George Orwell`s Essay Such Such Were the Joys is Orwell`s retelling of his experiences at St. Cyprians school when he was an eight year old boy. In the excerpt I am examining it shows Orwell's treatment as a young naïve boy, and his run in with authority, this passage is able to give the full range of emotion that Orwell had felt in the situations he gets into. These situations are so adequately portrayed by Orwell through his use of sense-imagery, diction and characterization throughout the passage.
The first example of sense-imagery used by Orwell can be seen in the quotation "This time Sambo laid on in real earnest. He continued for a length of time that frightened and astonished me - about five minutes, it seemed - ending up by breaking the riding-crop. The bone handle went flying across the room." (Orwell 10-12) This quotation shows how Orwell had to deal with his naivety for bragging about his prior beating not hurting.
This is conveyed through Orwell`s description of the beating by mentioning the "bone handle" flying across the room and the description of the beating being "in earnest" to show the true impact it had on him. Another quotation in Orwell's work that shows sensory detail is "I had fallen into a chair, weakly snivelling. I remember that this was the only time throughout my boyhood when a beating actually reduced me to tears, and curiously enough I was not even now crying because of the pain. The second beating had not hurt very much either. Fright and shame seemed to have anaesthetized me." (Orwell 15-19) This quotation uses terms like "weakly" and "fright" to show his demoralized state. This passage uses that language to portray that although they may not have rule over Orwell with physical...