Smoking Obsession

Indar, Josh. "Bumming Smokes in Paris and London: George Orwell’s Obsession with Tobacco." PopMatters 19 June 2009. 19 June 2009 <http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/94064-bumming-smokes-in-paris-and-london-orwells-obsession-with-tobacco/>.

Smoking habits in George Orwell’s works has not been as thoroughly analyzed as other features. Josh Indar attempted to delve into the significance of the repetition of smoking throughout Orwell’s works. He traces the occurrences in chronological order of when they were written, analyzing their significance at the time they were written and within the piece itself. He analyzes the class boundaries of smoking cigarettes. Health issues resulting from the habit of tobacco smoking were not known and smoking was at the time, a habit that reached all the classes. Indar argues that perhaps a reason why Orwell smoked himself was to shed a middle class standing for a lower class appeal. At the same time, Indar calls upon an example from one of Orwell’s novels that a poor man smoked cigarettes to appear more gentlemanly and upper class.

Indar goes into a lengthy discussion about the significance of cigarettes in 1984. The name of the cigarettes, “Victory Cigarettes,” uses the technique of “doublethink” as the state of Oceania could never actually declare victory as their livelihood depended on there being constant work. The poor quality of the cigarettes continued the irony as the government was claiming that they could provide for their citizens, but the tobacco would fall out of the cigarettes. Orwell almost suggests, according to Indar, that a state without decent cigarettes is not a good place to live.