TOW #21: Revenge is Sour by: George Orwell

George Orwell is a well-known British author who was prevalent during World War II. His article, “Revenge Is Sour” was published in the London Tribune in 1945. In his article, Orwell examines the true meaning of revenge when it comes to finally being able to punish the Nazis after the war. In order to fully examine the true effect of revenge, Orwell utilizes both similie and personal anecdotes.

In the beginning of his article, Orwell uses a simile to describe the officer he met when he visited a war criminal prison. Orwell describes how the Jewish officer who oversees the imprisoned Nazis kicked and verbally abused the men constantly. But Orwell makes an intelligent observation: “he wasn't really enjoying it, and that he was merely — like a man in a brothel, or a boy smoking his first cigar, or a tourist traipsing round a picture gallery — telling himself that he was enjoying it, and behaving as he had planned to behave in the days he was helpless” (para. 7). This simile is essential for Orwell to be able to examine the extent of the fulfillment of revenge because he is characterizing it in a tangible way for the reader. The reader can then understand that the officers only think they enjoy it because they would have enjoyed it when the war was still going on. Yet, they don’t now that the Nazis are pathetically easy to target. Not only do similes help the reader to conceptualize the concept of convincing oneself revenge is better than it actually is, but personal anecdotes help analyze this feeling too.

George Orwell uses a personal anecdote of a fellow journalist in order to appeal to pathos. Orwell writes how he was traveling with another young journalist on the only bridge into a decimated German town. Beside the bridge was a dead German soldier. The young journalist had never seen anyone dead before, and he immediately began acting different towards any German. Orwell uses this anecdote to appeal to the sympathy within the reader just as the journalist was suddenly sympathetic enough not to carry out his own forms of revenge (in this case by harboring remorse). This, by invoking sympathy within the reader, they finally understand that sometimes revenge just is not worth it.

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