Facades versus Reality

For many situations there exists both a perceived version of the situation and an actual version of the situation. Usually, these two versions vary in some sense. Some people will be able to understand honestly happened, but the majority is unable to see the truth of a situation. They instead view an inaccurate representation of the definite situation. George Orwell’s Such, Such Were the Joys, Juliet Schor’s The Overspent American, and Loren Eiseley’s The Firmament of Time, show how the truth of a situation is hidden by a façade.

In George Orwell’s Such, Such Were the Joys, the school Crossgates is perceived as a prestigious private school, when in fact its true operations run as a deceiving and disappointing institution. Orwell explained first how the institution’s standard of living was poorer quality than lower-class living. The narrator who came from a poor family retold that he “took a social step upwards by attending [Crossgates], and yet the standard of comfort was in every way far lower than in my own home, or indeed, than it would have been in a prosperous working-class home” (Orwell 434). Crossgates was perceived to have been a lavished place to reside, where the school kids would have top-notch residing quarters. Instead, the Crossgates boarding situation lacked all hospitability and had a lower standard of living than what would constitute as lower class.

The ascetics of Crossgates were despicable, as well. The institute reeked of a pungent odor, as well as allowing the kids to live in a state of malnutrition. Orwell recalled that “it was not was not easy for me to think of my school-days without seeming to breathe in a whiff of something cold and evil-smelling” (Orwell 436), as well as “often repeated to us at Cr...

... middle of paper ...

...e two. Often times, the façades prove triumphant over the truth. However, if we want society to advance we must recognize that living a life of illusions will not get us there. We must break the façades to uncover the truth. In the words of the American academic leader Edward Levi, “The concept of reason itself appears as an artificial attempt to separate intellectual powers from the frustrations, emotions, and accidents which cause events; the concept of reason is viewed as facade to prevent change.”

Works Cited

Eiseley, Loren C. The Firmament of Time. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1999. Print.

Orwell, George, and Richard Halworth Rovere. The Orwell Reader: Fiction, Essays, and Reportage. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, 1984. Print.

Schor, Juliet B. The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999. Print.