Britain Between the Wars: A Time of Political and Social Transformation, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Britain Between the Wars: A Time of Political and Social Transformation e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! A new world order Britain between the wars After World War I the Labour Party rose and the trade union became more active in trying to get better pay and conditions by holding strikes. The disputes between the coal miners and the mine owners led to the General Strike of 1926. The families lived long periods of terrible poverty and unemployment. In Europe and America developed the Great Depression; during the second half of the decade the economy recovered somewhat because of the boom owing to rearmament for the impending war against Germany. The creation of the Commonwealth of Nations* with the Statute of Westminster of 1931 marked the end of the British Empire and the recognition of equal status for all member states. When the conservative Chamberlain became prime minister in 1936, there was a year of crisis because of the abdication of Edward VIII (he met opposition when he married the divorced American woman Wallis Simpson) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). The Spanish Civil war was won by the fascist Francisco Franco with the assistance of Mussolini and Hitler. The left-wing movements in Britain supported the Spanish republican government; The writing was influenced by the politics, the theme of nation-building and dictatorship (dystopian literature). The 1930s brought social transformations like the decline in population growth, smaller families, independence of women and the drift of suburbs; heavy industry in the North declined and industry in the South and the Midlands expanded, people moved out to the suburbs or the edges of towns. Moreover, one of the most important social changes was the spread of mass communication as the boom in the sales of daily press and the development of radio broadcasting, in 1926 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was created. *The Commonwealth is an intergovernmental organisation including 54 countries led by the United Kingdom; all members except Mozambique and Rwanda were part of the British Empire. Recognition of this change came in the Balfour Declaration at the 1926 at Imperial Conference, where Britain and its dominions agreed they were equal in status, no subordinate one to another but united by common allegiance to the Crown because they recognise Queen as their head and are bound to Britain by trading agreements. The members cooperate with common values and goals as the promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism and world peace. World War II and after In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War started. The majority thought that it was a necessary war, government controls, conscription, rationing and air raids also brought everyone into the firing-line. From September to June Germany had many successes; Poland, Belgium, Holland and Norway fell and France surrendered in June and British and France soldiers retreated from Dunkirk. The Conservative Churchill became prime minister in 1940 and he established a “War Cabinet” of five ministers to take important decisions. The German defeat was due to several reasons; it didn’t manage to get control of the air over the English Channel, Hitler’s greatest misstep was the invasion of the URSS in 1941. The German army was destroyed by the Russian winter and by resistance in the sieges of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad, where it was forced to surrender in 1943. The Russian marched through Eastern Europe to liberate the countries invaded by the Germans. American intervention in 1941 paved the way to the final victor, inaugurated by D- Day; on 6th June 1944 the Allies touched down the coasts of Normandy and managed to liberate France. In 1945, after Hitler’s suicide, Germany surrendered; Japan remained in war but in August 1945 US President Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima e Nagasaki. The power of European empires was weakened by the war; the French, the Dutch and he British abandoned some of their colonies; Britain withdrew from India, Burma, Ceylon, Malaya and Singapore since all the people from the colonies wanted independence as a reward. Britain’s foreign trading position was also weakened by the debts and bomb damage which made it difficult for industries to readjust to peacetime conditions. In 1947, for 4 years, developed the US Marshall Aid Plan, the American programme to help European countries recover economically and prevent the fall under Russian influence. Thanks to this plan, Britain received US loans, but recovery was slow. The US signed an agreement of mutual defence with Western Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and it was in addition to the United Nations Organisation which replaced the League of Nations. The general election in 1945 was won by the Labour Party under Attlee. It offered new policies focused on the role of the government in looking after the interests and welfare of its citizens, “Welfare State”. The government, with the process of nationalisation, take over the control of power and natural resources, transport and credit and bought all the shares of the companies in exchange for government bonds. Orwell Eric Blair, known ad Orwell, was born in India in 1903 and his father was a minor colonial official. He was educated in England at a preparatory school then in a college. He could not stand the lack of privacy, the humiliating punishment, the pressure to conform to the values of the public school tradition and to the prevailing moral code; thus he developed an independent-minded personality. He passed the examination for the Indian Imperial Police and served in Burma from 1922 to 1927, when ne went on leave and decided not to return because he wished to break away from British Imperialism and to escape from every form of man’s dominion over man. Back in London, he started a social experiment: wearing second-hand clothes, he spent short periods living in common loading-houses seeking the company of down-and-outs. In this way, he directly experienced poverty and learnt how institutions for the poor worked. After a period in Paris, where he worked as a dishwasher, he began to publish his works with the pseudonym George Orwell because the name had Englishness about it and the surname was the name of a river he was fond of. “Down and Out in Paris and London” was his first non- fiction narrative in which he described his experiences among the poor; it was followed by “Burmese Days”, based on his time in the colonial service. In 1936 he married O’Shaughnessy and was commissioned by a left-wing publisher to investigate conditions among the miners, factory workers and unemployed in the industrial north (“The Road to Wigan Pier”). He went to Catalonia to report on the Spanish Civil War, he joined the militia of the POUM and fought in the trenches; it caused his conversion to socialism and the ideals of brotherhood. Back in England, the Orwells adopted an infant child and called him Richard. They both had poor health: he suffered from bronchitis and pneumonia, and Eileen was to die during an operation in 1945. When the 2WW broke out, he moved to London and joined the BBC. In 1943 he resigned and became the literary editor of the socialist weekly “Tribune”. In 1945 published “Animal Farm” which made him internationally known. His last book “1984” of 1949, was his most original novel. He died of tuberculosis the following year. He had a deep understanding of the English characters, of its tolerance, its dislike of abstract theories and insistence on common sense and fair play. On the other hand, he views his country from the outside and he judged its strengths and weakness; thus he rejected his background and established a separate identity of his own. His life was marked by the unresolved conflict between his middle-class education and his emotional identification with the working class. He believed that writing interpreted reality and served a useful social function; however, he believed that writer should be independent. Orwell was a book-reviewer, critic and political journalist; indebted to Dickens in his social themes and the use of realistic and factual language, he conveyed a vision of human fraternity and of the misery. He insisted on tolerance, justice and decency in relationships, and warned against the artificiality of urban civilisation. Above all, he presented a devastating critique of totalitarianism helping his readers to recognise tyranny. Nineteen Eighty-Four Summary: The novel described a future world divided into 3 blocks: Oceania (an Empire of which England is just an outpost), Eurasia (including Russia and Europe) and Eastasia (Asia and the Far East). The oppressive world of Oceania is ruled by the Party, led by a figure called “Big Brother” (a combination of Hitler and Stalin). In order to control people’s lives, the Party is creating “Newspeak”, an invented language with a limited number of words which don’t permit to express ideas, and threatening them through the Thought Police. Free thought, sex and expression of individuality are forbidden, but the protagonist Winston Smith illegally buys a diary in which he writes his thoughts and memories, addressing them to the future generations. At the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites historical records to suit the needs of the Party, Winston notices an attractive girl staring at him, and his afraid she might be an informant who will prove him guilty of “thoughtcrime”. She is Julia, with a rebellious attitude, and they begin a secret affair. O’Brien, a member of the powerful Inner Party, summons them and tells them that he too hates the Party and works against it as a member of the Brotherhood, led by Goldstein. O’Brien gives Winston a copy of the manifesto of the group and while he is reading it to Julia, some soldiers break in and arrest them. He is taken to the “Ministry of Love” where he finds out that O’Brien his a Party spy and he tortures and brainwashes him for months. At last, he is in the Room 101, the final destination for those who oppose the Party; Winston is forced to confront hi worst fear, rats on his head. Winston’s will is broken and he is released. He meets Julia, but no longer loves her, he is given up his identity and has learnt to love Big Brother. It is set in a grotesque and menacing London and it’s a dystopian novel. Orwell presented a frightening picture of the future, there isn’t privacy because there are telecreens watching every step people take, love is forbidden and there is “Two Minutes Hate”. The Party has absolute control of the communication, language, history and thought. Any form of rebellion is punished with prison, torture and liquidation. The novel doesn’t offer consolation but reveals the author’s acute sense of history and his sympathy with persecuted people. The overwhelming impression made by it is one of a sense of loss, a feeling that beauty and all finer emotions belong to the past. It is symbolised by Winston, the last man to believe in human values in a totalitarian age. “Smith” is the commonest English surname and suggests his symbolic value; “Winston” evokes Churchill’s patriotic appeals for “blood, toil, tears and sweat”. He is a middle-aged and physically weak, he experiences alienation from society and feel a desire for spiritual and moral integrity. In the first two parts, Winston and the narrator can be one expressing Orwell’s views. The novel is a satire on hierarchical societies which destroy fraternity, the dictator doesn’t watch over his people as a brother should (not “taking care of” but “controlling”). Memory and mutual trust become positive themes in the struggle where Winston attempts to maintain his individuality. Orwell believed that if man has someone to trust, his individuality cannot be destroyed because his identity from interaction. Decency is mutual trust, behaving responsibly towards other people and acting with empathy; it is important for political action and civic culture. The major theme of memory is linked to a view of morality; an egalitarian post-revolutionary society would not change values but would put an end to exploitation. Thus Winston writes a diary to defend his private memory against the attempts to rewrite history (the main themes are the attempt to preserve mutual trust, decency and memory). Big Brother is watching you People could be seen and heard any moment, there was no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. Every sound was overheard and every moment was scrutinized. Posters were plastered everywhere and they say: “Big Brother is watching you”, the slogans of the party were: “War is peace”, “Freedom is slavery” and “Ignorance is strength”. The language used is antithetical and paradoxical. It was a repressive politics, without the possibility of going against the regime. Propaganda was largely used, individuality is banished and men have lost control of their inner being.