Orwell and Socialism

Abstract Orwell is well known for an insistent heterodoxy, even while he suggests, in “Why I Write,” that “every line of [his] serious work [ … ] has been written [ … ] for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.” This chapter stages a dialogue between paradox and socialism in Orwell’s writing, looking at different ways in which ironic, and even self-contradictory, expression might be recruited into the service of political thought. It focuses, first, on Orwell’s searing political experience in wartime Spain, as offering the strongest biographical rationale for such a conjunction of commitment and uncertainty. It then turns to The Road to Wigan Pier, a book written before Orwell departs for Spain but that already combines his programmatic political urgency and paradoxical irony.