The Orwell Youth Prize takes its inspiration from the author, journalist and essayist George Orwell. Orwell wrote from his own experiences and observed the social injustices and political happenings of the world around him.
Orwell also wrote in language that was clear, concise and compelling for his audience. We encourage you to follow George Orwell’s example: to write about something that matters to you, and that you want to draw to the attention of others.
Here we’ve put together some prompts inspired by Orwell’s writing and different kinds of truth, to help you to start thinking about the theme. When you’re ready to start researching, click here to browse our list of potential reading, watching and listening about truth in our world today.
TRUTH AND POWER
‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ – Nineteen Eighty-Four
‘…history has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.’ – Nineteen Eighty-Four
‘Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.’ – Nineteen Eighty-Four
‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’ – Nineteen Eighty-Four
‘War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.’ – Nineteen Eighty-FourQuestions:
- How does controlling the past give someone power over the present?
- What happens to people when their understanding of history is rewritten?
- Why do lies sometimes feel safer than the truth?
- How can individuals resist when truth is subverted?
- What does it mean to protect truth in your own life?
TRUTH AND EXPRESSION
‘The imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity.’ – The Prevention of Literature
‘Orthodoxy means not thinking–not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.’ – Nineteen Eighty-Four
‘If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.’ – Nineteen Eighty-Four
‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ – Animal Farm
‘There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.’ – Nineteen Eighty-Four
Questions:
- What connects truth and self-expression?
- How free are we to think for ourselves?
- Can imagination help us discover truth?
- Why is it important to tell people what they do not want to hear?
- How does fear or conformity silence truth?
TRUTH AND LANGUAGE
‘Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.’ – Politics and the English Language
‘Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.’ – Animal Farm
‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.’ –Nineteen Eighty-Four
‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.’ – In Front of Your Nose
‘If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.’ – Politics and the English Language
‘The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.’ – Politics and the English Language
Questions:
- How can language shape or distort the truth?
- What happens to thought when the words to express it are taken away?
- How does clear language help us to think clearly?
- What dangers arise when people lose the ability to argue or express themselves?
- Why do people hide behind complicated or insincere language?
- How can we learn to see ‘what is in front of our nose’?
Feeling inspired? Head on to the Research page for some tips on researching your entry – and to explore how writers and journalists are tackling our theme today.