Eric Arthur Blair

Eric Blair’s fictional name was George Orwell , born

June 25,1903 in Motihari, India . At that time “India was part of the British

Empire”(Orwell page 1 of 4). This was near the turn of the century, so not many people could afford to move to India with out the “British

Empire”(Orwell pg. 1 of 4). Eric’s father Richard Blair was an agent of the

Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service.Blair’s Grandfather served in the Indian Army for sometime before Blair’s birth. His family was “ not very wealthy [Blair] later described them as lower-upper-middle class”(Orwell pg.1of 4). In fact, they owned no property or held any investment what’s so ever. When Eric was about 8 his family moved back to England and moved to a town called Henley, although his father still worked in India. Being middle-class, going to school was tough; however, his parents sent him to a private school in Sussex at the tender age of 8. By the time he was 13 he had received a “scholarship to Wellington, and soon after another to Eaton, the famous public school”(Orwell pg.1 of 4). After being forced to be good in school, he was not interested in “anymore … further mental exertion”(Orwell pg. 1 of 4). So he decided to go with his private ambition, to write. At the beginning he writes “ At the age of five or six [he] knew that he would be-must be a writer”(Orwell pg1 of 4). He made up his mind fast unlike many other writers. However, to be a writer one has to read literature. However, at

Eaton English Lit. was not a major subject, because “most boys [ that went to

Eaton] came from backgrounds either irremediably unliterary or so literary that to teach them English Literature would be absurd”(Orwell pg.1 of 4).

Although he wanted to become a writer he finished “138th of 167”(Orwell pg.

2 of 4). After this he decided to join the Indian imperial Police ; however, he later left after 5 years in service. This was distracting him from his main lifestyle, a writer and because “ wished to escape from …every form of man’s dominion over man”(Orwell pg. 2 of 4). In London he settled down into a

“grotty bedroom”(Orwell pg.2 of 4). And started to teach himself how to write. He was now twenty-four and “week after week he remained in his unheated bedroom”(Orwell pg. 2 of 4). It was so cold that he “[thawed] his hands over a candle when they became to numb to write”(Orwell pg. 2 of 4).