George Orwells Homage to Catalonia - Literature review Example

Homage to Catalonia By George Orwell. Published by Harcourt, Brace and Company July 1952 Review of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia Orwell wrote Homage to Catalonia as an account of his experiences during the beginnings of the Spanish Civil War. Orwell, or rather the person behind the pseudonym, Eric Blair, spent 6 months serving as a soldier in Catalonia and other parts of Spain, fighting in the war against Franco's Fascists (Garcia Lorca, the Spanish playwright, had been killed by the same Fascists forces in August of 1936). In June 1937, the party he was working for was declared illegal, and Blair was forced to flee for his life. Shortly before that, he was shot in the throat while fighting, and partially paralyzed and rendered mute: " No-one I met at this time - doctors, nursesor fellow patients - failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be shot at all"i. These revelations remained with Blair for the rest of his life. These are the origins of Homage to Catalonia, and a later article called "Looking back on the Spanish War", in which a clear description of Orwell's "Here, we are, soldiers of a revolutionary army, defending Democracy against Fascism, fighting a war which is about something, and the detail of our lives is just as sordid and degrading as it could be in prison"ii. He also felt that he needed to write a story which told the tale of the war from the perspective of a soldier, not a journalist: "Throughout the fighting, I never made the correct 'analysis' of the situation that was so glibly made by journalists hundreds of miles away."iii. Orwell clearly despises this kind of journalism which distanced itself from the events. In fact, he had gone to Catalonia with the intention of writing a serious of articles about it, but quickly changed his mind: "I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do"iv. Orwell begins Homage to Catalonia, not with an account of the political events, or even to his decision to join the army, but with an account of meeting another foreigner fighting on the Communists' side: "It was the face of a man who could commit murder and throw away his life for a friend - the king of face you would expect in an Anarchist, though as likely as not he was a communist"v. He emphasizes how this was clear in his personal memory because of its intimate connection with "That period of the war - the red flags in Barcelona, the gaunt trains full of shabby soldiers creeping to the front, the grey war-stricken towns farther up the line, the muddy, ice-cold trenches in the mountains"vi. This launches the chapter into a very descriptive narrative of the Scene in Catalonia when Orwell/Blair signed up to the army. Much of it these passages read like 'scene setting' in a novel: churches are being demolished, shops and even bootblacks are collectivized, and everyone calls each other 'comrade', and says 'hello' instead of 'good day', a communist paradise: "I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers State, and that the entire bourgeoisie hadfledI did not realize that great numbers of well-to-dowere simply lying low".vii. Despite of this positive image of the town, where people are free, Orwell is careful to remind us that this is a nation in conflict: "There was something of the evil atmosphere of war. The town had a gaunt untidy look, roads and buildings were in poor repairthere was a shortage of coal, sugar and petrol, and a really serious shortage of bread"viii. He also underlines that many of those fighting in the war were civilian militias, poorly trained and idealistic, rather than like an army; even the clothes were unlike an organized army: "Everyone's clothes followed the same general plan, but they were never quite the same in any two cases"ix. The second chapter describes Orwell's first experience in battle: "We were near the front line now, near enough to smell the characteristic smell of war"x. He makes it clear that this war is not only bloody, but dirty and disgusting too: "We dug ourselves down into the chaff and promptly fell asleepIt was only in the morning light that I discovered that the chaff was full of bread crusts, torn newspapers, bones, dead rats and jagged milk tins"xi; another statement emphasizes this further: "The church had long been used as a latrine; so had all the fields for a quarter of a mile round. I never think of my first two months at war without thinking of wintry stubble fields whose edges are crusted with dung"xii. The condition of the rifles is also shocking; "It was a German Mauser dated 1896.it was rusty, the bolt was stuff, the wooden barrel-guard was splitit was corroded and past praying for"xiii. The second chapter also describes those that Orwell was fighting against - the fascist army: "Many of the troops opposite us on this part of the line were not fascists at all, merely wretched conscripts who had been doing their military service at the time when war broke out"xiv. Orwell described the Fascists in pitiful terms: half-starved, ragged and desperate; they were also convinced that the 'red' army would kill them. The third chapter makes clear that Orwell does not consider himself to have been closely involved with the fighting: "I do not think a shell ever exploded within fifty years of me, and I was only in hand-to-hand fighting once"xv. What is indisputable, however, is that Orwell was shot and nearly killed. The description in the third chapter makes the fighting, and being on the frontline, seem relatively safe: the daily life is hard, the army are poorly equipped and trained, so that one was as close to danger from one's own side as from the enemy: "In this war everyone always did miss everyone else, when it was humanly possible"xvi. In the fourth Chapter, Orwell gives a remarkable example of the use of megaphones in the Civil war: "Wherever the lines were within hailing distance of one another there was always a good deal of shouting from trench to trench. From ourselves: 'Fascistas-maricones!' From the Fascists: 'Viva Espana! Viva Franco!'"xvii. Orwell considers this to be a very valid method: "The idea of trying to convert your enemy instead of shooting him! I now think that from any point of view it was a legitimate position"xviii. The fifth chapter begins the political analysis of the situation, rather than simply keeping the narrative to a personal level. Orwell feels that one has to understand the politics to understand the war: "No event in itis intelligible unless one has some grasp of the inter-party struggle that was going on behind the government lines"xix. He compares the dictator Franco with Hitler or Mussolini, and declares him different from either: "His rising was a military mutiny backed up by the aristocracy and the church, and in the mainan attempt not so much to impose fascism as to restore feudalism"xx. This was important, in Orwell's eyes, because it meant that many classes who had supported fascism in Germany and Britain were willing to side with the working class. Spain was weak before the Fascist revolution, and the resistance to Franco was left to the peasants: "In the big towns of eastern Spain the Fascists were defeated by a huge effort, mainly of the working class"xxi. However, outside of Spain, most of the community was opposed to the 'Red' army: "Except for the small revolutionary groups which exist in all countries, the whole world was determined upon preventing revolution in Spain"xxii. Orwell also covers the different parties on his side: "The PSUC, the POUM and the CNT-FAI, loosely described as the Anarchists"xxiii. He himself fought for the POUM, and was critical but fond of the party: "I myself never joined the party, for which, afterwards, when the POUM was suppressed, I was rather sorry"xxiv. Chapter six returns to the misery of trench-warfare, and while "There was a little shell-fire, but it was extraordinarily ineffectual"xxv, Orwell repeatedly states that nothing much happened; the armies were just sitting in mud ditches a few meters from each other. The most exciting events are the lice and vermin, and the poisoned hand which he develops, and for which he is sent to hospital for ten days. Chapter 7 remarks upon a diversion raid on a town called Huesca. This is twentieth-century war as we know it: gunfire, bombs wounding fellows nearby, and capturing opponents, along with military blunders: "We heard afterwards what had happened to the shock troopers. They did not know the ground andhad been lead to the wrong place, where they were caught on the Fascist wire and numbers of them were shot down"xxvi. When they return to the lines, they learn that the attack was described as "A success, as such things go"xxvii. Chapter 8 does not further the action much, and is more like a scenic recap of Orwell's past description of the Red army and the villagers of Catalonia, and reflecting upon how the war had affected his own political beliefs: "The effect was to make my desire to see Socialism established much more actual than it had been before"xxviii. This change of political beliefs is compared with the change in the towns which Orwell had described at the beginning. Where before there had been revolutionary desire, and the flight of the bourgeois, now there was apathy and the return of the previously abandoned class divisions; Orwell admits he feels dismayed: "The general indifference to the war was surprising and rather disgusting"xxix. It seems that, as a direct response to this, Orwell leaves the POUM army, and desires to join the Anarchists. There is trouble between the Red Army groups, and a demonstration on May 1 is abandoned. Chapter 10 follows directly on from this, with Orwell witnessing the street fighting: "The issue was clear enough. On one side stood the CNT, on the other side the policewhen I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself what side I am on"xxx. Chapter 11 details the political differences between the parties involved in the street-fighting. He seems very anxious to dismiss the charges of the British press that the fighting was an attempt of the communist parties to take over Spain "A trotskyist revolt"xxxi, in the "English News Chronicle", for example. Chapter 12 describes Orwell's return to the battle lines, and his near-fatal wounding: "Roughly speaking, it was the sensation of being at the centre of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of lightand I felt a tremendous shock"xxxii. He is lucky to survive. Chapter 13 describes the government coup, where "The 'Stalinists' were in the saddle, and thereforeevery 'trotskyist' was in danger."xxxiii. Orwell himself, a former POUM fighter, is in danger of arrest. Chapter 14 describes Orwell's visit, with his wife, to a friend, George Kopp, who was being held in prison. Others suffer worse fates: McNair and Cottmantold methat Bob Smillie was dead. He had died in prison at Valencia"xxxiv. Unsurprisingly, at this point Orwell and his wife flee to France. "There was one caf where the word 'POUM' immediately procured you French friends and smiles from the waiter"xxxv. Orwell's credentials for writing this book are clearly his own experience in the war. He states himself that "I have little direct evidence about the atrocities in the Spanish civil warWhat impressed me then, and had impressed me ever since, is that atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solely on grounds of political predilection"xxxvi. Orwell is wounded, in danger of his life, and fighting alongside the Spanish civilians; this changes his political ideals to some extent - although he was already convinced of the socialist agenda, his experiences in Catalonia meant that he became determined to see it happen more quickly; he also developed an anti-Stalinist standpoint which later prompted him to provide his government friend with a list of pro-communist author. The book Homage to Catalonia serves as a reminder that twentieth-century European history is a matter of peasant involvement in politics; passion and belief in a cause is the motivation behind Orwell joining up, and the motivation of many others who also join to fight the Fascists. The history of the Spanish civil war is an echo of the peasant (or working class) resistance to oppressive movements. The French Resistance followed the same pattern of ill-equipped, grass-roots tactics; the fall of the Berlin Wall also followed the tradition of working-class resistance to oppression. Resistance to the Fascists by peasants should not be forgotten; and nor should the fact that European battles of this period often involved untrained, ill-equipped militia; dirt, disease, and hunger. The other important message of the book is that the Red coalition is destroyed by in-fighting and lack of purpose; this allowed Franco's fascists to take control of the situation. Orwell's book is a personal account of the political and physical upheaval which was occurring in Spain throughout the 1930's. That the book was an accurate account of the struggles, and the poverty and hunger on both sides of the trenches, is made clear by the fact that Franco firstly banned it, and then issued a very edited version of it. By reading Homage to Catalonia, the historian can learn a lot about the political situations in Spain, and on this basis is recommended to researching 20th Century Europe. Read More