The Orwell Mystique: A Study In Male Ideology [Paperback]

The Orwell Mystique: A Study in Male Ideologyis a pioneering work of feminist literary criticism that subjects the life and writing of George Orwell (19031950) to a sustained and rigorous feminist analysis. Published in 1984the same year as the famous date in Orwell's most celebrated dystopian novelthe book examines all of Orwell's major novels, essays, and journalism and argues that his widely celebrated reputation for moral authority and plain-speaking democratic decency is fundamentally undercut by a pervasive and condescending attitude toward women.

Author Daphne Patai contends that Orwell's work is saturated with a male ideology so deeply embedded as to be largely invisible to mainstream criticism, which had long treated Orwell as an exemplar of intellectual honesty and political courage while overlooking the gender assumptions that structure his writing. Drawing on feminist theory and close textual analysis, Patai systematically traces the ways in which Orwell's androcentrismhis tendency to place men and male experience at the center of human lifeshapes not only his fiction but also his essays, autobiographical writings, and political commentary.

The book is organized around a series of thematic and textual investigations. An introductory chapter establishes what Patai calls the Orwell myththe cultural phenomenon by which Orwell's personal authority as a moral and political guide has been constructed and sustained. Subsequent chapters examine specific dimensions of Orwell's work and biography, including his experience of empire and the masculine codes embedded in his writings about colonialism; his treatments of vagabondage, manual labor, and working-class masculinity (notably in works such asDown and Out in Paris and LondonandThe Road to Wigan Pier); and the androcentrism running throughNineteen Eighty-Four, in which Patai argues that the novel's treatment of women, sexuality, and the body reflects deeply patló)