Existential Motives of G. Orwell's Novel "Coming Up for Air"

In: Obščestvo: filosofija, istorija, kulʹtura = Society : philosophy, history, culture, Heft 9, S. 70-75

Abstract

The novel by the English writer G. Orwell "Coming Up for Air", written in 1939, is still relevant today. On its pag-es, the protagonist G. Bowling plunges into an existential crisis. This is a crisis not only of an individual, but of an entire generation. The starting point of the crisis is the First World War. The harbinger of the second world war is a powerful factor for the final shaping of the existential crisis. The author of the article analyzes in detail the existential motives that lead the hero-narrator to the inner deadening, and concludes that modern society lives the same problems as in G. Orwell's lifetime, and, there-fore, there can be similar consequences. Reading the novel today, one can argue that these are the motives not even of a generation, but of the entire Western civilization, to which Russia has joined. This allows to see life's mistakes and adjust the future.