In "Politics and the English Language," why does Orwell mock weak similes and metaphors using the same?

Orwell admits that he is guilty of many of these flaws that he criticizes in the this statement:

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.

Here, he not only confesses, but encourages that the reader challenge his work. Therefore, he is recognizing this as a collective problem.

However, if readers take a look at the metaphors and similes Orwell creates, they learn that these devices have difinitive intention and purpose. The difference between his and those which he cites in order to criticize is the "staleness of imagery and lack of precision." Orwell's similes and metaphors all generally serve the purpose of making his point more clear to the reader. He notes that many metaphors have endured overuse to the extent that it is now a common phrase in which all people generally understand the meaning, but there is no more excitement or vivid image created to satisfy the reader's palate.

It is also important to note that many of the poor similes and metaphors used are used to exemplify the very problems he wishes to discuss.

The purpose of a simile or a metaphor is to create a visual image for the reader. This image, once experienced helps aid understanding of a concept that may not be completely clear by just stating the concept outright.

In "Politics and the English Language," how does Orwell use effective similes and metaphors?

A metaphor is a comparison that does not use the words like or as while a simile is a comparison that does use the words like or as.

In the first paragraph of his essay, Orwell uses several similes to describe how his critics perceive his defense against abusing language. According to them, he is indulging in sentimentalism and wants to bring language back to archaic or outdated usages. Since "sentimental archaism" is an abstract term, however, Orwell uses similes to make clear what he is saying:

It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes.

Comparing what his critics think he is doing to preferring candles to electric lights or old fashioned cabs to planes paints a vivid picture in our minds. Orwell is practicing what he is preaching, which is the use of precise, fresh language.

Later in the essay, Orwell states:

he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church.

This is a simile, for Orwell uses the word "as" to liken writing mindless words to uttering the responses of a church liturgy. While this is not flattering to the church, most of his readers, as Anglicans, would understand the experience of repeating responses in church without thought.

Orwell also says that:

the decadence of our language is probably curable

In this statement, he is using a metaphor by likening decadence in language to a non-fatal disease. This brings up a picture in our mind of cutting out something infected, like a benign tumor. It emphasizes that certain kinds of language are like a rot and gives us hope that these can be gotten rid of.

In "Politics and the English Language," Orwell writes about worn-out metaphors that have lost any sense of meaning from long overuse. Though these metaphors have lost any sense of vividness, writers use them to avoid thinking about fresh metaphors.

Orwell himself employs vivid metaphors and similes that are not cliches. For example, he writes: "A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine." In this metaphor, Orwell compares a politician who uses a series of worn-out political phrases to a machine, which is an apt, fresh, and clearly expressed metaphor. The comparison is apt because a politician who only uses these types of phrases does not think, similar to the way in which a machine is not capable of thinking. These types of metaphors are rhetorically effective because they effectively convey the author's meaning to the reader.

Later, Orwell writes about euphemisms, "A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details." This metaphor is also very vivid and fresh. Orwell compares the obscuring effect of using a euphemism to the falling of snow, which blocks one's vision. By using sensory details, Orwell clearly captures the effect of using euphemisms. Unlike the writers he criticizes, Orwell uses vivid metaphors that clearly convey their meaning to the reader.

George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language”is one of the most famous of all works urging that writing should be clear, direct, and vivid. In the course of analyzing and mocking weak similes and bad metaphors, Orwell uses various similes and metaphors of his own. His use of these devices is often rhetorically effective in a number of different ways, including the following random examples:

• In paragraph 4, Orwell uses a simile describing “phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse.” This simile is rhetorically effective because it is unusual (so that we instantly pay attention to it), because it creates a vivid picture, and because its tone is comic. Putting together a henhouse of any sort would not seem an especially important or impressive project; tacking together a prefabricated henhouse implies a lack of original thought as well as a final product that is weak and unsturdy.
• In paragraph 5, while warning against dead or dying metaphors, Orwell himself uses a metaphor that is especially vivid when he refers to “a huge dump of worn-out metaphors.” Here the word “dump” implies an extremely large and disorganized pile, heaped up as if it were a gigantic collection of discarded refuse, of no importance to anyone. The metaphors are “worn-out”: they have been used so often that they lack any freshness or vitality.
• In paragraph 12, Orwell uses the metaphor “color” when he refers to orthodoxy “of whatever color.” This metaphor implies that there is a whole spectrum of possible orthodoxies, different in shades of opinion but not in originality of language. In a sense, all the different colors are equally faded in the kinds of language they employ.
• In paragraph 15, in an especially striking metaphor, Orwell compares tediously familiar phrases to “a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow.” This metaphor is rhetorically effective because it is strikingly unusual and because it implies (among other things) that such phrases are cheap, plentiful, near at hand, and only temporarily effective. Meanwhile, in the same paragraph a memorable simile compares tired phrases to “cavalry horses answering the bugle, [which] group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern.” Here language, which should be beautiful and full of life, seems to have become accustomed to a dull, unthinking routine.
• Finally, in paragraph 16, Orwell uses a metaphor to wish that more people would interest themselves “in the job” of chasing dead expressions from the language. Here the metaphor implies that taking care of language is a common responsibility (almost everyone, after all, has a “job”), that doing so is not especially difficult, and that great success can be accomplished if everyone does his or her own small part of a larger common task.

Orwell argues that

Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority.

He hopes that his own readers will want to become active members of this kind of effective minority group.

A simile is simply a figurative device which serves to illuminate one thing by comparing it to something else. In the first paragraph of this piece, Orwell uses a simile to illustrate the general argument stating that it is foolishness to struggle against the changes which inevitably take place in language: to do so is "like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes." The simile presents straightforward examples to make the picture very clear for the reader; it is persuasive exactly because it so aptly illustrates the silliness of choosing what is evidently an inferior option, but it also, perhaps, suggests that these grammarians are being excessively literal. Later in this paragraph, Orwell uses metaphor in stating that language is "an instrument which we shape for our own purposes." While it is common to metaphorically compare language to an instrument or tool, this metaphor forces us to view language in a different way which, perhaps, helps us see the point Orwell is making. If language is an instrument or tool, then it makes sense for us to want to mold that tool into a proper shape to fit the new concepts we may need to articulate. Orwell's argument is that language can, in fact, be consciously shaped, changed and refined by its users, just as tools can be changed and reshaped to be more fit for purpose.

In his desire to present the English language as uniquely moldable, Orwell uses another metaphor to describe its misuse, with sections "tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house." This simile illustrates the lack of care with which some users put language together, as if any one piece can be slotted in anywhere, and without any attempt being made to customize language appropriately. A "prefabricated hen-house" will look the same in anyone's chicken coop, and each one will have been made to look exactly like any other. This, Orwell says, is not the way in which we should think of language.

A first example occurs in paragraph 4 as Orwell writes:

the concrete melts into the abstract.

Concrete does not melt, therefore readers read this knowing it to be a comparison to something that does indeed melt. This serves to illustrate the point that a gradual, yet inevitable change is taking place.

Another example in the 4th paragraph occurs in these words:

phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.

Here, Orwell demonstrates the ineffectiveness of phrases which are often used to just fill the necessary space on a paper to be a complete piece of writing or speech. If a carpenter were to put together a well-built hen-house, he would select materials that fit each other perfectly and he would fasten the pieces together himself with precision. This simile compares writing to construction. Both processes are creative, but can be done either poorly or effectively. This simile gives a visual representation to the reading audience.

Orwell uses the pretentious nature of Latin derivitives to "haunt" and the need to look for solid language as the "hunt". These occur in paragraphs 7 and 11 respectively. These figurative uses of these words function to create a feeling or mood in the reader. This mood feels both overshadowing and labor-intensive as these figures of speech portray.

The simile

an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink

demonstrates a comparison that once again readers can visually relate with. The process of clearing a clogged sink is irritatingly frustrating. This provides a relatable example that helps portray overused stale phrases.

Orwell's rhetorical strategies of using similes, metaphors, and figurative language are highly effective because they both clarify his intended points and help persuade the reader that he is right. The abilities to relate and clarify meaning position readers to agree with Orwell.

How effective is Orwell's use of analogy in "Politics and the English Language"?

The central analogy in Orwell's essay is that clarity of expression—good writing—is connected to clarity of thought, or effective politics. He writes that our writing becomes "ugly" because our thoughts are "foolish" and that because our writing is bad, it becomes easier to have "foolish thoughts." If we can get rid of these "bad habits" of poor writing, it becomes possible to take a "first step toward political regeneration."

Orwell illustrates this analogy through the use of examples. He produces five "representative" samples of professional writing that exhibit the bad qualities that make for bad thinking. The two attributes these examples have in common are "staleness of imagery" and "lack of precision." In the same way bad writing leads to bad thinking, the use of clichés clouds meaning. These expressions are used without thought, and the writer often does not fully understand what they mean in the first place.

Orwell's point is not that metaphors are bad, but that they should be new and creative. Orwell's own metaphor, in which he compares inflated diction to "soft snow" that "covers up all the details" of things, is an example of a metaphor that helps meaning.

Orwell's entire essay functions in this way. It has the double purpose of making an argument while at the same time being that argument's best example. Orwell's style is his own best evidence of the relationship between clarity of expression and clarity of thought.