George Orwell - Road to Wigan Pier (0)

„The Road to Wigan Pier “
George Orwell
Author
George Orwell was the pen name of the English author, Eric Arthur Blair . He was born on June 25 in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal , in the then British colony of India, where his father , Richard , worked for the Opium Department of the Civil Service. His mother , Ida, brought him to England at the age of one. Orwell was educated in England at Eton College. After service with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922 to 1928, he returned to Europe to become a writer . He lived in Paris for the next two years , and then came to England as a school- teacher . He lived for several years in poverty . By 1936, Orwell had joined the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. He was wounded in the fighting. Late in the war, Orwell fought the Communists and eventually had to flee Spain for his life. During the Second World War, Orwell wrote a weekly radio political commentary, designed to counter German and Japanese propaganda in India. His wartime work for the BBC gave him a solid taste of bureaucratic hypocrisy. Orwell, who was prone to illness, had his career and his life cut short when he died of tuberculosis on January 21, 1950. He left behind a substantial body of work and a reputation for greatness. He’s most know books are: Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty- Four and The Road to Wigan Pier.
Setting
The story in the book takes place in 1930’s at the time of unemployment in the United Kingdom.
Main characters

• George Orwell – he talks about the life in mining towns in northern England and
  

the life in England itself. He talks about his life and how he became a socialist.
The Plot
The book is divided into two parts. In part one he describes the life in in industrial towns and it’s unemployment. In the first chapter of the first part he talks about his life in a lodging-house owned by the Brookers. Most of the people who live there are old and single . In the end of the first chapter Orwell leaves the lodging-house and goes to find out about the miners life. He describes how the miner goes to work every day – at first the miner goes down to the shaft, after that he has to „ travel “ along the tunnel to the place where coal is dismantled. The tunnel is a bit over a meter high and you travel many kilometers. The time that miners „travel“ is not included in the work hours. The coal dismantling work is hard, because miners have to dig on their knees. After 7 and a half hours of work the „travel“ to the surface. After a days work the miners are all covered in coal dust . Only 1/3 mines have baths for miners. In home the miner has to boil water and wash himself in a small basin. The houses in industrial towns are in bad shape , most of them are about to fall down, but people still live in these because there is nowhere else to live. There is mass unemployment in towns like these. Most likely every third person is living on the dole and there is no chance of getting work. A family gets about twenty- five to thirty shillings per week, which fifteen shillings go for food, including fuel for cooking.
The second part of the book Orwell talks about his principles and the idea of socialism. He talks about how different classes in England get along with one another . It is more than natural that the higher classes reject the lower classes. He was taught the same principles when he was just a child. He comments upon how middle - class communists and socialists often speak against their own class. He talks about his experience as an agent in Burma, where his life was changed. In summary Orwell says that socialism is a nearly impossible thing .
My Opinion
This year I knew that I wanted to read G.Orwell for the Home reading book. When I was in the library I first took the book „1984“. I had started to read it I found out that it had been translated into Estonian and it had been made into a movie. I knew that the „Animal Farm“ is readable in Estonian too. I had no chance, but to choose „The Road to Wigan Pier“. I first fought it was a novel , but after reading two chapters I found out it was an autobiography. But it was very fassinating to read about the life in United Kingdom in 1930s. And I really enjoyed reading about Orwells thoughts, his life and socialism. I got a lot smarter thanks to this book and it was really interesting to read.