The Orwell Youth Prize takes its inspiration from the author, journalist and essayist George Orwell. Orwell wrote from his own experiences and observed the social injustices and political happenings of the world around him.
Orwell also wrote in language that was clear, concise and compelling for his audience. We encourage you to follow George Orwell’s example: to write about something that matters to you, and that you want to draw to the attention of others.
Here we’ve put together some prompts inspired by Orwell’s writing and different kinds of freedom, to help you to start thinking about the theme. When you’re ready to start researching, click here to browse our list of potential reading, watching and listening about freedom, and lack of freedom, in our world today.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” – Nineteen Eighty-Four
“If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.” – Freedom of the Park
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – Preface to Animal Farm
“The imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity.” – The Prevention of Literature
- What does freedom of expression mean to you?
- How free are we to form our own opinions about the world?
- Should there be any limits to freedom of speech?
- Who is free to speak, and be heard?
- How important is it for your imagination to be free?
FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS
“That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better” – Nineteen Eighty-Four
“If a man cannot enjoy the return of Spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he
do with the leisure that the machine will give him?” – Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
- Can you be happy without being free? Or free without being happy?
- Does freedom always lead to happiness?
- Has technology made us freer?
FREEDOM AND THE ENVIRONMENT
“The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.” – Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
“Because, after all, what is a road like Ellesmere Road? Just a prison with the cells all in a row. A line of semidetached torture-chambers…” – Coming Up For Air
“There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four-mile radius, and it i
s rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a halfpenny of rent.” – Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
- How does the environment we live in shape our freedom?
- Who or what puts limits on our freedoms?
- How free do you feel in day to day life?
- How do the freedoms we have compare to those of the natural world?
- Is nature free?
FREEDOM AND POWER
“I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys… I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle.” – Shooting an Elephant
“Freedom is slavery” – Nineteen Eighty-Four
“Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine.” – Homage to Catalonia
“’The stars are a free show; it don’t cost anything to use your eyes.’” – Down and Out in Paris and London
From JULIA by Sandra Newman, published 2023 (This book is recommended for older readers)
The below quotes are taken from a blog which Newman wrote for the Orwell Foundation, Finding Julia, about her experience and motivations for writing the novel. Here, she talks about the different meanings of freedom for Nineteen Eighty-Four‘s male protagonst, Winston Smith, and the female protagonist, Julia:
“Freedom for Winston is speaking the truth; freedom for Julia is putting on scent and showing herself to her boyfriend in a pretty frock.”
“Out of view of the telescreens, Winston is able to be himself with Julia; this perhaps is what love means for him. But Julia is a woman, and one who has never known a world without Big Brother. Being honest with another person—being known—has no place in her experiences or her desires.”
- How does the kind of society we live in affect our freedom?
- How are freedom and equality connected to one another?
- What happens when our ideas of freedom come into conflict with each other?
- Do social pressures and expectations take away our freedom?
- What does it mean to feel free?
- Can we be free as individuals, when others aren’t?
- How is someone’s job or wealth linked to their freedom?
- Can you truly be free without money?
Feeling inspired? Head on to the Research page for some tips on researching your entry – and to explore how writers and journalists are tackling our theme today.