Chapters 8 and 9 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 8 begins Part II of the text. There is a notable shift in construction at this point in the book, as Orwell moves from presenting information to critiquing an existing system. Orwell examines his own class attitudes, providing a fair amount of autobiographical data. He describes his upbringing as 'lower-upper-middle class,' generally meaning the strident part of the middle-class, yearning to belong to the upper class and exhibiting this yearning habitually by kicking down the lower class. He attended St. Cyprian's School in Eastbourne, Sussex, then Wellington, then Eton. In 1922 he joined the Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that taught him to hate imperialism. He returned to England in 1927, resigned his police position, and devoted himself to full-time writing. He briefly lived in Paris where he worked various odd jobs and continued to develop as a writer...