In its analysis of Animal Farm , Burmese Days , Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Nineteen Eighty-Four , this book argues that George Orwell's fiction and non-fiction weigh the benefits and costs of adopting a doubled perspective - in other words, seeing one's own interests in relation to those of others - and illustrate how decency follows from such a perspective. Establishing this relationship within Orwell's work, Anthony Stewart demonstrates how Orwell's characters' ability to treat others decently depends upon the characters' relative capacities for doubleness.
Author(s): Anthony Stewart
Edition: 1
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 216
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
Preface......Page 12
Acknowledgments......Page 16
On Decency, Doubleness, and Updating Orwell......Page 18
Hardly Above Suspicion: Hypocrisy, Decency, and Sincerity in Burmese Days......Page 60
The Secret Art of Not Making Good: Gordon Comstock's Childish Narrowness in Keep the Aspidistra Flying......Page 86
An Absence of Pampering: The Betrayal of the Rebellion and the End of Decency in Animal Farm......Page 110
The Heresy of Common Sense: The Prohibition of Decency in Nineteen Eighty-Four......Page 140
Conclusion: Decency or Tolerance?......Page 170
Notes......Page 178
Bibliography......Page 202
Index......Page 210
