There are additional parallels between Orwell’s relationship with his future wife Eileen and Gordon’s relationship with Rosemary. Also like Gordon, Orwell had to get a job at a used bookstore. Like Gordon Comstock, the protagonist of Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Orwell was supported by a wealthy leftist-in Orwell’s case, Sir Richard Rees, who published a literary journal called The Adelphi. In the early 1930s, he was a struggling writer living in London. In writing the novel, George Orwell drew on many of his personal experiences. “Keep the aspidistra flying” is a play on “keep the red flag flying”-a lyric from the official song of the British Labour Party-that replaces the socialist red flag with a symbol of English middle-class culture. As a result, aspidistra was associated with the English middle class. Owning aspidistras became common during the Victorian era because they could thrive indoors with little sunlight. The novel’s title is a reference to the aspidistra, a popular household plant in England.
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