"I am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact," George Orwell writes toward the end of "Marrakech." Do you believe him? Why or why not?
It'll help you answer the question if you also read this classic essay by Orwell:
http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw
Please respond by Wednesday, 4 p.m.
13 comments:
In, “Why I write” Orwell said, “I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”
So, no- I don’t believe him when he says that he is “not commenting, merely pointing to a fact.” He is commenting, but in an indirect way. Orwell is bringing to the reader’s attention the oddity of a person’s ability to feel anger on behalf of a mistreated animal, yet not to let the suffering of a human being register. By doing this he prods the reader think about the bigger issue, which is why do these people seem so invisible? He has already answered the question on 434, when he discusses the amount of people in the town, how "at least twenty thousand own literally nothing except the rags they stand in," and that they have brown faces. Orwell is essentially saying that because of the poverty of the people and their color, Europeans and/or tourist seem unable to connect with them. He asks, "Are they really the same flesh as yourself? Do they even have names?"(434). These questions not only seem to be Orwell's, but the general questions of outsiders. The way the natives live seems unreal, and because people can't fathom/understand it, they ignore it, making the natives invisible.
The end of "Marrakech" also made me wonder if a reason for the people's invisibility was fear. In the last paragraph Orwell says that every white man sees the black army marching past and thinks, "How longer can we go on kidding these people? How long before they turn their guns in the other direction?"(438). Perhaps people ignore the natives because they are a potential threat. Some peoples natural reaction to a problem is to ignore it, hoping it will disappear.
I do believe Orwell when he said "I am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact," and actually for the same reasons that Holly disagreed with him. Orwell clearly wrote this, as his other pieces, "because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention." His reason for writing was the fourth reason on his list, to enact a social movement by pointing out a political or social injustice. He saw the treatment of the colonized people with brown skin as a abhorrent injustice, so he wrote about it.
When he says that it is a fact that people with brown skin are wholly ignored while a mule can get more attention, he is in no way condemning those people or supporting the ideology behind the fact. He is merely pointing out the fact, and that is why he says "I am not commenting." If he were to comment, I would imagine that it wouldn't read to kindly towards white people, hence the white people wouldn't read it, and his desired social change wouldn't occur.
I do agree with what Holly said about the fear aspect though. The white people knew a secret and were "too clever to tell" the colonized people because they knew where the power truly existed. If you ignore them and their problems and treat them as though they don't exist, they may begin to believe it, which seems to be what Orwell was getting at.
In “Why I Write,” Orwell says, among other things, that “no book is genuinely free from political bias.” Because of that, I’m going to say that Orwell IS commenting, not merely pointing to a fact. He basically says that it is impossible for an author not to inject some kind of political commentary into a piece of writing, however subtle it may be. To claim that art and politics should be separate is a political view itself, according to Orwell.
With that being said, I think the point Orwell was trying to make in “Marrakech” was his disdain for the treatment of the non-white colonists. He was disgusted by it, or else he wouldn’t have written the piece. So while he says that he is “pointing a fact” out, in that this is how people were being treated, there is a distinct bias within the story. His feelings about the white colonists are clear. The reader can figure that out, and therefore will be swayed by the argument he presents.
"Looking back throughout my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally."
The last sentence in Orwell's "Why I Write" essay tells me that without an underlying message or exposure on some sort of social corruption, then any descriptive words–however aesthetically pleasing they may be– mean nothing, unless they do something to inform society of an issue often overlooked.
That is very much what was occurring in the "Marrakech" story. In a few different instances, Orwell raises the fact that people are prone to disregard those who live in poverty. He did this successfully when he made certain analogies, comparing the suffering people to a pack of bees that can live and die without notice, or the old Moroccan women to the Moroccan donkey–an animal that does its harsh labor without complaint until it dies, unnoticed. I feel that the message of the story was to show people their own flaw, as many live with a sense of superiority without ever admitting or acknowledging that this thought exists. This seemed to be the “political purpose” Orwell mentioned in his essay, that white supremacy might reside within all white people, whether it is announced or a part of our mind.
It is hard to say if I believe this is a comment or the exposure of a truth. In a sense, it is a comment because it is opinion, of course–but I believe there is indeed a truth here. When this was written in the late 30’s, Orwell was writing about a social oppression that–at the time– was ignored. Much like Orwell’s 1984 (predicting that our world will be overwhelmed by security and brainwashing concepts), he foresaw a world that would devalue any person that wasn’t white– a world we are all familiar with now.
Traditional journalism dictates that we point to all of the facts. That hardly ever happens. The facts that you do point out form the shape of the story -- you're constructing a narrative, and pointing to only a few certain things supports that narrative. That all being said, I agree with Orwell, with the caveat that pointing to a fact is inherently commentary.
When he says "I am not commenting," I think he's saying "I'm not adding anything, that's just the way it is." And though that may be true, he is constantly pointing out facts that support his narrative. (Though it kind of sounds like it, I'm not disparaging him in any way. This is just how writing is done.) The whole piece is about the invisibility of the lower class, and he points to all sorts of facts along the way. "All people who work with their hands are partly invisible, and the more important the work they do, the less visible they are. Stilll, a white skin is always fairly conspicuous" (435), he states earlier on in the piece. And he does this throughout the whole piece. Is his pointing inherently commentary? Yes. Is he adding anything superfluous that could be considered social commentary? I don't think so. He never outright says something like "If you're not thinking about the socio-political ramifications of race relations in Marrakech, you suck!" like Crane and, to a certain extent, Davis, sound like they do. He is simply stating a cold and "objective" fact.
So, do I believe him? I guess the most concise answer would be "sort of."
After reading both Marrakech and Why I Write, Orwells statement “I am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact” made more sense to me. Orwell begins his essay “Why I Write” by saying that when he was younger he realized that he “had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant fact” which is the root of what he is saying in Marrakech. I think that Orwell stands by this sentence when writing Marrakech because he is both facing unpleasant facts while choosing certain words to get his point across.
The statement that you are asking if we agree or disagree is a tricky one. I would have to agree with him but I would also say that he definitely has a style that adds a bit of bias. Of course like keith said, Orwell thinks that no book is genuinely free from political bias and I think that Orwell adds to that. Some might disagree but I think that there is a way to point to facts while still adding some commentary and that's what I feel Orwell does in his writing.
I guess by the end of writing this post I would have to say that Orwell isn’t just merely pointing to fact but pointing to fact with a mix of his commentary.
Well, in Orwell’s Essay “How I Write,” he points to always having a purpose in his writing. And I think he sees writing as a great tool for influence and change, and a way for the disadvantaged to seek their rights. It’s sort of the way that the other side of the story is told; the European governments are telling their people one thing, and Orwell sees it as almost his duty to tell the other side.
When he says that he’s not commenting, merely pointing to a fact, he’s saying that his writing is based on truth. Commenting is merely putting forward an opinion – the best temperature is 72 degrees, or something like that – but pointing to fact goes beyond that. He’s not just saying wow, these people are thin, he’s saying hey, reader, if you want to go to Morocco, you can see for yourself how skinny these people are, and how they are treated.
He also points to facts in some paragraphs simply by avoiding the real fact. It’s much like Stephen Colbert does now. Orwell does this very early on in the story when he says “when you see how the people live, and still more easily how they die, it is always difficult to believe you are walking among human beings.” By putting it this way, Orwell is really saying that these people are real human beings, but we’ve treated and used them in so many horrible ways that they’re no longer human. We’ve taken that away from them. And by showing the scenery of this place – just the scenery, not moral judgments or opinions (in a straightforward way) – he gives the reader an understanding of the effect of their country’s exploits of a land they’ve probably never seen or experienced.
A another interesting aspect of this story is the almost complete lack of dialogue. Orwell excludes most dialogue from this story in effort to further dehumanize the Moraccan people. We connect with language and speech – and by avoiding the use of it, Orwell displays just how harsh these people are treated just with scenery.
I just realized I said Orwell's essay was called "How I Write." Oops. I wish he wrote on how to write, though.
I believe Orwell when he wrote "I am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact." However, I do believe that in writing this, he was making a statement.
Orwell wrote in his "Why I Write" essay that people write for various reasons, but among them, he included the reason to draw attention to some fact or expose a lie, and also for political purpose. The entire piece "Marrakech" is drawing attention to the small, factual details of life in a mixed culture that would otherwise be ignored (such as the women carrying wood, the way the hungry man eyes his bread while feeding the gazelles, the Jews hounding him for cigarettes). While he may not be outwardly commenting on the state of affairs and facts, his subject choice and tone are statements in their pure existence. Why not choose to write about the beauty of gazelles? Or the landscape-the town- while leaving humans out of it? His choices were deliberate and, I believe, the only way he could possibly write such a piece without inserting his own comments and criticisms.
I don't believe Orwell when he writes, "I am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact." Orwell's comparison of his final recognition of the old women as humans, and the overloading of the donkeys proves he is not just "pointing to a fact." In his essay "Why I Write," Orwell discusses four motives for writing. If I believed Orwell, I would consider this essay to be a product of the historical impulse category. A motive that drives writers to "see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity." Orwell's language and use of metaphor expose "Marrakech" to fall under the motive political purpose. Writers with this motive "desire to push the world in a certain direction," and to change peoples' minds about the society they live in. The last line of the story holds the heaviest metaphor. The "great white birds" drifting over the army represent the white people and their oppression. The white people "glittered," while the brown people were "invisible." Clearly, Orwell was making a statement.
In “Marrakech” I believe that Orwell thinks he is pointing out fact, but in actuality he is revealing his feelings in the questions he asks. When he says “Every white man there had this thoughts stowed somewhere in his mind,” that’s when he lets his opinions show. He was speaking about his own insecurities and worries. Although he believes others feel the same way, he’s still making assumptions.
I know that throughout this essay, he is clearly describing what he sees. But it is next to impossible to describe the thoughts of people and the feelings of others, without injecting your own ideologies. I think it is appropriate in this case, because he is clearly an outsider, trying to understand a way of life that most others don’t even care about.
Orwell tries to explain how the African Colonists think, but it really ends up sounding like this is how he thinks. He tries to make it sounds like this is fact, but its not.
It just seems like to me, that in this particular essay, when he tries to get inside the heads of the colonists he is subtly introspecting himself. I don’t think injecting the mindset of the writer is a bad thing, but I think he’s in denial. In fact I think he proves this in “Why I Write.” He wrote, “I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development.” I think we are who we are, and it is really tough to not inject your own beliefs into your writing. Sometimes it can take away from what you are really trying to accomplish.
I do applaud the rest of “Marrakech” because it is really detailed reporting, and I like the nasty imagery. He looks at the gritty down-side of everything, and I’m into that.
I'm wishy-washy to my answer.
When Orwell says that people feel pity for a hard-working donkey, but not a person, he says this is a fact. In traditional journalism, this is not a fact, because we cannot attribute it to any source. But Orwell doesn't have to attribute this to a source, it may be considered his opinion, but on the whole, most people would agree with him.During this time period, Africans were second class citizens to the white people and were not given equal rights. So it may not be a solid, concrete fact, but it is something that is generally agreed upon as being true.
So, I believe Orwell generally thinks he is pointing out a fact. Other people understandably could see it differently.
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