Why I Write

Title: <How does the use of genre and writing style support the main ideas in George Orwell’s “Why I Write”?>

             George Orwell explains his motives of writing in his piece of writing, “Why I Write”. “Why I Write” is an essay explaining about reasons why people write and how he developed as a writer. In a first person’s point of view and in an informal way, George Orwell gives a short autobiography of himself and tells the readers about what kind of person he is. He also includes a poem in the essay when he explains about the dilemma he had. The main idea of this essay is how the author developed as writer and how his writing style changed throughout his life. The genre and the writing style support the main idea of this essay in various ways.

            First of all, one of the genres of “Why I Write” is autobiography, and it explains how the author started to write. The autobiography is written in an informal style of writing to explain to the readers more about what kind of person the author is. George Orwell starts to talk about himself from the very young age. From a young age, he decides that he should become a writer. Since he was lonely and felt isolated most of the time when he was young, he creates the literary world of his own and starts to write poems and short stories. Orwell discovers the joy of writing and mixing up the words. He explains it in chronological order, going through his ages. He explains about the events that happened during his life such as the Spanish War and talks about his works along with the events that happened. The autobiography support the author’s story of his life since it is most suitable way for showing his process of developing as a writer.

             Moreover, “Why I Write” is an expository essay which explains about main reasons why people write and expresses his own opinions towards it. There are four main motives why people write, that George Orwell mentioned in his essay. The first reason is “sheer egoism”, the desire to seem clever and like to be talked about. The second reason is “aesthetic enthusiasm”, which is the perception of beauty in the external world and using it in worlds. The third reason is “historical impulse”, the desire to find out true facts and to store them. The last reason is “political purpose”, which is the desire to pull people and alter their attention into a certain direction. The genre of this passage is expository, and so the motives listed are informative and explanatory. The writer says that “And looking back though my work, I see that it is invariably were I lacked political purpose that I wrote lifeless books.” He explains how he lacked the last motive of writing. Since he explains about the purposes for writing and how he evaluates his own work in an objective way, the expository genre supports the theme of idea by explaining it in the most effective way.

             Lastly, George Orwell includes a poem to express the dilemma that the author faced. The author says, “I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their own sound.” The purple passages stand for passages with fancy words without deep meanings, and are phrases used to expand the writing. Until then, George Orwell just focused on the first three motives and was unaware of political issues. However, as he went through personal hardships and saw Hitler and Spanish War take place, he grew hatred towards the authority and reached to his own political decision. He thinks that people should write definite passages rather than just fancy ones. The poem contains precise meanings in concise words, which explained the author’s dilemma in a very effective way.

             “Why I Write” is an essay filled with many different genres such as an expository writing, an autobiography, and a poem in the middle. It is explained in an informal way to make the gap between the author and the readers closer. George Orwell starts the essay by talking about himself, and then categorizes the motives why people write. Then, adds a poem that he wrote during the time when he had dilemma about his political stance. The author’s process of starting to write and then realizing about the way to write is the main theme throughout the essay. The various genres and the writing styles support the theme by flowing through the process of the main idea. (759 words)