KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING PLANTED THE SEED FOR 1984

George Orwell’s ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ planted the seed for ‘1984.’ The early novel from 1936 is often dismissed as a minor work: a satirical portrait of a disgruntled poet railing against money, respectability and middle-class conformity. Yet read closely, it reveals the portal to Orwell’s dystopian vision of ‘1984’, first published in 1949.

The connection between the two books is not merely thematic but structural and psychological. Both novels open with an exacting attention to the time of day, and in both cases this seemingly banal detail establishes a world governed by invisible pressures – economic in one, totalitarian in the other – where individual freedom is constricted long before overt oppression appears.

‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ begins with Gordon Comstock at precisely half past two on a London afternoon, already steeped in boredom, irritation and resentment. The time is not incidental. It situates Gordon in the dead zone of the working day: too late for purpose, too early for escape. This temporal stasis mirrors Gordon’s social position. He is trapped between aspiration and poverty, ambition and self-sabotage. Time, in this opening moment, does not move toward possibility; it drags. Orwell’s London is governed by clocks, paydays, lunch hours and shop closing times. The tyranny is not political but economic, and all the more insidious for being normalised.

The famous opening of ‘1984’ – “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” – performs a similar function, though with far greater menace. Here, time itself has been militarised. The clocks do not merely measure the day; they announce the authority of the state, imposing a rationalised, unnatural order upon daily life. Where Gordon Comstock is oppressed by money and respectability, Winston Smith in ‘1984’ is oppressed by power and surveillance. Both men awaken into worlds where time is not neutral. It is an instrument of control.

Bourgeois Aspidistra

In ‘Aspidistra,’ money is the unseen Big Brother. Gordon’s obsessive hatred of the “Money God” governs every thought he has, distorting his relationships, his creativity, even his sense of self. He prides himself on resisting bourgeois values, yet he cannot stop measuring his worth against them. His rebellion – quitting a decent job, living in squalor, refusing small comforts – is performative and ultimately futile. He is watched not by telescreens but by shop windows, landlords, waiters and social expectations. Shame replaces surveillance; poverty replaces fear. But the psychological effect is strikingly similar to Winston’s condition in that both men internalise the system they despise.

Language, too, provides a clear through-line. In ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying,’ Orwell already shows his suspicion of how words can be corrupted by social pressure. Advertising slogans, polite clichés and literary pretensions all ring hollow. Gordon’s poetry, ostensibly his weapon against money and the capitalism, is itself compromised by vanity and resentment. This anticipates the linguistic anxieties of ‘1984,’ where Newspeak formalises the process Gordon experiences informally: the shrinking and manipulation of language until rebellion becomes literally unthinkable. Gordon can still articulate his rage, but it achieves nothing. Winston, by contrast, lives in a world where even articulation is dangerous.

The aspidistra itself – the sturdy, respectable houseplant of lower-middle-class England – prefigures Orwell’s later symbolic economy. Like Big Brother posters, it is ubiquitous, silently reinforcing conformity. The plant stands for domestic respectability, financial prudence and the quiet suffocation of the spirit. Its presence in windows and sitting rooms is not enforced by law, but by aspiration. In ‘1984,’ the same function is performed by slogans: “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.” One operates through culture, the other through terror, but both colonise the inner life.

Most importantly, both novels are studies in failed rebellion. Gordon Comstock does not overthrow the Money God; he capitulates, accepting a job, marriage and the very aspidistra he once despised. Winston Smith does not defeat Big Brother; it defeats him. The difference is one of scale, not outcome. Orwell’s bleak insight, already present in ‘Aspidistra,’ is that systems rarely need to crush individuals violently. More often, they exhaust them, distract them, or offer them small comforts in exchange for surrender.

Seen in this light, ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ is not a youthful misstep but a foundational text. Its opening moment – an ordinary afternoon weighed down by invisible pressures – contains the embryo of Orwell’s later nightmare. Time, in both novels, marks the boundaries of freedom. Whether measured by wages or telescreens, it reminds the individual of their place. By the time the clocks strike thirteen in ‘1984,’ George Orwell has merely made explicit what was already ticking away in Gordon Comstock’s London: the quiet, relentless discipline of modern life.

oOo

My Spanish Civil War novel
We Shall Pass
is available for Amazon.
and Luath Press.