Why I Write Summary

From a very early age, Orwell knew that he would be a writer. His early attempts were, of course, crude and focused on comic poems and internal running dialogue. Through his late teenage years, he tried to abandon the idea but still knew that eventually he would have to become a writer. Throughout his life, Orwell widely read and enjoyed literature and early in life decided he would write long, naturalistic novels with unhappy endings. Writers must not completely escape their primal emotional temperament or they will destroy the impulse to write.

Writers are compelled to write by one or more of four reasons. The first is the desire to seem clever and to be talked about. This urge is shared by the entire successful segment of society and should not be ignored. Writers are generally vain and self-centered...