The phenomenon of orwellian discursive processes...

"Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against," writes Orwell in his Politics and the English Language; however, the essay is persuasive and successful for the very reason that he uses his writing as a broad example of the type of writing he praises (Orwell, 711). Orwell asserts that in order to write clearly and well, one must "let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about" (712). Throughout the essay, the form of Orwell's sentences serves their argumentative function; they clarify the meaning for the reader, either through their diction or through use of an illustrative simile or metaphor that is alive and not hackneyed. The first sentence I have quoted from page 711 appears to break Orwell's rules by employing commonly used phrases that could be stated in single words, such as "for certain" and "again and again." Orwell could have substituted "and you will certainly find that I have frequently committed..." in place of "and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed," but his version of the clause illustrates the type of language he is referring to and how easily we fall back into using it.
The essay is full of vivid metaphors and similes that reinforce Orwell's meaning by creating images for the reader, unlike the type of dysfunctional metaphors he rails against like, "the Fascist octopus has sung its swan song." Orwell opens the essay with the fantastic simile, "Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house" (704). The simile is very visual, and emphasizes the quality that is missing from the "prefabricated" prose that Orwell rails against. As Orwell gets into the pith of his argument on how political euphemism has corrupted the clarity of expression in the English language, he opens into an extended simile, comparing mainstream politics to an orthodoxy. "Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style" he writes, then later, "If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church" (709-10). In the second sentence, Orwell reverses the position of the speaker from orator to audience member, disembodying him and reinforcing the mechanical quality that he describes in the middle of the paragraph. Juxtaposed with the religious allusion, Orwell offers a comparison to the industrial age in the center of the paragraph. "When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases...one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them" (709). This striking and relatable image embosses itself on the reader's mind, and as Orwell builds more and more images throughout the essay, they form a visual map of the main points that makes the writing more persuasive.
In the climactic paragraph of the essay, Orwell layers images to impress his point upon the reader. Exposing the euphemisms of politics with images such as, "People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: This is called elimination of unreliable elements" Orwell literally horrifies the reader into agreeing with him (710). The vague language of politics is not just bad English; as Orwell writes, "the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes" and consequences (702).
Orwell's evident passion and sincerity are part of his success. As he reminds us, "The enemy of clear language is insincerity" (710). Augmenting this statement with an illustrative simile, "When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared airms, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink" (710). Orwell's figurative language always serves to clarify his meaning and make a lasting impression, not to win the reader over with the beauty of his flowery language. In this case, the simile supplies the sense of the end of the sentence, which is not directly stated: vague language is a defense mechanism to cover up our lies.