The Choice of a Form

Abstract

In ‘Why I Write’ Orwell says, ‘Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.’ He also says in the same essay that he had wanted for a long time to make political writing into an art. It is obvious, then, that after the disappointment of Homage to Catalonia he was searching for a way to get himself the hearing he wanted in a form that suited his purpose — primarily to expose the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union, the betrayal of the 1917 October Revolution and, after his own experiences in the Spanish Civil War, his disenchantment with all revolutions.