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 George
Orwell Quiz
ANSWERS
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Our tenth literary quiz was dedicated to George Orwell and nobody
came close to winning a book.
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1. Eric Blair cast around for a
pseudonym and finally landed on George Orwell, the surname being taken from an English
a. village
b. river
c. moor
d. pub
2. When Orwell was a student at Eton,
one of his teachers was
a. Aldous Huxley
b. H.G. Wells
c. E.M. Forster
d. Bertrand Russell
3. Orwell’s first professional
job was that of a
a. civil servant in India
b. agricultural manager in Rhodesia
c. journalist in Spain
d. policeman in Burma
4. One of Orwell’s earlier
essays, “Inside the Whale,” focuses on the political detachment of
a. Henry Miller
b. Albert Camus
c. D.H. Lawrence
c. T.S. Eliot
5. Down and Out in Paris and London, following
Orwell’s experiences of “tramping” with the poor and homeless, includes the
memorable section where he describes his time in Paris working as a
a. dockhand 
b. hospital orderly
c. dishwasher
d. lavatory attendant
6. Orwell’s first novel, Burmese Days, was strongly influenced by
a. Malraux’s The Conquerors
b. Forster’s A
Passage to India
c. Kipling’s Kim
7. His second novel, A Clergyman’s
Daughter, describes the adventures of Dorothy, who through loss of memory briefly
escapes her spinster’s life to join a group of
a. tramps and hop-pickers
b. prostitutes and cock-fight
gamblers
c. coal-miners and rebel rousers
d. communist pamphleteers
8. In which famous
essay does Orwell write about his experience of killing an elephant?
Shooting an Elephant
9. Orwell wrote Keep the Aspidistra Flying while
a. working in a bookstore
b. broadcasting for the BBC
c. running a general store
d. teaching English
10. Aspidistra is a satirical self-portrait recounting
the author’s
a. literary aspirations and financial
humiliations
b. coming of age at Eton
c. political awakening and early thoughts on colonialism
d. birth in India and childhood in Henley-on-Thames
11. In his novel The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell once described
this writer as “a sort of gutless Kipling.”
a. A.E. Houseman
b. Stephen Spender
c. W.H. Auden
12. Orwell fought in the Spanish
Civil War with the
a. International Brigades
b. Unified Marxist Workers’ Party
c. Independent Labour Party
 13. After
being shot through the neck on the Aragón front, Orwell recovered in a hospital near
Barcelona only to be persecuted shortly thereafter (forcing him to flee the country for
his life) by the
a. Nationalists
b. Anarchists
c. Communists
14. The classic Homage to Catalonia was not well received by the
English Left (and in fact sold only 600 copies in the first twelve years after
publication), principally because they
a. were generally sympathetic to Soviet Russia
b. had been offended by Orwell’s
reference to the “pansy Left”
c. felt he was paranoid and
perversely pessimistic
15. The transitional work Coming Up for Air can
be considered a political
a. indictment of the Labour Party
b. state-of-England novel
c. assessment of continental Europe
16. The ironically titled essay
“Such, Such Were the Joys” reflects on Orwell’s time at
a. boarding school
b. the Spanish front
c. the BBC
d. the remote Scottish island of Jura
17. In which classic essay does Orwell offer advice about
writing, recommending fresh and direct language? Politics
and the English Language
18. Of whom is Orwell
speaking: “[His] basic aims were anti-human
and reactionary: but regarded simply as a politician, and compared
with the other leading political figures of our time, how clean a
smell he has managed to leave behind!” Gandhi
19. Animal Farm was rejected by every major
publishing house in the U.K. - including T.S. Eliot at Faber & Faber - until it found
acceptance at the (then) small firm of Secker & Warburg. It also had difficulty in America. Dial Press in New York responded that
a. it was too savage an attack on
Russia and could not be justified while the Allies were fighting side by side with that
country
b. it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs.
c. it was impossible to sell animal
stories in the U.S.
 20. In France, Animal
Farm’s publisher quietly changed the name of the pig Napoleon to
a. César
b. Augustine
c. Alexandre
d. Anatole
21. Complete
the famous phrase: “All Animals Are Equal, but
......Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others
22. In Nineteen Eighty-Four
Orwell invented many new words and phrases which have become a part
of our English language. What is the word that describes the
ability to hold simultaneously two contradictory opinions which cancel
each other out? doublethink
23. The world in Nineteen Eighty-Four is divided into three power
zones. England resides within Oceania and is
known by what name?
Airstrip One
24. Which actor portrayed
Winston Smith in the first of the two films to be made of Nineteen
Eighty-Four ? Michael Redgrave
25. Orwell had a notorious quarrel with an author who, he claimed,
drastically underestimated the power of Hitler.
The author confronted him after Orwell published an essay on
the subject and the “God-awful row” continued for some time
thereafter. Who was the author under attack? H.G. Wells
26. Orwell once wrote
a review of an American author, describing his characters as “people
with supremely hideous names . . . [who] sit about on the steps
of village stores, chewing tobacco, swindling one another in small
business deals, and from time to time committing a rape or murder.” Who was the author? William Faulkner
27. Orwell and his wife Eileen
O’Shaughnessy lived for a while in Morocco. The
marriage was strained when Orwell insisted that he have
a. a celibate existence
b. sexual relations with a young Arab girl
c. a young Arab boy to share in bed
with Eileen
28. On his deathbed in a London
hospital Orwell married his second wife, the beautiful Sonia Brownell, whom many of his
friends considered to be a gold-digger and collector of literary “stars.” She became extremely wealthy with the royalties of
Orwell’s works and went on to
a. marry an Italian poet
b. edit a stylish literary journal
c. die a penniless drunk in Paris
d. be swindled of all her money by an English lord
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