Empire Ep. 305 Summary
"Orwell: Dark Secrets, The CIA, & His Forgotten Failures (Part 4)"
Released: November 6, 2025
Hosts: William Dalrymple and Anita Anand
Guest: Anna Funder, author of "Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life"
Overview
In this explosive Part 4 of Empire’s Orwell miniseries, William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, joined by acclaimed writer Anna Funder, confront the latter years and lasting legacies of George Orwell. They examine his illness and death, the true depth of his collaborations with the women in his life—especially his first wife, Eileen—and the complexities and contradictions that shaped not only his literature but also his image and legacy. Drawing deeply on Funder's research, the episode reveals uncomfortable truths behind the Orwellian myth, from overlooked women to interference by the CIA, and offers a frank discussion of creators, credit, and erasure.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
The Final Days: Illness, Isolation, and Artistic Obsession
[03:02]–[11:28]
- Orwell had chronic lung problems from early childhood; his mother’s diaries referenced his poor health and first word: “beastly.”
- Despite tuberculosis and advice to the contrary, he retreated to Jura in the Hebrides to write 1984. The promise of sea air and isolation was countered by his own destructive habits: chain smoking and working by paraffin lamp.
- Anna Funder: “He sort of was suffering for his art in this most extreme of ways.” [06:01]
- Final manuscript typed in torturous conditions; no one would travel to Jura to assist.
- Moved between sanatoriums and hospitals; married his second wife Sonia Brownell on his deathbed at University College Hospital.
- Fun Fact: Sonia and friends organized a last-ditch plan to fly Orwell to Switzerland for tuberculosis treatment, symbolized by his ever-ready fishing rod—a “symbol of hope, against hope.” [08:11]
- His death came suddenly after a massive pulmonary hemorrhage. He narrowly missed the advent of effective antibiotics.
Anita Anand: “Is there a point where he ... starts preparing for death? ... Surely something in him ... knew ... He wasn’t going to get out of this?” [09:13]
Legacy Claimed and Twisted: The CIA & Animal Farm
[12:02]–[13:42]
- Despite lifelong democratic socialism, Orwell’s literary estate became embroiled with the CIA. The Office of Policy Coordination covertly obtained film rights to Animal Farm and produced an anti-communist film distorting Orwell’s message.
- Anita Anand: “They made the pigs look like humans because they thought ... if people think that the capitalists are pigs, they won’t like capitalism anymore ... it’s bad farming practices, you know, in essence. It’s a really ridiculous situation.” [12:40]
- Orwell’s works have become worldwide symbols, sometimes adopted in dramatically unintended ways (e.g., Animal Farm interpreted as Burmese political satire).
Anita Anand: “In 1984 he talks about these supreme powers rewriting history to suit their own narrative. And that’s precisely what the CIA tries to do to Animal Farm. I think it’s just hilarious, to be honest.” [13:42]
Women Erased: Eileen O’Shaughnessy and the Myth of the Solitary Genius
[14:47]–[18:06], [29:28]–[38:12], [41:55]–[46:56]
Uncovering Eileen’s Life and Influence
- Anna Funder’s “Wifedom” exposes the central, overlooked role of Eileen O’Shaughnessy (Orwell’s first wife) in his literary and personal life—but also a wider pattern of erasure of women’s intellectual and practical contributions.
- Funder: “He was only really, by the skin of his teeth, an Etonian at all ... his mother ... feminist, Fabian socialist ... So Orwell had this extraordinary lively, intellectual, feminist mother and aunt.” [15:22]
- Eileen was brilliant: Oxford-educated (taught by Tolkien), witty, and highly connected. Her career and talents were subsumed into Orwell’s work.
- Funder: “When you read her letters and you read Animal Farm, the voice is the same.” [46:56]
- Eileen edited, typed, and co-developed Orwell’s manuscripts, especially Animal Farm, and was widely thought by friends to rein in Orwell’s paranoia and sadism, improving his prose.
- Funder: “Several people who knew him well ... said it was remarkable how much his writing improved after he got married. But they too wouldn’t name her.” [42:28]
Anna Funder: “The fact that none of the biographers thought to look closely at this ... and deconstruct it to see what is being hidden ... is a shock.” [39:45]
Life and Death of Eileen
- Eileen was pivotal in Orwell’s survival and literary productivity during the Spanish Civil War—she travelled to Barcelona, worked in the International Labor Party headquarters, and saved Orwell’s life with her resourcefulness.
- She died alone at 39 on an operating table, having taken the cheaper, riskier surgery option due to financial pressure and emotional isolation. Orwell was absent, reporting from Europe.
- Funder: “She had spent the best part of her life ... ministering to his health ... and when she needed care, it didn’t occur to him it was his responsibility, I don’t think.” [48:55]
- Posthumously, Orwell barely acknowledged her, moved on quickly, and never credited her role in his major works.
Anita Anand: “It’s churlish to the point of being actually quite cruel, isn’t it?” [39:36]
Orwell and Women: Contradiction, Control, and Confessions
[18:06]–[28:12], [52:08]–[58:49]
- Despite left-wing and feminist influences, Orwell’s writings about women—and his behavior—were disturbingly at odds with his progressive stances on other subjects.
- Anna Funder references an essay where Orwell describes women as “incorrigibly dirty and sexually insistent,” and discusses evidence of sexual assault, “pouncing,” and his lifelong homophobia, despite likely same-sex attractions.
- Funder: “There’s a lot of evidence that Orwell was gay ... a lot of sexual assault ... but I’m looking at what the women said ... they were shocked, they were surprised, they were appalled ...” [19:10]
- His attitudes were not unusual for his era, but painfully at odds with his otherwise forward-thinking social critiques.
- Dalrymple: “He isn’t the man of his generation ... when he’s writing about fascism ... is this not exactly the sort of patriarchal attitudes we should expect of a writer from the 1920s and 1930s in a tweed suit?” [56:19]
The Writer and the System: Credit, Patriarchy, and the Reader’s Fantasy
[55:04]–[58:49]
- Funder reflects on the necessity and injustice of erasure of women in the construction of the ‘genius male author’ myth.
- Anna Funder: “All kinds of men are writing their stories as if women didn’t make them possible ... a great man must not owe anything to a woman because that could possibly take away from his achievement. I don’t think it does!” [39:45]
- The system enabled these attitudes—shame, silence, and minimization of women’s roles.
Notable Quotes & Moments
-
On the Jura writing room and Eileen’s absence:
“He refused all medical attention ... so he’s sort of coughing up his lungs but really killing himself to get this book done.”
— Anna Funder [06:01] -
On the CIA’s adaptation of Animal Farm:
“They made the pigs look like humans because they thought ... if people think that the capitalists are pigs, they won’t like capitalism anymore.”
— Anita Anand [12:40] -
On Eileen’s influence and erasure:
“When you read her letters and you read Animal Farm, the voice is the same. So ... I don’t know how that practically worked ... but it was joyful for both of them.”
— Anna Funder [46:56] -
On the literary myth:
“It’s a shock to me that Orwell scholars, who are much more informed than I am, didn’t do that. ... a great man must not owe anything to a woman because that could possibly take away from his achievement.”
— Anna Funder [39:45] -
Reconciling art and the artist:
“We need Orwell to be the man he was to have written the work he did. And we need her to have been the woman she was to have co-written Animal Farm.”
— Anna Funder [55:04]
Memorable Segments & Timestamps
- [03:02]–[06:41] — Orwell’s last months: Jura, the writing of 1984, and deathbed marriage.
- [12:02]–[13:42] — The CIA and Animal Farm's transformation into an anti-communist tool.
- [15:22]–[18:06] — Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s early life and familial influences.
- [34:04]–[38:12] — The meeting, marriage, and sacrifices of Eileen for Orwell’s career.
- [38:00]–[41:55] — Eileen in the Spanish Civil War; her direct impact on Orwell’s survival and works.
- [41:55]–[46:56] — Eileen’s editorial and creative involvement in Animal Farm.
- [48:55]–[51:38] — Eileen’s illness, death, and Orwell’s reaction.
- [55:04]–[56:19] — Anna Funder’s reflections on loving Orwell’s work and reconciling it with his personal failings.
- [57:04]–[58:49] — Dalrymple and Funder debate Orwell’s behavior in the context of his time and upbringing.
Tone
Lively, iconoclastic, at times irreverent, but always grounded in empathy, deep research, and a desire to challenge historical narratives and credit those overshadowed by the legends of “great” men.
Further Reading
- Anna Funder, "Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life" (members get a discount: empirepoduk.com)
- Previous episodes in the Orwell miniseries for a richer context regarding his relationships, works, and legacy.
Next up: Joseph Conrad, with guest Maya Jasanoff.