Marrakech By Orwell Quotes And Analysis example essay topic

Thesis: For the thesis, I would say that this essay shows how insignificant certain people and cultures are to the rest of the world. For example how someone can juts be buried with no name, and be erased from the world's memory in a short amount of time. Another example would be how the Arab man was envious of a bird's meal. This essay demonstrates how poorly man-kind is treated. Thesis Statement: " When you walk through a town like this -- two hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom at least twenty thousand own literally nothing except the rags they stand in -- when you see how the people live, and still more how easily they die, it is always difficult to believe that you are walking among human beings".

Essay Type: I would argue that this essay is a narrative essay. In the essay, Orwell relays information from his perspective in order to demonstrate the meaning he wishes his readers to understand. Throughout the essay, we can clearly see what point Orwell is trying to make. In the beginning the essay talks about Morocco, which is one of Britain's colonies. Orwell describes to us that poverty and despair heavily existed, as he witnesses a lifeless body, wrapped in a white cloth, propped on a wooden board and carried by four friends to the tune of a religious chant. The body is eventually dumped into a hole in the ground, without memory or commemoration.

Not even so much as a tombstone. Further on, as he feeds a gazelle in public gardens, he is approached by an Arab navvy, who asks Orwell for some of the bread he is feeding the gazelle. He secretly stores the piece of bread underneath his ragged clothing, realizing that that piece bread could save him from dying of hunger. Later in the bazaar, he is approached by hundreds of peasants, even the blind, to request a cigarette. Orwell points out that none of these peasants work less than twelve hour days, and yet a cigarette is a luxury the cannot afford. Near his home, there are old women carrying firewood.

As a woman passes him, he gives her five-pence. The old woman answers by showing both gratitude and surprise. It seemed as if the woman had accepted her role, and the fact that she was invisible to those around her, and for a white person no less to stop and show kindness towards her, was unbelievable. Orwell uses many stories in his essay to get his point across, yet none of stories would have such an immense effect if it weren't for the great detail he uses to describe them.

Therefore, this essay could also be illustrated as a descriptive type. Some examples of how well Orwell gets his point across are as follows: To describe the Jewish quarters, he compares them to medieval ghettos. He goes on say, "A small, overcrowded area that contains many houses that are completely windowless, and clusters of sore-eyed children that are everywhere in unbelievable numbers. And down the centre of the streets there is generally running a little river of urine". To describe Morocco, Orwell writes, "Most of Morocco is so desolate that no wild animal larger than a hare can live on it. Huge areas which were once covered with forest have turned into a treeless waste where the soil is exactly like broken-up brick.

Nevertheless a good deal is cultivated, with the frightful labour. Long lines of women, bent double like inverted capital L's, work their way slowly across the fields, tearing up the prickly weeds with their hands, and the peasants gathering Lucerne for fodder". The most meaningful paragraph is when Orwell describes the old women carrying firewood past his house. While he noticed the firewood going by, he mentions that for several weeks he never saw the old women, just the wood. When he finally comes to realize that it was indeed, old women carrying the firewood, he describes them as, "Poor old earth-coloured bodies, bodies reduced to bones and leathery skin, bent double under the crushing weight". Orwell uses great detail is near the end.

He describes the Senegalese, which are the Moroccan army, as they march down the street and writes, "They were the blackest Negroes in Africa, so black that sometimes it was difficult to see whereabouts on their necks the hair begins. Their splendid bodies were hidden in reach-me-down khaki uniforms, their feet squashed into boots that looked like blocks of wood, and every tin hat seemed to be a couple of sizes too small. They slumped under the weight of their packs and the curiously sensitive black faces were glistening with sweat". Tone: I would say the essay has a somber tone. After absorbing his surroundings and the events that take place around him, it amazes him that what he sees in front of him are people. He himself finds it hard to recognize them, as he says about the old women carrying the firewood, simply because he has never experienced such poverty.

Orwell describes everything with a somber tone. He says that the streets and houses are infested, and windowless, with sore-eyed children all over. He refers to the land as dry, desolate and like broken brick, brings a very morbid feeling. Orwell expresses a tone of fear near the end. As he watches the army go by, he wonders how long it will be before they turn their guns on the white people, instead of risking their lives to protect them and how long before they realize that they do not have to accept that the white man is their master and they are free individuals in the world? Argumentative Technique: Orwell goes into great detail describing Morocco as well as all the people and places.

Since Orwell uses stories to get his point across, he has an anecdotal technique. Orwell also uses cause and effect. To describe the Jewish quarters, he says that because they were restricted in owning land in certain areas under Moorish rule, they are used to being overcrowded. Also, when he describes the poor carpenter, working his lathe and chisel, he explains how so many years of this labour has left him with a warped leg.

Also, when he lit the cigarette in the bazaar, hundreds of peasants surrounded him, trying to get a cigarette from him that they otherwise would have no way of obtaining. Style: This essay has is informal. While Orwell is trying to get across a general concept, by describing the events that take place in Morocco through his eyes, the word "I", which shows the style of the essay, is in most paragraphs. For example when he speaks about the Arab navy by saying, "I tore off a piece of bread and he stowed it gratefully in some respect under his rags". And while in the bazaar he says, "I was just passing the coppersmith's booths when somebody noticed that I was lighting a cigarette".

While he is describing the old women carry the firewood past his house he says, "For several weeks, always at about the same time of day, the file of women had hobbled past the house with their firewood, and though they had registered themselves on my eyeballs I cannot truly say that I had seen them". His constant use of the word "I" makes the essay informal.