The first impressions gained from reading George Orwell’s essay “A Nice Cup of Tea” included Orwell's explanation on the correct ways of enjoying drinking tea. The narrator guides the reader through instructions on how to drink and enjoy tea, but also talks about many of the faults the people are doing when drinking their tea. The title of the essay refers to the essay’s content as well as the idiom which means that something suits someone nicely such as how Orwell describes tea in general. The central meaning within this essay is the methods of creating the "perfect cup of tea". The central meaning is evident within the essay. However, the central meaning can be also presented as a universal meaning that readers can all relate to when reading this particular essay written by George Orwell, which is that people who focus on quality and detail will receive greater results over quantity. Within Orwell’s essay “A Nice Cup of Tea” there are a variety of literary features that help enhance the understanding of the central meaning which are: purpose, tone and mood, structure and syntax, voice and narrative point-of-view, diction, and imagery.
The purpose, tone and mood of this essay justifies the central meaning within the essay. The overall purpose of the essay is to raise awareness of the beauty of tea, due to the advances of civilizations around the world. The purpose compliments the central idea of creating the perfect cup of tea, due to the fact that if the central meaning of the text was evident, then there would be no purpose to read the essay. The tone Orwell uses within his writing of this essay is a sense of sincerity, seriousness and himself being informative. His tone of sincerity and seriousness within the text is to be able to express his points to the reader with no ambiguities. As well, the tone causes his words to be more descriptive, which leads to the third point to his tone within the essay. Orwell's tone is informative for the reader because he wants the reader to be more interested in tea after he/she reads it and then it eventually leads back to the main purpose of the essay. The mood of the essay shows a sense of being informed, being more appreciative towards the topic of tea and being more aware after reading the essay. As well, the mood also refers back to the purpose.
The structure and syntax used in Orwell’s essay helps the reader understand the central meaning. Within “A Nice Cup of Tea”, each paragraph portrays a certain idea within Orwell’s argument. The first paragraph consists of a hook, the following paragraph explains how important tea is, and then another paragraph expresses (or states) his argument. The following paragraphs explain the “eleven...points” about making a perfect cup of tea as well as the comments about the current similarities and examples of how people mistreat their tea. Orwell eventually ends with a conclusion that suggests that other uses of tea which gives the reader more information based on the topic. Overall, the structure and paragraphing flows nicely, which helps the reader follow and understand the central meaning of the essay. The effective use of syntax enables the smooth flow of ideas to come across to the reader about the use of capitalization and conjunctions. Within the essay, the capitalization of “WITHOUT SUGAR” (Orwell, 2) gives emphasis towards the reader. The impact that capitalization can cause is massive, because the reader can see that the phrase is larger than the rest of the words which shows that drinking tea without sugar is important. As well, the conjunctions that help start the list of creating the perfect cup of tea such as “firstly”, “secondly”, “thirdly”, “fourthly”, “fifthly” etc. help emphasize the transitions between Orwell’s ideas.
The voice and narrative point-of-view of the essay help the reader gain a better understanding of the central idea. The voice of the essay is probably the author himself, George Orwell and the narrative point-of-view is written in first person. The voice and narrative point-of-view shares a similar role in engaging the reader (emotionally) because the essay is personal and opinion based. The situation within this essay seems that Orwell is trying to talk to the reader, due to that fact he refers to the reader in second person as if Orwell was talking to the reader.
Diction within the essay was used to help portray the method of making the perfect cup of tea. Orwell uses connotation-based words to help describe the incorrect ways of tea practicing such as “tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron tastes of grease and whitewash”. The connotations of tasteless, grease and whitewash all convey a sense of the tea turning out distasteful and unpleasant which affects the reader to avoid using those containers to pour tea from. Orwell also uses the diction within the essay “A Nice Cup of Tea” to be precise, such as drinking tea using a “cylindrical type of cup”.
The imagery used by Orwell in the essay includes images painted from descriptive instructions, such as “six heaped teaspoons”. As well, the description of not using strainers or other items to “imprison the tea” causes the reader to picture tea leaves trapped within a cell-like prison. This specific image was interesting, due to the fact that the image shows one section of the eleven points of creating the perfect cup of tea. As well imagery is used when Orwell states that “tea is meant to be bitter” and then he compares it to beer which also is “meant to be bitter”. Another example of comparison is when he expresses his disliking towards adding sugar to tea by saying that it is“equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt”.
I think that the theme was to express that there is indeed a certain way to drink tea – in which I think the message to the reader would be that art is to be mastered, which Orwell is explaining how. As with other Orwell essays, I see a sense of Orwell feeling like he has some sort of dominant power over readers. Some may say Orwell is being influential through his essays, but I also feel that we are individuals that can choose what to agree and disagree with. Some literary features were more evident than others, but the ones I found were a strong sense of Orwell’s point of view, Orwell’s informative and somewhat charismatic tone that he gives off to the reader, his constant strung out hyperbole of explaining of how there is the perfect way to drink tea, and epithets that describe the tea or the teapot.
ReplyDeleteI like your formatting Matthew, but first of all where’s the conclusion?!?! Haha, I mean that in the nicest way possible okay? I like the central message that you picked out because I can see where you could get that from, although that was just a minor detail. And from that, it is slightly puzzling for me to see a link between your identified literary features and the thesis statement about the central message Orwell wants us to see. I mean that I understand the identification and explanation of why Orwell has usage of them in the essay, but there isn’t a clear link to why they evident to support your thesis. Besides what I just said, when you identify and explain I find it to be a good explanation. All in all, I can see what you were trying to say, which I agree with, maybe not so narrow of a thesis and it’ll be brilliant. :)