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In my early-twenties, I discovered Nineteen Eighty-Four and was fascinated by it. Even at that age, I could see how it related to the world of the 1990s and, of course, even more so to today’s society. With constant surveillance through cameras, over sharing on social media, and news being manipulated to fit the agendas of the companies that own it, Orwell’s predictions have almost become a reality. While George Orwell believed it would be the government taking control of our lives, I think it’s the corporations. The rest he got right.
Early Life
George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, India, the son of Ida and Richard Blair. His father worked in Bengal as a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service. Orwell described his family as “lower-upper-middle class.” Eric was the middle child of three, with one sister five years older and another five years younger. When Eric was one-year-old, his mother moved the children to England.
After moving to England as a young boy, he was sent to St Cyprian’s School, a boarding school in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Eric did not have many friends there and found his time at the school difficult. Even at that young age, he was keenly aware of how he was treated because his family was less wealthy than many of the other students…
