The choice of the way in life is the thing that everyone comes across someday. It has always interested me how tallented people choose their way, and George Orwell’s essay ‘Why I Write’, first published in 1946, is, to my mind, a comprehensive description of person’s way towards being a writer. Although Orwell writes about his own writing experience in order to explain why he has chosen to be a writer himself, the essay still reflects an abstract image of a writer as well; the four main reasons for writing given by Orwell seemed the most arguable part of the whole essay, and it would be curious to look into the matter of these reasons in order to understand how important each of them is for a writer and his works.
The first reason is defined by the author as ‘sheer egoism’ (‘desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc.’). The author emphasises the significance of ambition by using a term ‘the whole top crust of humanity’ in which he merges successful businessmen, politicians, artists, and writers as well.
To be honest, I still doubt whether the author has meant that seriously, just because people of law, business and politics cannot be compared to writers in this aspect; in my opinion, pure ambition has more to do with commerce than with art, so it is able to stimulate the success of a lawyer or a businessman, but, concerning writers (at least good ones), ambition alone does not form the reason to create literary works (however, the shade of wish for popularity must hide in every writer, even if the writer himself denies having any).…
