By George Orwell
Orwell's wartime portrait of English national character
Subject
Themes
As bombs fall from aircraft during wartime, the men flying them feel no personal hatred for those below, each merely serving a country that absolves him of guilt. This paradox opens an attempt to pin down what England actually is before guessing what role it might play in the vast events then unfolding. Patriotism emerges as the single most powerful force in the modern world, stronger than Christianity or international Socialism, a force Hitler and Mussolini understood while their opponents did not. National differences are real rather than imagined: Hitler's June purge of his own rivals could never have happened in England, and returning from abroad brings an immediate, almost physical sensation, bitterer beer, heavier coins, greener grass, that confirms English civilisation is distinctive and continuous, stretching from the England of 1840 into the England of 1940 the way an adult remains connected to a childhood photograph, sharing nothing except being the same person.
As bombs fall from aircraft during wartime, the men flying them feel no personal hatred for those below, each merely serving a country that absolves him of guilt. This paradox opens an attempt to pin down what England actually is before guessing what role it might play in the vast events then…
The summer and autumn of 1940 form the immediate backdrop against which this account of English character takes shape. France had collapsed in June, the British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk in a hastily improvised rescue involving fishing boats and pleasure…
The starting claim is stark: patriotism and national loyalty are the most powerful positive forces operating in the modern world, stronger than Christianity, stronger than international Socialism, stronger than any rational calculation of self-interest. Men flying bombers feel no personal hatred for…
The claim that England is really two nations, the rich and the poor, is not denied but granted outright. Inequality of wealth is acknowledged to be worse than anywhere else in Europe, visible simply by looking down the nearest street. Only half a million people, those living in country houses, are…
The question of what holds a nation's identity together across time and diversity is treated as urgent rather than merely descriptive, since any guess about what part England might play in unfolding world events depends on first establishing what England actually is. The difficulty is acknowledged…
The British Empire is treated not as a source of strength but as a slowly stagnating system that has quietly hollowed out the classes meant to run it. Nearly a quarter of the earth is described as under British control, yet held with remarkably little force, fewer armed men across the whole Empire…
Hypocrisy is treated not as a simple flaw to be condemned but as a strange, structural safeguard running through English public life, one that repeatedly produces better outcomes than honesty would. The clearest example concerns the Empire itself: the English are shown to hate militarism and boast…
As bombs fall from the sky in wartime, the men flying the aircraft feel no personal hatred for those below, and the feeling is mutual. Each side is simply doing its duty, absolved of guilt by service to a country. This strange fact points to something larger: patriotism and national loyalty are the…
National characteristics rarely survive close inspection without looking trivial. Spaniards are cruel to animals, Italians cannot do anything quietly, the Chinese gamble compulsively, yet nothing is truly causeless, not even the fact that Englishmen have notoriously bad teeth. Two generalisations…
A challenge presents itself directly: isn't England really two nations, the rich and the poor, and hasn't the word England been used carelessly throughout, as though Scottish and Welsh readers had no separate culture of their own? On the smaller point first, Scotsmen genuinely resent being called…
Waterloo may have been won on the playing fields of Eton, but every opening battle of every war since has been lost there. Over three quarters of a century the English ruling class has decayed in ability, and that decay accelerated sharply between 1920 and 1940. Yet the class still exists, because…
The stagnation of the Empire between the wars struck two sub-sections of the middle class especially hard: the military and imperialist type nicknamed the Blimps, and the left-wing intelligentsia. Though they appear to be opposites, the bull-necked colonel with his diminutive brain and the highbrow…
Over the previous twenty years, the middle class has extended both upward and downward, on such a scale that the old division of society into capitalists, proletarians, and petit bourgeois has become almost obsolete. Property and financial power remain concentrated in very few hands, and most people…
By George Orwell
Subject
Themes
As bombs fall from aircraft during wartime, the men flying them feel no personal hatred for those below, each merely serving a country that absolves him of guilt. This paradox opens an attempt to pin down what England actually is before guessing what role it might play in the vast events then unfolding. Patriotism emerges as the single most powerful force in the modern world, stronger than Christianity or international Socialism, a force Hitler and Mussolini understood while their opponents did not. National differences are real rather than imagined: Hitler's June purge of his own rivals could never have happened in England, and returning from abroad brings an immediate, almost physical sensation, bitterer beer, heavier coins, greener grass, that confirms English civilisation is distinctive and continuous, stretching from the England of 1840 into the England of 1940 the way an adult remains connected to a childhood photograph, sharing nothing except being the same person.