Orwell and Didion have similar reasons for writing, which they share in their essays entitled "Why I Write". Orwell's, reason is to pass on information to his readers. At one point in his essay, Orwell tells his readers that that he had "a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice … that I want to expose" (95). Using his writing as a platform allows Orwell to address his "political" needs. Didion, writing many years after Orwell, admits that she "stole the title not only because the words sounded right but because they seemed to sum up … all I have to tell" (224). Her purpose in writing, however, is far different that Orwell's. She describes her writing as being personal, but she still feels that she needs to explain her reasons for writing. What makes it personal are the myriad questions that constantly run through her mind. Because she is the only one who even knows these questions, she alone can answer them. It is for this reason she considers her writing to be a personal manner.
The style of both Orwell's and Didion's essays appear similar also. Each essay begins with an informative, autobiographical section that turns into a more defensive discussion of each author's writing. Orwell's attitude gains an element of self-importance as he further explains his purpose for writing. Didion, on the other hand demonstrates a more realistic and self-effacing attitude towards her own work. She wanted to be considered an equal to her peers and for them to notice her as she was. She even goes so far as to say that, "It took me some years to discover what I was. Which was a writer. … not a "good" writer or a "bad" writer but simply a writer, a person … arranging words on pieces of paper" (225).
Didion and Orwell both discuss pictures in their essays, but their use of visual imagery is opposite. When Orwell mentions descriptive writing in his essay, he explains his feeling for this type of aesthetic writing by saying, "In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books," (93) but given the fact that Orwell is compelled to do his writing in a more volatile era, he says that he is, "forced into becoming a pamphleteer" (93). He does not have time to pay attention to pictures. When Didion talks about pictures, however, they comprise a more important element of her writing. For her these distinguishing pictures tell her what to write. At one point in her essay, Didion compares herself with a schizophrenic artist drawing pictures with lines, which are never clearly visible, always fading in and out, and never staying in place. For Didion the pictures "shimmer around the edges" (225). She must allow the picture to develop and direct the composition. She explains this by saying that the "picture tells you how to arrange the words and the arrangement of the words tells you, or tells me, what's going on in the picture" (226).
An understood similarity between the two essays is their audience. The actualdifference in the essays is for whom they are written. In Didion's essay, she never claims an audience, other then herself. After she refers to herself as a writer, she goes on to talk about how there are questions in her mind that need answering. She says, "Had my credentials been in order … Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write" (225). Orwell's audience is one that he feels he needs to enlightened or influence. He views his writing as having a "Political purpose—using the word "political" in the widest possible sense. Orwell's desire was, to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people's idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. "Once again, no book is genuinely free of political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude" (93).
All similarities and differences aside, Didion and Orwell conclude their essays with one unique difference. Didion feels that her reason for writing is to, "tell you … why writers write: had I known the answers to … these questions I would never have needed to write a novel" (228). This statement placed her in agreement with Orwell's comment about writers when he said, "All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the bottom of their motives there lies a mystery" (96). But, to justify his reason even more Orwell concludes that, it does not matter how well something was written, "it is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure" (96).
Works Cited
Orwell, George. "Why I Write." Major Modern Essayists. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller and Alan F. Crooks. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 1994. 90-6
Didion, Joan. "Why I Write." Major Modern Essayists. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller and Alan F. Crooks. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 1994. 224-8
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