Orwell answered this himself in a 1946 essay called 'Why I Write.' He set aside the need to earn a living and named four motives he thought sat behind all prose. They're present in every writer, he said, just in different proportions.
The Four Motives
Orwell's claim was that these four pull on every writer at once, and the mix shifts over a career and even from book to book. Here's how he described each one.
- Sheer egoism. The desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death.
- Aesthetic enthusiasm. Pleasure in the look of things and in words and their right arrangement.
- Historical impulse. The desire to see things as they are and store up true facts for posterity.
- Political purpose. The desire to push the world in a certain direction and change people's idea of the society they should aim for.
Which One Won Out
Orwell was honest that the first three came naturally to him and the fourth grew stronger with the times he lived through. The Spanish Civil War and the rise of totalitarian states pushed politics to the front. By 1946 he could say plainly that his best work was the work he'd written with a clear political aim in mind.
Good prose is like a windowpane.
George Orwell, Why I Write (1946)
That line comes from the same essay, and it ties the four motives together. Whatever drove him to write, the goal was always clarity. For how this played out day to day, see the full George Orwell writing routine.
What You Can Steal
- Name your own motives honestly. Orwell put ego at the top of the list instead of hiding it.
- Expect the mix to change. What drives you at thirty won't be what drives you at fifty.
- Let a clear aim sharpen the writing. Orwell did his strongest work when he knew what it was for.
- Keep clarity as the constant. The windowpane goal sits behind every motive.