George Orwell’s Invention: The Last Man in Europe

Abstract

George Orwell achieved what Inez Holden’s character Gluckstein could only dream about in There’s No Story There. Gluckstein, a child-witness to the persecution of Jews in his East End community, grew into a man whose most passionate wish was “to get into the fight against everything he hated” (172). The things he hates include Mosley’s anti-Semitic fascists, Hitlers Nazis, English snobs, capitalist exploiters— the list of evils is almost as long as Orwell’s. Yet despite Gluckstein’s numerous hates and equally numerous good intentions, he feels that each time history has presented him with an opportunity for heroism “he was kept out of it all” (172).