The book, The Road to Wigan Pier, by George Orwell depicts the life of miners in 1930s Britain. The 1930s in Britain were rough unless you were part of the upper class. The miners and others of that stature were suppressed, by taxes, by other classes, by just about anyone and anything you can possibly think of. It has a very socialistic point of view. Along with Orwell, there were a good number of men in Britain with the same view. The man that published the book, Victor Gollancz, was a socialist as well.
Victor Gollancz, born into a Jewish household with a Polish ancestry. Was educated in Britain at Oxford. He left Oxford without a degree and began to develop views of the world with a very Christian moral stance. His first job was at Benn Brothers publishing firm. After learning the ways of the trade, he set off and started Victor Gollancz Ltd. He began to publish socialist books. Gollancz started to climb the ladder of socialist leaders in Britain.
The culmination of his socialist status came in 1936 when he, Laski, and Strachey started the Left Book Club. The purpose of the Left Book Club was to spread the word of socialism and anti-fascism. A number of books were published under the production of the Left Book Club. The most famous and monumental was The Road to Wigan Pier. It was an announcement; a signal to all of those that read the book what was wrong with the world and how socialism could make it all right. First off, we have to define socialism and then work from there.
Book Reviews
1. To what does the title of the book refer? Having a detailed and well-constructed setting in Packingtown, Chicago, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle can easily be mistaken as a story that has its central on the setting. Therefore, it is but natural to point out that the title is referring to Packingtown itself. Reading thoroughly into the book, though, one is led to realize that the jungle actually ...
Webster defines socialism as, “a social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community. The building of the material base for communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist-Leninist theory.” Taking that definition and Orwell’s novel, the reason for the socialistic movement becomes justified. Orwell’s description of the miner’s life is one of a poor hardworking soul that never got a lot of credit of benefits. From the perspective of miners and others of that social scale, socialism is a great answer. They would receive more say in politics, actually they would receive a say, more benefits, better pay and the country and the government would be more helpful in the care of its people. The narrator in The Road to Wigan Pier, who is traveling around the British mining area staying with miners and taking notes on the working conditions and the typical day of a miner. From the reading, the day of a miner is a long, tedious, tiring, and stressing series of events. The miners start the day with a time consuming commute to work on local transportation, normally costing them a decent amount of their weekly earnings. When they get to work, the shift does not actually start until they arrive at the coalface.
That entails taking an “elevator” down the shaft to the floor of the work area. Then they walk, if you can actually call it walking, to the coalface and sit there and pick at the coal for seven and a half hours. Traveling back to the shaft is nearly impossible at the end of the shift. The knees begin to give out and you feel weak. It’s a grueling job. There is a lot of wear on the body.
Now the working conditions of a miner are tough, but the living conditions are not any better. The poor pay that a miner receives is enough to barely feed his family. Most of the homes are two rooms, at best. There is a bedroom and a room for everything else. Orwell describes a home with, ” … a tiny living room which contains, apart from the kitchen range and a quantity of furniture, a wife, some children, and probably a dog …
“(Orwell, 37-38).
There is simply just not enough room for a family to live in a place like that, but nothing larger can be afforded. Socialism, with its equal distribution of goods could help the miners afford better places to live. Places where there are not five people sleeping in one room. The conditions that the poor were living in were the conditions that Gollancz, Laski, and Strachey were working so hard to rid from Britain. The Left Book Club was the means that they were using to reach the end that they desired.
The Essay on How Does Orwell Create A Dystopia In "1984"?
A dystopia is the opposite of a utopia. The meaning of utopia is a perfect place. Therefore making a dystopia a nightmarish place with many things wrong with it. The book “1984” is based in a dystopian world in 1984. This is the future from when the book was written. Orwell has to use many ideas and very twisted thoughts and nightmares to create this world, which seems to become more ...
It is a good way to get the message across. When the books started working, they expanded to publishing a paper. The Journal was more directed to the poorer people that could not afford to buy a book. It was a weekly edition, probably not to far different from those that the people were trying to sell within the book. With the expansion of the club to include the paper, membership soared from ten thousand in 1936 to fifty-thousand in 1939. Within three years, membership more than quadrupled.
Socialism was growing popularity in the 1930s with the effects of the Depression hitting hard, especially the poor, the socialist reforms were quite appealing. Socialism was an equalizer in the class system. Everyone got a more equal share in goods. Orwell’s writing expressed that view flawlessly. The oppressed poor being kept down by the politicians and the owners. Taking every schilling that they could from them with tax and assessments. It is almost too much to stand. It is understandable that there might have been an overthrow of the government.
The Left Book Club had every human right to form and do all the work that they did. Gollancz, Laski, and Strachey felt that the situation in 1930s Britain needed to be attended to and that is what they did. Their hard work did not go unnoticed. Many authors wrote books and articles for them and helped to spread the news. Socialism grew by leaps and bounds during the time that the Left Book Club was around.
