This 1947 manuscript page shows some of the revisions '1984' went through. Orwell’s twentieth-century experience of the disease likely had direct influence on his authorship what many have characterized as the novel of the century, writes Robert Crum for The Guardian.
Western literary history is full of tuberculosis sufferers, and it is a disease that is often seen as being historical, although it still affects millions of people each year. “The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as that of a skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker than the thighs… the curvature of the spine was astonishing.” The author may well have been drawing on his personal experience of the “ wasting” associated with tuberculosis. “But the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of his body,” Orwell wrote in the book. “Fever, weight loss and night sweats sent him to the hospital where he underwent ‘collapse therapy,’ a treatment designed to close the dangerous cavities that form in the chests of tuberculosis patients.” He wrote about the treatment, and it may have helped color the descriptions of the torture Winston undergoes at the Ministry of Love, Ross told the publication.īut the most vivid image that Ross believes came from Orwell’s illness was that of Winston’s body after torment and starvation. Those experiences may have helped make the suffering of the main character of 1984, Winston, more realistic.Īs he was working on the first draft of his novel, Orwell got sicker and sicker, Science Daily writes. But he hadn’t yet been formally diagnosed.Ī study by John Ross published in Infectious Diseases, indicates that Orwell, whose real name was Eric Blair, experienced terrible suffering because of his disease and the complications it caused. He could have been infected as a child in India or during his years of travelling afterwards, the author of a study on Orwell’s illness said in a press release published on Science Daily in 2005.
He had been suffering from tuberculosis for a long time, although it’s hard to know how long exactly. In 1946, George Orwell traveled to the house of an acquaintance in Scotland to write his final book. 1984 is probably the best-known dystopian novel, and it was written by a man whose own life turned into a dystopia while he composed it.
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