COMING UP FOR AIR: ORWELLIAN VISION OF THE APOCALYPSE IN THE MODERN WORLD

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One of the important functions of a literary text is, no doubt, to serve the purpose of revealing and predicting what to come in the future. In each period, there always appears a literary production that foresees the future and aims to warn its readers against any possible cataclysmic events. As a distinct literary genre, secular apocalyptic literature aims to present its reader the startling revelation of any cataclysmic events in the eyes of an author with his/her vivid fictional depiction This study aims to analyse George Orwell’s novel Coming up for Air (1939) as one of the exemplary texts of secular apocalyptic fiction by depicting the socio-cultural and historical context Orwell was influenced. With his bright prophetic vision of the future and his realistic depiction of the imminent World War II, rapid industrialisation that manifested itself especially in the mass production of firearms in the eve of World War II, Orwell achieves to warn humanity against the war and its calamity afterwards. In this regard, Coming up for Air still keeps its own with his revelation regarding the war that humanity should take heed of.