and Orwell did not discount the irrational drives that are a part of the human makeup. To ignore the basic human impulses as the Deist philosophers in the eighteenth century and rationalist intellectuals in the twentieth d i d was seen by both Swift and Orwell as foolish. What was at issue was the supremacy 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 domination. Neither of them fully accepted the widely advertised concept of progress in their societies as leading unfailingly to the betterment of human society or happiness. Like many of his humanistic contemporaries, Swift was disturbed at the "aggressive demands of a utilitarian and mechanical science", as well as by the local aberrations of i n dividual virtuousos and quacks, the riffraff 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 f r i g h t f u l debauchery o f t a s t e " , the general debasement of standards and values in a commercialized and profitoriented 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 d e v e l o p m e n t s a p p e a r e d l i k e madness, 16 Delusion or madness as the perversion or abuse of reason is a dominant theme in the creative literature of both Swift and Orwell. From the attack on political delusion in their journalism, Swift and Orwell go on to create a literary image of madness as a contemporary social phenomenon. Their premise, arising from their political reading of their society, is that not only individuals but whole nations and 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 madness when politicians whip the people into a frenzy by raising false hopes and fears. I7 Madness is indeed endemic in A Tale of a Tub 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 learning 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 madness. Jack in his tattered rags and encrustation of filth 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. W i t h 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-

ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY stance, it is the madman, tearing his straw, "Swearing and Blaspheming, biting his Grate, foaming at the m o u t h , and emptying his Pispots at the Spectator's Faces", who fulfils the requirements of an army officer and should be sent to "Flandersamong the Rest", M a d ness itself is traced to the effect of certain peccant vapours that ascend to the brain from the lower regions, and transpose its parts, so that the "Fancy gets astride on his Reason,... Imagination is at Cuffs w i t h the senses, and C o m m o n sense is K i c k ' t out o f D o o r s " The voyage to Laputa in Gulliver's Travels has the most affinities w i t h the Bedlam scenes in A Tale. The mad philosophers 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 contemplation of the stars. As they converse learnedly or listen to the music of the spheres, their wives elope with the servants and their dependencies revolt. The projectors in the Academy at Lagado, a satire on contemporary virtuosos and experimentalists of the Royal society, arc shown as a species of madmen absorbed in senseless and futile experiments like softening marble for pillows, petrifying the h o o f of a living horse, sowing land w i t h chaff, and breeding woolless naked sheep. The standard of reason and common sense is used by Swift to set o f f the folly and madness of much of the contemporary experimental science. Even while the projectors of Lagado were engaged in their insane projects, the common people were reduced to starvation as crops failed and houses went to r u i n , and they,exhibiting the classic appearance of madness, "walked fast, looked w i l d , their eyes fixed, and were generally in Rags", though in fact it was their leaders and not they w h o were mad. In the fourth voyage of Gulliver's Travels, the voyage to the land of the H o u y hnhnms, the theme of madness is explored in a more subtle psychological level. The Yahoos are not mad. Not possessing reason, they can only behave in an irrational manner. Their shameless nakedness, their shrieking, gibbering and w i l d gestures, their playing with excrement, their careful hoarding of shiny coloured stones, and their fights over precedence are used for a satiric reflection on the f o l ly and vice of the human k i n d in general. Gulliver's final madness is expressed w i t h more complexity. A l l through the voyages Gulliver, the representative of rat i o n a l eighteenth century man, adapts himself to the strangest situations, sharing in the palace intrigues of men six i n ches high, boasting, like a strutting cock, before giants, extolling in various r i d i culous postures the glory of his own human k i n d . 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 maintain his human dignity. He finally meets his match in the Land of the H o u y hnhnms. In this last voyage the use of i l l u sion and perspective are more tricky and complicated, beginning w i t h the central fiction of the reversal of the man-beast relationship. Gulliver is nonplussed by the loathsome beasts that looked so suggestively 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 circumstances 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 look at his reflection in a pool, because he is afraid of being reminded 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 h i m . Recoiling from the Yahoos, he goes to the other extreme of imagining himself a H o u y h n h n m , 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 h i m . 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 mankind, Swift specifically had in m i n d the perversions of eighteenth century European man, even a 'reasonable* man, of whom Gulliver is an example. In positing the rational Houyhnhnms and the irrational Yahoos, Swift ironically exploits the discrepancy between the rational mask, which eighteenth century European man presented to the w o r l d and the reality of a crude society in which the irrational forces of greed and powerlust actually prevailed. Swift's anger and horror at the irrationality rampant in his society find an outlet in the explosive i m age of Gulliver's final madness w i t h which he shatters the complacency of his unsuspecting readers. In Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell, not unlike Swift in Gulliver's Travels presents a nightmare vision of a society in which all the norms of reason have been totally i n verted' The three slogans t h a i sum up the nature of Oceanian society point to this

A n n u a l Number May 1983 reversal of all values. Here " W a r is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and " I g norance is T r u t h ". The three ministries in charge of political, economic and educational affairs arc the Ministry of Plenty which presides over an economy of scarcity, the Ministry of T r u t h , the main business of which is to falsify the records, and the Ministry of Love in charge of supressing 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, i n stinctive level, and the intellectuals, the party members, in whom all the emotions, love, filial love, friendship and loyalty arc dead or are supposed to be dead. Reason in Oceania is synonymous w i t h party orthodoxy, 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, A m p l e f o r t h , 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 attempts to hold on to reason, reality, the truth that two plus two makes four despite the party's distortions and its attempts, backed by torture and electric shock therapy, to prove him wrong, W i n ston is not as self-assured as his eighteenth century counterpart, Gulliver. Gulliver, representative of an ascendant ideology, has the supreme self-confidence of his facile rationalism. As he steps into H o u y h n h n m l a n d , Gulliver is almost a parody of the European Traveller, fingering his beads and baubles, the white man confident of singlehandedly subduing any number of savages and Indians. Winston, a product of the more introspective twentieth century is tortured by doubts and despair. Unsure of himself, he is reduced to a state where his own past takes on an air of unreality so that he wonders whether he is recalling actual events that really occurred or only imagining incidents that never took place. Winston desperately clings to objects outside himself which are imbued for h i m with a material solidity by virtue of their antiquity and their identification; with human endeavour and history. They are tangible objects in a w o r l d where ob jects going into a 'memory hole' are obliterated, without trace even in human memories. Winston's diary, writter
927

A n n u a l Number M a y 1983 laboriously in an old notebook with an old-fashioned 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. Gulliver is at home in the w o r l d . Winston has 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 cannot 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 unt r u t h , and if you clung to the truth against the whole w o r l d , you were not m a d " . At almost the very next moment the Thought Police come crashing into his room to arrest him and Julia. While the twentieth century man is the .victim of an increasing alienation, there 'has been a corresponding advance in selfawareness and a sharpened sensibility. Emotionally Gulliver is hollow. Much is left to the reader's imagination, and indeed Swift seems hardly aware of the limited consciousness of his hero. Since Swift's time love, particularly sexual jlove, has come to assume a larger share in the modern imagination, Gulliver, reflecting 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 exists 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 still, as the frigidity and sexessness of Katharine, Winston's estranged wife. It is a pityand this is the novel's Weak pointthat the only possible alternative that is offered is Winston's love for l u l i a . Instead of stressing the obvious point, that in such a sick society no wealthier love is possible, Orwell seems, b y his non-ironic treatment of the whole episode, to be romanticising what is essentially a sordid affair. For O'Brien and the Party, Winston is Insane and needs to be cured through beatings, torture and electric shock. Winston's cure takes place within the 928

ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY 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 Inquisitor. The aim of all the ghastly tortures is to make Winston see that two plus two make five if the leader says so. Winston is eventually broken down by the greater psychological expertise of the Party. Using an ancient Chinese torture device aimed 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 anim a l " , " b l i n d , helpless, mindless". Worse still, in his broken state, he is ready to betray everybody and everything. The Party achieves its purpose, it has destroyed Winston's individuality, 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 W i n ston a gin-sodden physical and mental wreck, aimless, troubled by false memories, lost in tearful adoration of Big Brother. The perversion of reason can lead to irrationality or bestiality or it can develop into a rigid and inhuman mechanism. Both states are ultimately anti-human. In A Tale of a Tub, Swift ridicules Disenting preachers for mechanically using physical stimuli to arouse spiritual sensations. On the analogy of the philosopher " w h o , while his Thoughts and Eyes were fixed upon the Constellations, found himself seduced by his lower parts into a D i t c h " , 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 irrational impulses are polarised and embodied respectively in the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. Gulliver, by refusing to acknowledge the Yahoo in man and aspiring to the pure and somewhat mechanical reason of the Houyhnhnms (reason among them is not a " p o i n t problemetical") forgets his basic humanity, behaving alternatively like a beast, shunning 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 acquiesce in the system, all come under the satiric net. The basic satiric fiction equates humansand to their disadvantagewith animals. The projector's 'modest' boast is that his scheme will 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 communities were being driven o f f the land to make sheep-walks and cattle-runs which were more profitable for their owners. Swift's savage indignation at man's i n 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 fond of 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 miscarriage. In the projector's mechanical drawingboard 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 U t i l i 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 profession of disinterestedness on the ground that he himself falls outside the purview of his scheme, his wife being past childbearing, and his youngest child nine years old,

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 spontaneously but as an instrument to be consciously shaped and used for the human good. As language could be specifically used for persuasion or enlightenment, it could 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 function of language. As in other areas of human thought, the seventeenth century revolution affected a profound change in the attitude to language. Hobbes particularly, in Leviathan, shows a keen interest in the political use and abuse of language.

ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY He devotes a chapter to tracing the evolution of speech, "the most noble and profitable invention of all other", without which in fact there would be "neither Commonwealth, nor society, nor contract, nor peace no more than amongst Lyons, Bears and Wolves". Hobbes carefully tabulates the uses and abuses of speech and contents that "True and False are 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 appear, and can do incalculable harm if allowed to go unchecked. Accordingly, if a man sought t r u t h , his first concern was to take care of the precise meaning and ordering of his words, " o r else he will 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 action Hobbes' conception of language is primarily utilitarian, as was also Locke's, in that they used language to disperse the mists of error and superstition and reveal the truth as they perceived it. Hobbes disclaimed the use of ornament and eloquence in his writings because these tended 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 command) 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 w i t h all other schemes of Religion and Governm e n t . " Elsewhere Swift speaks disparagingly of Locke's "new style of w r i t i n g " , 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 enrichment 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 Orwell, language is inextricably bound up with human values. It embodies their deepest political beliefs, and its abuse is felt as a moral b l i g h t . Swift's lifelong crusade to protect and preserve the English language did not arise from a grammarian's pedantic concern 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 associated w i t h the W h i g hegemony. In his own w r i t i n g he sets a positive standard of correctness and good taste believing, as he puts it in his letter to a Young Clergyman, that "when a man's thoughts are clear, the properest w o r d s w i l l 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 vision. In each case the corruption of language is traced to the political vices against which Swift and Orwell were contending. Once again the basic issue involved in linguistic perversion is a desire to distort, or a refusal to sec reality. Language, instead of being used as a means to revelation and knowledge, is used as an instrument to distort and pervert t r u t h . This is done eit her by deliberate misuse of words or by the use of an obscure and inflated style in which all meaning is destroyed. Language loses its vitality and becomes a mechanical churning out of phrasesduckspeak; this also makes political conformity that much easier. Hence the fight for a pure uncontaminated language was a political imperative as Swift and Orwell both realised. By fighting for a pure language they were in effect fighting for the rational ideal of politics. As Or well put i t , " t o think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional w r i ters". 1 9

A n n u a l Number May 1983 cover for the worst excesses of irrational pride. In the writings of both Swift and O r w e l l the image of stripping away the layers of illusion to arrive at the disagreeable reality is a compelling one. Swift's famous images in A Tale of a Tub of the " W o m a n flayed" and the carcass of "a Beau s t r i p t " to reveal "So many unsuspected faults under one Suit of Cloaths", ironically underscore his satirical observation that "Credulity is a more peaceful Possession of the M i n d , than C u r i o s i t 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 t o ' l o o k at himself in a mirror. Though reduced to a physical wreck, Winston is still not cowed. He persists in claiming that the spirit of man w i l l 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. W i t h a brutal gesture, O'Brien, Winston's tormentor, makes him stand before a mirror after stripping o f f the filthy rags, all that remained of his clothes and tells h i m , " d o you see that thing facing you? That is the last man. If you arc human, that is h u m a n i t y " . Winston is not convinced. He persists in his belief that his spirit remains indomitable. Only the final episode of the rats strips him of all his defences, and he is left helpless and naked, screaming bundle of insane fear. By its perversion of reason and humanity 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 Swift and Orwell the creative writing by which they are remembered and which is most typical of their genius grew out of their journalistic 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 journalism must be taken into account if justice is to be done to their unique achievements as writers. It is of course meaningless to speculate on what they would have written had they not been i n 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 through the centuries. As political journalists they maintained a practical link with ordinary human life such as was becoming increasingly difficult to the artist committed to the conception of art as specialised activity. In the writings of Swift as well as of Orwell, the reader is 929

V Some Conclusions
As political journalists and finally as creative writers, Swift and Orwell fought for political justice and freedom against unjust, despotic regimes, or against a dominant ideology. Literature itself becomes subversive when it boldly questions prevailing assumptions and refuses to be bound to any orthodoxy. Swift and Orwell never compromised with the prevailing orthodoxies. Like the greatest literature their writings, because of their uncompromising honesty, have the power to shock and disturb. They attacked complacency, particularly of that insidious variety cloaked in reason. By insisting that man is a creature of impulse who can, and does, behave at times like a beast, realists like Swift and Orwell tear away the comforting illusion of man's i n herent rationalism which is used as the

A n n u a l Number May 1983 aware throughout of a speaking human voice directly addressed to h i 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 undoubtedly the greater writer, with a greater imaginative scope and control over language. Further, it appears that Orwell as a writer lacks that resilience, the co-existence of laughter even with despair, that makes Swift such an inspiring figure. Swift has an astringency, an intellectual toughness which is absent in Orwell. This may have been due, as Orwell himself suspected when referring to the paucity of good polemical literature in the twentieth century, to the degeneration of the standard of English prose style. The journalistic revolution of the twentieth century has made it both easier and harder for writers aspiring to create good literature. While facility becomes commonplace, it gets harder to arrive at the telling phrase, or achieve that control over language that is the mark of good writing.

ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY Studies", Oxford University Press, 1964, p 218. CEJL,I,p30 'On the Trinity', The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol I X , edited by Herbert Davis et al, Blackwell, Oxford, 1939-68, p 116. CEJL, I I , pp 295, 296. See R F Jones, The Background of the Attack on Science in the Age of Pope', in "Eighteenth Century English Literature" (ed) James L Clifford, OUP, 1959, p 77. "The Philosophies that have been inspired by scientific technique are power philosophies, and tend to regard everything 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 Philosophy", 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 Language', Journal of the University of Gauhati, XIX; Arts, 1969.

12 13

14 15

16

Notes
1 See Q D Leavis, "Fiction and the Reading Public", London, 1932, for a highly stimulating discussion of the whole problem. 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 "Seventeenth 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 Arm: A Selection of Leveller Writings", Seven Seas Book, Berlin, 1975, p 84. 6 "A Tale of a Tube" edited by A C Guthkelch 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 (henceforth CEJL), Vol 1, p 576. 8 Ibid, I, p 28 9 Karl Marx, 'Theses on Feuerbach', Marx and Engels, "Selected Works", Vol I, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, p 13. 10 ibid, p 14. 11 Herbert Davis, "The Conciseness of Swift in "Essays on his Satire and Other 930