Modern Self-Fashioning GEORGE ORWELL'S INTELLECTUAL PRETENSIONS

George Orwell is a writer who has been a subject of debate because he fashioned himself as a public intellectual, but one who, somewhat paradoxically, constantly attacked the intellectuals of his own time. The book analyzes the intellectual persona Orwell constructs and assesses where he fails and where he succeeds in his attempt. Through tracing the various literature written about the modern intellectual and his role in his society, as well as glance at intellectuals in previous historical periods, the book attempts to provide a working definition of the role of the public intellectual in modern times. It also focuses on how Orwell consciously created his public role in response to the disengaged intellectuals of his time. The book examines the various representations of intellectuals in Orwell's works and the ways in which they relate to Orwell's preoccupation with both the role and the fate of the intellectual in his time and in the future, as well as reflecting Orwell's own anxieties toward his own mission as a writer and public intellectual.