In this work George Orwell depicts the backbreaking and pathetic life of hotel workers in Paris and of the vagrants
in London. He creates various characters who appear real and gives us a glimpse
into the lives of the wretched lives. One feels he has unfolded the lives of the modern slaves through portraits, experiences and physical and psychological conditions. In this
world you find the unknown and ugly side of our civilization that offers
luxuries to some and miseries to many. You find the educated drudges, the ex-
Russian soldiers like Boris whose ambition is to become Head waiter , the
Italian who engages the author for learning English but disappears suddenly. The
narrator who goes starving for five days and prays to the portrait of a prostitute
mistaking her for a saint. Poverty makes you tell lies, live in the cellars,
work for 18 hours a day, pilfer food and
wine, swear at your coworkers, cry in helplessness , go without love or
marriage, cheat the gullible, drink to
the excess, go without love , sleep on beds with bugs , learn tricks of survival,
face uncertain tomorrow, enjoy the momentary pleasures and die unwept and
unsung. People become indifferent to themselves, ignore murders that happen
under their windows, suffer from sleeplessness , turn shirkers like Jules who
evades work as a from of protest. It opens the filth and lack of hygiene in the kitchens of hotel industry where exists hierarchy in
workers , profits for proprietors, luxuries for customers and the wretchedness
for the workers.
The irony is brought out in style
of writing and the readers tends to smile at the words .
“We were simply carrying out our
duties; and as our first duty was punctuality, we saved time by being dirty.”
(83)
“Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food,
the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat.” (83)
“The mass of the rich and the poor
are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire
is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.” (137)
The workers have not formed a
union to go on strike for better working conditions. But they do not think,
because they have no leisure for it; their life has made slaves of them” (124)
If the educated people who have
to stand by these overworked workers acquiesce in the process and are afraid of
them since they know nothing about them. The same attitude persists in the case
of the homeless and the vagrants who are
depicted as criminals.
Orwell also describes the
subhuman lives of the homeless who are not allowed to stay in shelter’s
for more than a night, undergo
humiliating medical tests to ensure that they are free form infection, are
forced to pray by the religious Charities for the sake of bread. These homeless
lose their self-respect, lose sense of hygiene ,turn lazy , indulge in telling lies , begging and petty thefts and suffer imprisonment and do all they can to save pennies to keep
off starving. Their struggle for existence itself is daunting. They can become better by providing them self-sustaining
work in working in kitchens and gardening to grow their own food and
vegetables. A lot has to be done to make them recover or rediscover their sense of humanity.
Orwell writes toward the end of
his nonfictional work that he “should
like to know more about propleg like Mario, paddy and Bill and to
understand “what really goes on in the souls of plonguers and tramps
and Embankment sleepers.” (227)
He ends the book saying, “ I shall
never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar
to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work
lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army , nor pawn my clothes, nor
refuse a handbill , nor enjoy a meal at
a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.” (227)
This is a book for those who want
to know about our fellow humans living
in partial or completely wretched conditions.
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