"Some Thoughts on the Common Toad" is an

essay An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

published in 1946 by the English

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

. It is a eulogy in favour of spring. The essay first appeared in ''

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the Tribune of the Plebs, tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs ac ...

'' on the 12 April 1946, and was reprinted in ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

'' of 20 May 1946. An abridged version, "The Humble Toad", appeared in ''World Digest'' in March 1947.The Orwell Prize: "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad"
Retrieved 17 June 2013.

Background

Orwell loved the natural world from his childhood, when he rambled in the fields around Henley-on-Thames and on the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the ...

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. It is also a non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, bor ...

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

. His letters and diaries reveal his careful observation of the nature surrounding him and of field expeditions throughout his life, even when he was in

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

or at the sanatorium in

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

in 1938. Orwell had been disappointed by earlier letters of complaint to ''Tribune'' when he ventured into nature-related topics, instead of hard politics. An " As I Please" article published on 21 January 1944 that referred to rambler roses that he had planted at the cottage in which he had lived before the war had brought correspondence criticising his

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

nostalgia.

Summary

Orwell describes the emergence from hibernation of the

common toad The common toad, European toad, or in Anglophone parts of Europe, simply the toad (''Bufo bufo'', from Latin ''bufo'' "toad"), is a toad found throughout most of Europe (with the exception of Ireland, Iceland, parts of Scandinavia, and some List ...

and its procreative cycle and offers it as an alternative to the skylark and primrose as a less-conventional example of the coming of spring. Orwell points out that the pleasures of spring are available to everybody, cost nothing and can be appreciated in the town as much as the country. However, Orwell is concerned with feelings in some groups that there is something reprehensible in enjoying nature. For the politically discontent, groaning under the

capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

system, the love of nature seems sentimental. The insistently modern, for their part, seem to see the appreciation of nature as

reactionary In politics, a reactionary is a person who favors a return to a previous state of society which they believe possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary.''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, (1999) p. 729. ...

in a machine age. Orwell dismisses those ideas and argues that retaining a childhood love of nature makes a peaceful and decent future more likely.

Extracts

How many times have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who would stop me enjoying this if they could. But luckily they can't.... 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.

Reactions

The article prompted an appreciative letter from John Betjeman on April 18, 1946 that said, "I have always thought you were one of the best living writers of prose," He praised Orwell that he had "enjoyed and echoed every sentiment" of his thoughts on the common toad.''Collected Works: Smothered Under Journalism'', p. 241.

References

{{Crimethink Essays by George Orwell 1946 essays Works originally published in Tribune (magazine)

Background

Summary

Extracts

Reactions

See also

References