The 'SMELL' ON "THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER"

[GrayFoxDown]

Even though Orwell, as a boy, admired the "adventurous" nature of working class people (bricklayers, sailors, etc.) he was warned to stay away from them..."They smelled!" It was this preconceived notion (even allowing for the fact, due to their living conditions, that they indeed did smell) that intensified the class divisions of English people. Whether or not they actually smelled is secondary to the fact that their lack of education (grace, refinement, culture...the imagined results of education) made them "smell' even more.

When he became an adult and began to seriously consider the class division in English society, Orwell went beyond the comfortable libraries and sitting rooms of most liberal thinkers: He lived for a time (albeit superficially) with the lower class. Indeed, sometimes he lived with the lowest of the low: tramps, bums, social outcasts, and assorted ne'er-do-wells. Orwell found that in a low class enviroment, education (including his own) didn't guarantee any social advantages or recognition. In the lowest echelons of society a bum is a bum of "equal merit"...it is a "classless society for the very reason that it lacks class." To abolish class-distinction means abolishing a "part of yourself"...and, through this, one's presumptions and patronizing attitudes toward the lower classes. When one encounters people of a different culture (in this case, the British lower class) one realizes that his/her own beliefs are of little significance. Observing the lower class on a one-to-one level, and within their own environs, he found that it wasn't education (insofar as its academic basics are concerned ) but the "education" of class snobbery that caused societal division in the nation. It was a struggle between those who were educated(?) and unable to abolish their class prejudices and those who were uneducated and branded with the stigmata of "smell."

Orwell's experiences among the lower class were the ingredients for his work THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER. It is a straightforward attack on the hypocrisies of liberal thinkers, generally, and on English Socialism, particularly. Not as well-known or as widely-read as 1984 or ANIMAL FARM, THE ROAD contains many of the concepts for those later works. All in all, THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER reveals Orwell's distrust and dissatisfaction with society's ability to come to reasonable and just terms with itself.
(all quotes: THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER)

[The Atheist]

Extremely well put.

Marvellous book. I could literally see the blowflies crawling over the blackening tripe.

I think the book exposed too many abscesses to be popular.

[GrayFoxDown]

Atheist--

Thanks a lot for the comment. That the book "exposed too many abscesses to be popular" is a precise and concise way of putting it, and I totally agree with your view.

[Nico87]

Ah, I really want to read The Road to Wigan Pier, Down and Out in Paris and London, Homage to Catalonia, Burmese Days, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Shooting an Elephant (I believe this is included in 'Essays' from Everyman's Library), and Coming Up For Air. Needless to say it would be kind of expensive to get all these in hardback editions, but I don't like paperbacks. I suppose there isn't any collection that has all his less popular works in one volume?

It's too bad that Everyman's Library have only printed Animal Farm, 1984 and Essays (which I have all purchased), because Everyman's is one of my favourite publishers.

Even though Orwell, as a boy, admired the "adventurous" nature of working class people (bricklayers, sailors, etc.) he was warned to stay away from them..."They smelled!" It was this preconceived notion (even allowing for the fact, due to their living conditions, that they indeed did smell) that intensified the class divisions of English people. Whether or not they actually smelled is secondary to the fact that their lack of education (grace, refinement, culture...the imagined results of education) made them "smell' even more.

Where did you read this? I've been wanting to read more about Orwells life, and not only about his time as a writer.

[burmesedays]

Extremely well put.

Marvellous book. I could literally see the blowflies crawling over the blackening tripe.

I think the book exposed too many abscesses to be popular.

I actually disagree.

I found there to be some dry spots in this book, where he sounded just like an english writer, with a the dullness and manners of an english aristocrat.

For the book exposing too many abscesses to be popular, look a The Jungle By Upton Sinclair. It exposed almost every wrongdoing to the working class by the meat-packing industry. The difference between these two books is that Upton put in a character with characteristics of passion and a character common to the workingman in Chicago. The book followed Jurgis' life with all too often real experiences and that is what made it interesting.

I think that The Road To Wigan Pier is like a lesser Down and Out in London and Paris in that it focuses more on philosophy than real-life experiences.

I will admit that I liked how he concluded that the industrialism and progress that we are striving for is at the same time something that we do not strive for, as it is the same luxuries that we work for that we don't want because they make us "soft". I think he was in a way saying that industrialism creates too much spare time and that ultimately would make us unhappy and to say unsoft, we would have to create challenges such as "dumbbell exercises".

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I thought he was a little too wordy instead of straight to the point, even though the underlying message was worth the read.