George Orwell:

- “A Hanging”

- Summary:

- The descriptions Orwell uses in the beginning are more detailed towards the

prisoner to humanize him and get the audience to pity him since he is so willing.

- The soldiers call the killing of this man “this job”

- “The prisoners can’t get their breakfast till this job’s over.”

- Orwell doesn’t even admit he’s part of this until a handful of paragraphs in, and

even then, he does so suddenly. This gives this essay a selfless quality since he

decides not to focus on himself.

- Orwell uses the happy dog to emphasize that the people around him can’t see

compassion, since they call it a “brute” when it just wants to be pet

- When Orwell focuses his descriptions of the man more through his own eyes, the

way he describes him gives him progressively more humanity, going from talking

about his body parts to talking about him as a “Healthy, conscious man”

- The prisoner makes a conscious choice to avoid a puddle in the walk. This shows

just how sane, normal, and functioning he is to Orwell

- While Orwell has a revelation about the man’s life, he slips back into the ways

that were trained into him when the man becomes a nuisance (crying out to the

point of being annoying). Eventually, he laughs with them because he feels like

he should and almost has little control over it.

- In the end, the Burmese and English people there bond over laughing about the

dead man.
 - At this point, Orwell has begun to understand the realities of imperialism that

cause him to turn against it, probably while writing this.

- “Shooting an Elephant”

- Orwell’s main message in this essay is that those who enact colonialism place

themselves in a position of power that forces them to dehumanize themselves in

order to keep it. There are two reasons he makes this argument instead of talking

about death.

- 1. He knows his audience likely has little sympathy for the Burmese

people, so to appeal to the only group they would care about in this

situation (an insecure white man) is his best bet at winning anti-imperialist

agreement.

- 2. He is still coming to terms with the reality of his position in Burma. He

states clearly that he is torn between a knee-jerk reaction of hating the

Burmese for hating him and hating the cause of all this: the empire.

- Orwell is extremely honest with his audience, even calling himself selfish and

insecure at some points. This is because honesty will help him connect with the

anxieties his audience likely feels about England’s presence in colonies waning.

- Since Orwell knows his readers won’t sympathize with the Burmese people, the

unnecessary cruelties on the elephant work.

- “Marrakech”

- Orwell tries to make the point that the insignificance of the Burmese people is

part of what makes them so important. He takes this angle to get his reader to
 sympathize with him, and explain why their views actually contradict each other

and simply serve to prove his.

- The Jewish people in the slums, the carpenter, the women with their backs bent

double, weeding, women carrying firewood every day, so tiny compared to the

wood

- Old, weak women are viewed as a “beast of burden” each

- Orwell’s point is that part of the reason to care about and notice the Burmese

people is because no one else is going to

- “The Spike”

- In this essay, Orwell describes the conditions of British “Spikes”, homeless

shelters that can only be slept-at for one night

- They are not allowed to go in with money (trying to keep them poor)

- Now that they realize Orwell was born rich(er), they start to treat him with

respect, almost out of nowhere

- Long descriptions of bad conditions serve to disgust the reader to sway them

- They all have to bathe in the same water, dozens of them

- Even the carpenter who wasn’t born poor dehumanizes them

- In the end, Orwell is given cigarette ends by a man whom he had given some two

a few days previous as an act of kindness

- “Revenge Is Sour”

- Orwell visits a Nazi prison with a Jewish man who is the guard there; the guard

treats the prisoners brutally

 - He makes the point that once the atrocity is over, the victim has the power to get

revenge, but since the atrocity is over, it is just a new violent act instead of

revenge since the brute who hurt them in the first place is powerless now like

they were

- The woman with Mussolini’s body

- “Once under lock and key, they almost cease to be monsters”

- “Notes on Nationalism”

- Orwell is reflecting on what he saw politically during the WWII era, extreme

opinions from both the left and right of the political spectrum. He wants to expose

that fanatical tendencies can some from so many different places, and he wants

people to immunize themselves from these with healthy political passion and

skepticism.

- Orwell emphasizes the importance of constant political vigilance and

fact-checking

- He also wants everyone to know that nationalistic feelings are common, often

almost inescapable

- “Pleasure Spots”

- This essay talks about artificially-made vacation spots

- Uses an excerpt from “Kubla Khan” to give the image of overstimulation that

happens
 - He thinks that nature is better for the human mind and spirit, and that artificial

vacation spots are meant to simulate the womb and block out the animal

discomforts people cannot avoid

- Orwell argues that human beings need both comfort and freedom, and that

simplicity in nature must be preserved, lest technology drive the human race to

being more like animals

- “Politics and the English Language”

- Orwell is partially giving writing advice here and partially trying to show his reader

how political writing uses language to manipulate the truth and justify horrible

things

- Some of his writing advice tells the reader to avoid sounding pretentious, avoid

using ridiculously long words, avoid using foreign words, and stop using cliches

altogether.

- Orwell believes that unnecessarily complicated language ruins the emotion that

the piece it trying to convey, and that writers should worry less about sounding as

intelligent as they can and more about the words having the proper impact

- “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad”

- Orwell uses the beauty of the toad to guilt the reader into agreeing that the

environment is important and should be enjoyed as such

- He also tries to tell people that loving the beauty of nature is a rebellious act

against the authority in and of itself, one that helps remind people of the moral

goodness that makes them human

 - His final point is that he believes it is important to remember that one can be

politically passionate and enjoy nature at the same time, that happiness in the

miserable time he lives in is important

- “Why I Write”

- Orwell claims that his motives for writing are largely selfish, like when he calls it

“Sheer Egoism”. Until the end of the essay, he doesn’t talk about the political

motives, and even then, he talks about how he wants to “turn political writing into

an art”.

- Also, he views writing as an exhausting, selfish struggle. Until he had a political

passion to his writing, his writing was dry and artless.

- “Such, Such Were the Joys”

- In this essay, Orwell tells a story of his times at boarding school. Since there has

been several decades since these events happened to him, he is an unreliable

and disorganized narrator, and he admits it.

- By talking about how he was born not-rich and he wet the bed, he was

predisposed to being marked as a bad and abnormal child, and this made him

believe that he was inherently evil.

- Also, he was beaten by teachers and high-ranking students. When it didn’t hurt,

he was hurt again, showing that they care more about hurting him than his

discipline. When the riding crop breaks on him, Orwell is blamed. So, he believes

himself evil by nature.

 - In part V, he talks about how the religious codes at his school contradicted each

other (like a resentment of the working class, along with an admiration of hard

work)

- At his school, the boys were snobbish, always vigilant of signs of someone’s

wealth, always bragging about what kind of wealth their families have.

- Orwell doesn’t believe Scotland is a nice place to look at, but only rich people can

vacation there, so they talk it up.

- Orwell talks about how all of this (contradicting morals, beatings he was blamed

for, punishment for bodily function, lack of inborn wealth), made him believe that

he would only face failure, even until his death.

- Hanging, Marrakech, and Such Such share a theme of dehumanization

Morrison’s ​Sula:​

- There is a concept in Sula that death is an essential part of life, incomplete without it.

- Eva killed Plum as what she saw as an act of compassion, letting him die quickly instead

of waste away

- There is (yonic?) symbolism with the grass in the Chicken Little scene, cleaning off the

sticks, poking holes in the dirt. This, of course, is paired with something that pops the

bubble of innocence forever: the death of Chicken Little. While it was an accident, Nel

doesn’t really know how to feel about it into the future, while Sula gets upset.

- Nel seems almost dead and interested, much like Sula does when she watches

her mother burn

- Shadrack represents permanency, since he’s always ringing his bell and selling his fish

like clockwork. Since he holds Sula’s belt, he has a connection to the center of the town,

since belts sit at the center of a person and gather clothes

- Morrison implies that women don’t need men, and if they start to believe they do, it will

bring about an end, since women are discarded as objects. Sula trying to take on a

traditional role is what brings about Ajax not recognizing her as her, and so she almost

betrays herself in a way. When he leaves, she is unable to separate him from her, and

so she leaves with him, crumbling through sickness as he does in her mind.

- When Sula dies, the entire town dies with her, but they aren’t scared, they are overjoyed

and have almost found new life in a way, bringing the entire town and its new projects

down with them.

- After Sula’s funeral, Nel’s cry from in the bathroom finally comes out, since Sula’s end

brings along the end of Nel’s pause.