George Orwell, Doubleness, and the Value of Decency [Hardcover]

Anthony Stewart is Assistant Professor in the English Department at Dalhousie University. His recent publications include George Orwell's Elastic Politics in English Studies in Canada and Penn and Teller Magic: Self, Racial Devaluation, and the Canadian Academy in Racism, Eh?, an anthology on race and racism in Canada.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.Preface Chapter One: On Decency, Doubleness, and Updating Orwell Learning to Write about Orwell Orwells Double Consciousness Orwell and Race Orwell as Elastic-Brow Orwells Critical Sense Decency versus Hypocrisy in Burmese Days, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Animal Farm, and Nineteen Eighty-Four Chapter Two: Hardly Above Suspicion: Hypocrisy, Decency, and Sincerity in Burmese Days Flory as Ideal Candidate Hypocrisy Exposed Dr. VeraswamiDecency Personified Ellis and the Code of the Pukka Sahib Variations on a Theme Chapter Three: The Secret Art of Not Making Good: Gordon Comstocks Childish Narrowness in Keep the Aspidistra Flying Gordon ComstockThe Triumph of Pettiness over Doubleness The Decency of Rosemary Waterlow and the Role of Gender RavelstonGordons Partner in Delusion Decency and Some Conclusions for the Individual Chapter Four: An Absence of Pampering: The Betrayal of the Rebellion and the End of Decency in Animal Farm From 1935 to Nineteen Eighty-Four: Concerns for the Part Become Concerns for the Whole The RebellionThe Beginning l“|