Marrakech

Marrakech
by George Orwell
An Analysis of Diction and Rhetoric
George Orwell
•
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known
by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and
journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a
profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary
opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a
belief in democratic socialism.
Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English
culture, Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism
and poetry. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm
(1945). This pair of books has sold more than those of any other
twentieth-century author. His Homage to Catalonia (1938), an
account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side in
the Spanish Civil War which cemented his ideology, and his
numerous essays on various subjects relating to politics, literature,
linguistics, culture and lifestyle, are also widely acclaimed. Orwell's
influence on culture, popular and political, continues. Several of his
neologisms, along with the term Orwellian, now a byword for any
draconian or manipulative social phenomenon or concept inimical to
a free society, have entered the vernacular. (Wikipedia)
Six rules for writers
• In "Politics and the English Language", Orwell provides six rules for
writers:
– Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are
used to seeing in print.
– Never use a long word where a short one will do.
– If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
– Never use the passive where you can use the active.
– Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you
can think of an everyday English equivalent.
– Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
—George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, Horizon, April 1946
How much do you know
about Marrakech?
Discussion
• After you read the article, what’s your
impression about the place and the life
there?
• Have you found any words or expressions
interesting? Any examples of figures of
speech?
• Do you have any questions about the
article?  Marrakech
Style of the article
• Choices of words, e.g., concrete words,
various descriptions about soil, walking,
etc.
• Figurative language, e.g., alliteration,
simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche,
irony, hyperbole, etc.
• Selection and organization of examples
• Exposition with ironic perspectives
Further Reading
• Marrakech in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrak
ech
• Chimi, 我的非洲路，穷游网
http://www.go2eu.com/bbs/viewthr
ead.php?tid=256418&page=2 (in
Chinese)
• http://changeinplans.net/category/
morocco/marrakech/ (a family
travel)
• George Orwell - Complete works,
Biography, Quotes, Essays
http://www.george-orwell.org/
Recommended Topic for the Journal
• Invisible Poor
Please find online or in the
library a short description (no
less than 100 words) about
the poverty in China, India,
etc., and copy it to your
journal. Mark out the sources.
And underline the words and
expressions which are
interesting to you.
Next Week
• ―The Middle Eastern Bazaar‖
Please read the article before the class,
marking out interesting words and
descriptions. Notice the choices of words
and sentence schemes, figures of speech,
and sequence of description.
Q: Is it similar or different to the one Orwell
described in ―Marrakech‖?