Childhood, nature and political pessimism in the work of George Orwell a detailed analysis of the Golden Country

This article focuses on the analysis of the elements which structures the Orwellian concept of Golden Country. This concept is only mentioned in his last novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it contains all the political thought of the author. The origin of the term can be found in the references to childhood and nature that Orwell makes in his novel Coming up for air, and his personal experiences —specially, the Spanish Civil War—, the arrival of the war and the rise of totalitarianism end up shaping it until its final incursion in his masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Starting from the definition of the Golden Country, this article goes through Orwell's work in order to analyze the main elements that are behind that concept: childhood, nature, disenchantment and political pessimism. In the end, we can see that what is contained in the Golden Country is not just the wishes and desires of its author, but also his impotence in the face of excessive mechanization and his fears about a future that is uncertain and devastating.