‘Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life’ by Anna Funder

I never enjoyed George Orwell’s books in school, although I was always aware that his writing was considered important. It follows that I wasn’t motivated to read any of his biographies either. Fast forward to October 2024, sitting in my cousin’s house Down Under, where I found several works by the Australian author Anna Funder. I thought it only fitting that I should read one, and the title “Wifedom” intrigued me.

Eileen O’Shaughnessy was George Orwell’s first and most influential wife, but her story was never a real part of his story.

Anna Funder based her work on some of Eileen’s letters to friends and, through these and her other research, uncovered the impact Eileen had on Orwell’s writing, including the infamous “Animal Farm.” Orwell himself does not acknowledge Eileen’s heroic efforts to enable and maintain his chosen life, except to occasionally refer to “my wife.” He consciously and systematically reduced her to nothing but his possession.

I remember clearly the day that I transitioned from a best friend and cherished companion into a possession. Like Eileen, I too accomplished that by saying “I do.” It was astonishingly easy for all the gaslighting and ridicule to erase my independence and self-confidence, and it took me seven years to break free and become me again.

Eileen went to Oxford on a scholarship to study English, and she wrote poetry and engaged in journalism. She dropped her pursuit of a Master of Arts in psychology to marry Eric Blair (Orwell’s real name) and move to a cold, unplumbed country cottage so her new husband could write. Eileen ran their farm and shop and typed and edited his work all the while trying to ignore his clumsy passes at her friends and all too obvious infidelity. His constant philandering was laughable given that he didn’t like either women or sex very much. Eileen held paying jobs, cared for their adopted son, and nursed her husband when he was sick with tuberculosis until her death at 39.

She traveled with Orwell to Spain in 1936 when he signed up to fight fascists. Eileen did extensive and dangerous work there, managing supplies and communications for the cause, procuring visas, and hiding passports so people could safely leave. Orwell, when he did mention her existence, implied that she sat around in Barcelona while he did the important work.

Similar obscurity covers the work Eileen did in the Second World War. She was the couple’s main earner, ironically working first in the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information, and then for the Ministry of Food. Orwell could not join up to fight because of his deteriorating health. He did spend time in France as a war correspondent but left Eileen to her own devices to find accommodation and enough money to live though she was also seriously ill. After suffering a series of hemorrhages, she was diagnosed with uterine tumors. Two doctors advised a hysterectomy.

Eileen wrote a long, anguished letter to her husband filled with doubts about incurring the expense. She wished she could have sought Orwell’s advice before spending “his” funds — that she earned — on her undeserving self. She added, “What worries me is that I really don’t think I’m worth the money.”

It’s a revealing comment on how her self-worth was eroded during her marriage to Orwell. Funder sees this whole 4,000-word outpouring as “the most terrifying letter.” It was not forwarded to Orwell promptly, so he knew nothing of what ensued, which was that Eileen, all alone, took a bus to the hospital to have the operation. She died on the operating table.

Shocked but apparently not grief-stricken, Orwell poured all his time and energy into trying to find a replacement drone. Over a short period, he proposed to four women, including Sonia Brownell. She turned him down the first time but accepted on his second try. Brownell herself gave a friend the reason for her change of heart: “I don’t know. … I felt sorry for him.”

In trying to understand why so little of Eileen exists within Orwell’s biographies, Anna Funder discovers a seemingly pathological erasing and minimizing of Eileen’s life, aided and abetted by Eileen herself. Using letters and biographies, Funder recreates how Eileen went from being an intelligent, lively, and literary master in her own right to a phantom married to a cheap philanderer who treated her like a replaceable servant. She makes us face the fact that despite the decades that have passed, some things haven’t changed, and some women continue to lose themselves to the burden of shouldering too much of the household responsibilities.

Reading “Wifedom” moved me from being reluctant to read Orwell’s work to being disgusted by him as a human being. He must have had the kind of magnetism that abusers and narcissists radiate. I empathized with Eileen at the same time I wanted to shake her. I came close to having her life but, unlike Eileen, I got out in time.