How long take to write a essay and the price, please. Thank you

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fprs20

Prose Studies History, Theory, Criticism

ISSN: 0144-0357 (Print) 1743-9426 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fprs20

George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier: an experimental ethnographic study with a novelist’s touch

Kristy Liles Crawley

To cite this article: Kristy Liles Crawley (2016) George Orwell’s The�Road�to�Wigan�Pier: an experimental ethnographic study with a novelist’s touch, Prose Studies, 38:2, 137-151, DOI: 10.1080/01440357.2016.1212508

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01440357.2016.1212508

Published online: 12 Oct 2016.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1066

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Prose studies, 2016 VoL. 38, No. 2, 137–151 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01440357.2016.1212508

George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier: an experimental ethnographic study with a novelist’s touch

Kristy Liles Crawley

english department, university of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, usA

ABSTRACT Although numerous critics identify The Road to Wigan Pier as George Orwell’s flawed depiction of working class life, Orwell’s memoir paints a picture of early ethnographic techniques in twentieth century England. This essay examines Orwell’s fieldworking process in terms of gaining access, representing informants, representing the self, and giving back to the community. In the essay, I acknowledge the flaws in Orwell’s fieldworking process while arguing that The Road to Wigan Pier should be labeled as an experimental ethnographic study. What readers consider flaws are in fact Orwell’s early attempts in experimenting and refining his fieldworking process, a process influenced by his work as a novelist. As a novelist and ethnographer, Orwell creates an intriguing vehicle for social change, for his vivid descriptions capture readers’ interest while the text calls attention to the working class’s living conditions.

Richard Hoggart’s “George Orwell and The Road to Wigan Pier” opens with the following statements: “The Road to Wigan Pier has been disliked by almost all commentators on Orwell. Tom Hopkinson calls it his worst book and Laurence Brander ‘his most disappointing performance’” (72). Likewise, other critics have voiced similar complaints about The Road to Wigan Pier and questioned its useful- ness. In his abstract accompanying “Revisiting Orwell’s Wigan Pier,” Robert Pearce recognizes that “George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) has long been con- sidered an important semi-documentary source for living and working conditions in the north-west of England during the 1930s. Yet exactly how important – and how accurate and useful – the book is has never been determined” (410). For the purposes of this paper, I would like to respond to Pearce’s question concerning the usefulness of Orwell’s text. In the sections that follow, I will examine Orwell’s approach to fieldworking and to writing an ethnographic text.

© 2016 informa uK Limited, trading as taylor & Francis Group

KEYWORDS George orwell; The Road to Wigan Pier; ethnography; experimental nonfiction; fieldworking; ethnographic study

CONTACT Kristy Liles Crawley [email protected]

138 K. L. CrAWLEy

Prior to discussing Orwell’s fieldworking process, it is worthwhile to ask whether Orwell set out to write an ethnographic text. At the request of the Left Book Club, Orwell wrote The Road to Wigan Pier. The Left Book Club editors simply desired a “documentary report on the conditions among the unemployed in the north of England” (Publisher’s Note vii). Despite the request of a documentary report, Orwell struggled to decide how to arrange the work. After visiting the north of England for one month, he informed Sir Richard Rees, a close friend, that “he had no clear idea of how to use the material he had gathered. At one point he even thought of taking his notes and statistics and producing a book of essays about what unemployment does to the working classes” (Rodden and Rossi 52–3). His idea of producing a book of essays soon disappeared, however, as his thoughts turned to ethnography. According to Patricia Rae, Orwell’s exchanges with a social anthropologist and an ethnographer may have influenced the shape of his work:

While writing up his field-notes from Wigan during 1936 and 1937, Orwell corre- sponded with at least two participants in, and advocates of, the effort to import the ethnographic techniques deployed abroad. One was the social anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, an associate of Harrisson’s who, as Orwell reminds him in a May 1936 letter, had recently written of the importance of “studying our own customs from an anthro- pological point of view.” The other was James Hanley, proletarian novelist turned eth- nographer, and author of a 1937 study of the life of a Welsh mining community, Grey Children. (77)

Orwell’s correspondence with Gorer reveals that in the 1930s ethnographic tech- niques were new to England. As I will discuss later in this essay, the flaws in Orwell’s fieldworking process and representations of the working class are considered flaws by today’s standards for conducting fieldwork and writing ethnographic stud- ies. Therefore, it is worthwhile to label The Road to Wigan Pier an experimental ethnography.

Likewise, Orwell’s interactions with Hanley, a novelist and ethnographer, may have inspired him to transform his notes into an ethnographic study. As stated above, Orwell’s correspondence with Hanley took place between 1936 and 1937 (Rae 77). The timeline for Orwell’s exchanges with Hanley align with the dates of the composition and publication of Hanley’s ethnographic study Grey Children: A Study in Humbug and Misery. Grey Children and The Road to Wigan Pier, both published in 1937, contain many similarities. Although Hanley dedicates a portion of his book to describing suffering children’s struggles and education in mining towns, Hanley, like Orwell, concentrates on miners, unemployment, and poor liv- ing conditions within mining communities. In addition to having a similar focus in subject matter, their ethnographic works contain a novelist’s touch.

With Hanley and Orwell being novelists and beginning ethnographers, it is not surprising that novelistic techniques appear in their writings. In the following sections on fieldworking and representation of others, I discuss the choices Orwell makes as a novelist in terms of his use of imagery and embellishment. However, at this point, I want to address similar novelistic features of Hanley’s and Orwell’s

PrOsE sTudIEs 139

work. Hanley and Orwell serve as narrators or guides as readers see the mining towns through their eyes. In the midst of their observations and dialogue with informants, they sprinkle similes and metaphors in their writing, but most impor- tantly they tug on readers’ heartstrings with vivid descriptions. Hanley employs pathos in his description of children: “The child is voiceless; it can make no protest against anything; it relies entirely upon its elders for everything. It lives in the most appalling surroundings without understanding their significance; it often goes to school with little breakfast …” (171). The anaphora of each line illustrated with the repetition of “it” contributes to painting a picture of the nameless and voiceless children suffering in silence. Similarly, Orwell utilizes pathos as he calls attention to readers’ ignorance of what is involved in the process of moving coal from mine to home: “There are still living a few very old women who in their youth have worked underground, with a harness round their legs, crawling on all fours and dragging tubs of coal. They used to go on doing this even when they were pregnant. And even now, if coal could not be produced without pregnant women dragging it to and fro, I fancy we should let them do it rather than deprive ourselves of coal” (Orwell, The Road 34). Like the children in Hanley’s description, the laboring pregnant women in Orwell’s description tug at readers’ hearts, for they suffer along with their unborn children anonymously in silence while coal consumers remain oblivious to their labor and existence.

Moreover, in acting as narrators or guides, Orwell’s and Hanley’s narration resembles editorial omniscience present in novels. Obviously, Orwell and Hanley do not take on the role of omniscient narrators, but they do offer the occasional comment or opinion similar to that of narration involving editorial omniscience. Comments or opinions surface as interruptions in the narration as the narra- tor judges or interprets informants’ actions. For instance, Hanley interrupts his description of the miners’ conversation to insert his opinion: “To hear some of the men arguing about Spain, one might assume that South Wales did not exist at all, and not all their reasoning is rooted in realities” (168). Hanley does not simply describe the conversation or events happening around him. He reacts. He cannot believe that the men are not concerned about the poverty surrounding them. Why are they concerned with problems in Spain? What about the problems of South Wales? He judges them for their lack of priorities and failure to discuss the problems and possible solutions relevant to their own lives.

Correspondingly, Orwell frequently judges the actions of his informants. After staying at the Brookers’ lodging house and observing the uncleanliness of full chamber pots and Mrs. Brooker’s personal habits, Orwell arrives at a boiling point: “In the end Mrs. Brooker’s self-pitying talk – always the same complaints, over and over … revolted me even more than her habit of wiping her mouth with bits of newspaper” (The Road 17). At this point, Orwell is no longer an observer recording the events and speech of his informants. He informs readers of his revulsion and contempt for Mrs. Brooker and the Brookers’ living conditions which eventually prompt him to leave the house.

140 K. L. CrAWLEy

After pointing out the connections between Orwell and Hanley, it is worthwhile to mention unknown connections between Orwell and ethnographers of his time. While few sources exist that state Orwell was directly influenced by specific writ- ers, it is worth noting that some ethnographies existed during the 1930s that could have influenced his approach to conducting an ethnographic study and prompted him to focus on miners. In fact, Hanley’s Grey Children opens with a quote from a miner who is tired of being observed: “We’re about fed up with people coming down here looking us over as though we were animals in a zoo. Put that in the headlines for a change” (1). The miner’s attitude indicates Orwell is not the only one observing and gathering information about mining towns. In fact, Jack Hilton, author and National Unemployed Workers’ Movement activist, advised Orwell to “abandon his plan to ‘write about milltown folk’ in Rochdale and focus instead on Wigan, ‘for there are the colliers and they’re good stuff ’” (Clarke 2). Although Hilton did not approve of Orwell’s finished product, he served as a peer advisor during the planning stages of the work. Because Hilton is one of many working class authors that are being recovered, it is possible that other unknown authors may have influenced Orwell’s work.

As scholars add to the list of working class authors and ethnographers, more con- nections can be made in the future. However, given that ethnography is in its infancy in the 1930s, I do not claim that Orwell’s work is inspired by a long line of ethnog- raphers before him. Yet the existence of other ethnographies at the time such as A. Fenner Brockway’s Hungry England published in 1932, five years before the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier, was available for Orwell to read. Although Brockway’s work focuses on hunger and textile towns, his approach to ethnography serves as an early example that potentially guided future ethnographers’ approach to conducting ethnographic studies. In fact, on the cover of Brockway’s work, he explicitly informs readers of his approach: “This is a plain first-hand account (the result of personal investigation, interviews, the examination of budgets, etc.) of how a large percentage of the population is living.” Brockway’s combination of interviews resembles Orwell’s interviews with miners and the research he conducts concerning miners’ salaries. However, it remains unknown if Orwell read Brockway’s work as well as other studies for inspiration. Given the limited number of ethnographic texts in the 1930s, Orwell had room to experiment with a fluid genre that was not yet solidified with conven- tions. In the following sections, I will examine Orwell’s fieldworking process in terms of gaining access, representing informants, representing the self, and giving back to the community. Following the fieldworking discussion, the essay concludes with a discussion of the text’s overall contribution to ethnographic studies and its role in promoting social change.

Fieldworking

In this section, I employ Bonnie Stone Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater’s definition of fieldworking: “[F]or an anthropologist ‘working in the field’ means

PrOsE sTudIEs 141

talking, listening, recording, observing, participating, and sometimes even living in a particular place. The field is the site for doing research, and fieldworking is the process of doing it” (1). Orwell’s project fulfills the aforementioned definition of fieldworking, for he participates to a certain extent in working class life while he listens to informants and records his observations. To begin the discussion of Orwell’s process, it is worthwhile to discuss his entry into the field.

Orwell uses ethical means to gain entry into the working class culture. Unlike his approach to learning about tramps’ lives in Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell does not wear a disguise or pretend to be a working class man. His inten- tions are clear. “Richard Rees provided him with letters of introduction to vari- ous Independent Labour Party contacts, and he was not left to fend for himself ” (Hamilton 55). Through the letters of introduction, working class informants knew Orwell’s true identity and the purpose for his visit. The letters offered the inform- ants an opportunity to accept or decline the invitation to be part of Orwell’s study.

Although he gains access to the working class culture in an open manner, the representation of his direct participation in working class culture is not accurately depicted in The Road to Wigan Pier. In the work, Orwell appears to stay in various working class dwellings for the duration of his project. Contrary to this belief, Ian Hamilton states, “In Wigan, Orwell’s exposures of himself to the squalid and uncomfortable were strictly utilitarian and at their worst they were as brief as he could make them” (55). In between his visits to working class dwellings, he visited more comfortable dwellings such as his sister’s home in Leeds in which “he evi- dently enjoyed the ‘elbow room’ of the Dakins’ middle-class menage” (Hamilton 59). Similar to Hamilton’s observations, Robert Pearce acknowledges a discrepancy between the actual time Orwell spends in the north and the time that he presents in the book: “[H]e gave the general impression that he was there for much longer than was actually the case: ‘For some months I lived in entirely in coal-miners’ houses.’ In fact, he stayed in the north of England from around 5 February to 26 March, and he was not staying in miners’ houses all that time” (417–8). The discrepancies in time that Pearce and Hamilton recognize prompt the following the questions: As readers, what are we to make of Orwell’s discrepancies in time? How would the book have been different if Orwell had mentioned his brief visits in working class homes and nonworking class dwellings? His choice to exaggerate time and leave out details concerning nonworking class homes is a choice that he made as a novelist instead of an ethnographer. Orwell knows what makes a good story. As readers immerse themselves into the working class world, they would not appreciate the interruption of the details concerning Orwell’s stay in a middle class home. Also, Orwell’s decision to exaggerate the time spent in working class homes suggests his concern for credibility as an ethnographer. He wants readers to know that his knowledge about the working class comes from living amongst the working class and participating in their culture.

Furthermore, it is worthwhile to consider Orwell’s approach to recording observations and transferring them from his diary to his book. In each diary

142 K. L. CrAWLEy

entry, Orwell includes the date and a brief description of people, surroundings, and events. Orwell’s entries contain a mixture of direct observation and personal responses, which differs from some of the notetaking techniques that ethnogra- phers use today. Today’s ethnographers often employ double-entry notetaking to separate personal reactions from direct observations. For instance, the left side of a double-entry notebook will include “direct observations – concrete, verifiable details” and the right side will capture “personal reactions, opinions, feelings, and questions about the data on the left side” (Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein 77). In light of differences between present day ethnographers’ approaches to notetaking and Orwell’s mix of personal reactions and direct observations, the book produced from his diary entries contains subjective descriptions.

Orwell adds a novelist’s touch to the subjective descriptions made from direct observations and personal responses when he weaves the information from the diary entries into the book. For example, in the diary entry for the Brookers’ tripe shop, Orwell describes the crumbs on the table: “… and the cloth never even removed from the kitchen table. At supper you still see the crumbs from breakfast” (Orwell 45–6). Orwell further magnifies his description of the crumbs in the book by describing the multiple layers of dirty newspaper and cloth before describing the crumbs: “Generally the crumbs from breakfast were still on the table at supper. I used to get to know individual crumbs by sight and watch their progress up and down the table from day to day” (Orwell 7). In the diary, Orwell briefly mentions the crumbs’ continuous presence on the table, but in the book Orwell paints a vivid picture of his daily notations of the crumbs’ journey. The crumbs’ journey appeals to the readers’ sense of humor and enlivens the mundane. Pearce states, “This whole episode does seem fanciful, and indeed Orwell substan- tially embroidered the much more sober account given in the Diary” (416). The embroidery or embellishments open the text up for questions related to ethos. Should accuracy to detail be compromised for the sake of entertainment? Does Orwell appear to be making fun of the lower class by placing a humorous spin on what he finds disturbing or distasteful? Do Orwell’s embellishments prevent readers from viewing an accurate picture of working class households? I mention these questions to point to the opportunity for scholars and students to engage in-depth discussions on the rewards as well as the consequences of embellishing descriptions.

The questions above can also be applied to the presentation of Orwell’s research in The Road to Wigan Pier. As with any ethnographic study, it is not enough to observe, participate, and record information about informants. Orwell’s encoun- ters with a limited number of working class people could not possibly paint a complete picture of working class life. Orwell adds to his knowledge and credibility by gathering information about the working class through a variety of sources. Peter Davison writes that “Orwell’s account of what he saw in the north of England was supported by a considerable amount of research. He visited libraries in the north, collected a mass of newspaper cuttings, wrote to local government officials,

PrOsE sTudIEs 143

read books, and visited the British Museum Library” (71). Despite his research, scholars have noted inaccuracies, intentional or accidental, in the presentation of his research findings. Davison mentions “Orwell’s arithmetic was often faulty and a recalculation of the payments in the miners’ slips he collected shows that he slightly exaggerated the amounts received by the miners (if anything, to the detriment of his case)” (71). Again, Orwell’s inaccuracies prompt further question- ing of the text and allow readers to think about ethics in relation to ethnography. Although corrections were made in later editions of The Road to Wigan Pier, what impact did the mistake have on miners? If Orwell intentionally altered the pay- ments, did he increase the salary to highlight miners’ importance in working class communities? What other information has Orwell altered in order to support his arguments in the second half of the book? The aforementioned questions produce fertile ground for discussions related to ethnographic honesty.

Representation of the other

Ethnographers face challenges in depicting members of other cultures. In my dis- cussion above on fieldworking, I mentioned the importance of separating direct observations from personal responses. Blending personal reactions with direct observations often leads to misrepresentation and encourages readers to share the writer’s attitude towards the person or group. The use of judgmental words can paint an idealistic picture of the working class by presenting “the quaint aspects of working-class life” (Hoggart 16). On the other hand, writer’s descriptions of the working class can take on a “part-pitying and part-patronising” attitude (Hoggart 17). In Orwell’s depiction of the miners, he takes on the former attitude.

In dedicating multiple chapters to describing the lives of miners, Orwell casts the spotlight on miners while neglecting to include other types of workers such as “cotton workers,” “workers in ‘pottery towns’,” and “iron and steel” workers (Clarke, “Noble Bodies” 429). By focusing on the miners, Orwell portrays the lives of miners as representative of the working class experience in general. He praises miners’ solidarity, but as Ben Clarke notes, mining communities are “closed structures. The very practices and values that made mining communities cohesive excluded ‘out- siders’, not least Orwell himself, a ‘degenerate modern semi-intellectual’ with ‘mid- dle-class origins’” (“Noble Bodies” 428). Because of Orwell’s failure to acknowledge the closed nature of mining communities, readers could easily assume that soli- darity exists between the entire working class. With the assumption of solidarity brought to the forefront, readers can conclude that working class individuals could band together to produce change. However, in reality their solidarity extends only to their own members and their “activism was often focused on specific issues, particularly economic disputes” (Clarke, “Noble Bodies” 436). Unlike the limited snapshot that Orwell provides of the miners, the miners’ isolation and limited activism prevent them from serving as leaders for change.

144 K. L. CrAWLEy

Additionally, Orwell fails to include working women in his study of the working class. Mrs. Brooker, an invalid; Emmie, the fiancée of Brookers’ son; and a nameless woman, who is attempting to unclog a drain, are the only women that Orwell describes in the book. Out of the three women, he briefly mentions Emmie’s role as a mill worker, but he does not provide any additional details about women’s work outside of the home. For the most part, “women are described as adjuncts, housewives making do as best they can in appalling circumstances” (Davison 73). By casting women in a supporting role, Orwell fails to depict their contributions to the public sphere and to working class life in general. Overall, Orwell’s work lacks the intersubjectivity that we find in today’s ethnographic studies in which fieldworkers employ “the method of connecting as many different perspectives on the same data as possible” (Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein 111).

Furthermore, Orwell’s depiction of the lower class does not always include praise. His description of the Brookers and their lodgers displays his disgust. Orwell frequently references animals in his depictions of the people in this “beastly place” (The Road 5) which “stank like a ferret’s cage” (The Road 6). Examples of his animalistic descriptions include phrases such as “derelict-looking, frankly ragged creature” and “large pig-like young man” (Orwell 11). Orwell appears to have good intentions when he recreates the sights, sounds, and smells of the working class home for the reader. He states, “But it is no use saying that people like the Brookers are just disgusting and trying to put them out of mind. For they exist in tens and hundreds of thousands …” (The Road 17). By bringing to the forefront that the Brookers are just one of many families who live in filth, Orwell successfully tattoos the disgusting images of the Brookers and their lodgers from this chapter onto the reader’s mind.

Despite Orwell’s good intentions in portraying both the miners and the Brookers, one must ask whether Orwell showed his work to the individuals he presented in it prior to its publication. More than likely he did not. Although most of Orwell’s informants were illiterate, they still deserved to have the descriptions pertaining to their lives read to them with the option of altering or removing inaccuracies. Even after the book was published, informants in the north did not receive copies of the book: “Whether between them Orwell and Eileen (who was rushing to get to Spain) forgot people in the north, or whether Eileen had no addresses for them, the failure to send copies to people Orwell had met there was a regrettable oversight” (Davison 70). It is safe to say that many never saw their published words because they could not afford to purchase a copy of the book. Their knowledge of the Orwell’s work consisted of reports from those who had read or heard about the book.

Predictably, numerous reports suggest that many readers were not pleased with Orwell’s depiction of the working class. “Stephen Wadhams, in Remembering Orwell, remarks correctly that not everyone in Wigan thanked Orwell for ‘making the name Wigan synonymous with poverty and degradation’” (Davison 72). For many, Orwell’s work tarnished the reputation of Wigan and its residents. Aside

PrOsE sTudIEs 145

from mining community families, Orwell’s focus on the Brookers created the impression for many readers that all working class families are like the Brookers. The disgusting smells in the Brookers’ home lives on in the reader’s mind and singles out working class people. Davison recognizes that it is unfair to assume that infrequent bathing applies to only the working class: “Unfortunately it is only too true that not only the working class of that time, but most English people had a reputation for washing infrequently” (73). By suggesting that the Brookers are typical of their class, the published work leaves an ugly and unfair impression that cannot easily be erased.

Representation of the self

In the first and second parts of The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell acknowledges his position within the study. Orwell’s admiration for the miners and their work comes from his own position as an intellectual. He remarks, “I am not a manual labourer and please God I never shall be one, but there are some kinds of manual work I could do if I had to. At a pitch I could be a tolerable road-sweeper or an inefficient gardener or even a tenth-rate farm hand” (Orwell 32). Orwell honestly admits his privileged position in society and his lack of skill in physical tasks. His jobs have never required him to engage in physical labor, so his admiration for the miners’ strong bodies appears evident in the text as he describes their “noble bodies” with “wide shoulders tapering to slender supple waists, and small pronounced buttocks and sinewy thighs, with not an ounce of waste flesh anywhere” (Orwell 23). His admiration coupled with his extensive bodily descriptions initially suggests that he finds the miners’ bodies attractive to the point of hero worship. The miners’ superior bodies force him to question his own superiority: “In a way it is even humiliating to watch coal-miners working. It raises in you a momentary doubt about your own status as an ‘intellectual’ and a superior person generally” (Orwell 34). Yet although Orwell recognizes that the miners have superior bodies, he uses the word “momentary” to suggest that the feeling of inferiority is just temporary (Orwell 34). In his mind, he is still an superior person overall, which illustrates that despite the fact that he desires to help the working class, he still feels that they are not his equals. He is an outsider who does not belong in the working class world.

Orwell reaffirms his position as an outsider by stating his class position: “I was born into what you might describe as the lower-upper-middle class” (Orwell 121). He then goes forward in unveiling how the definitions of class in British society extend beyond money. Earlier in the first half of the book, he points out the priv- ileges attached to his status: “Even when I am on the verge of starvation I have certain rights attaching to my bourgeois status. I do not earn much more than a miner earns, but I do at least get it paid into my bank in a gentlemanly manner and can draw it out when I choose. Even when my account is exhausted the bank people are still passably polite” (Orwell 49). Although his salary is slightly more than a miner’s, he suggests that manners and education set him apart from the

146 K. L. CrAWLEy

working classes. Instead of spending money on clothing clubs or burial clubs, he places a portion of his money in the bank. Because he is able to set aside just a little money, he garners the respect shown in the bank employees’ politeness when his account is empty.

In addition to his privilege and position, Orwell addresses his disgust for imperialism and how it has motivated him to help the working classes. When he worked as an officer for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, Orwell witnessed and participated in horrific events that haunted him: “Innumerable remembered faces – faces of prisoners in the dock, of men waiting in the condemned cells, of subordinates I had bullied and aged peasants I had snubbed, of servant and coolies I had hit with my fist in moments of rage ….” (The Road 147). These haunting images fueled Orwell’s growing frustration with oppression. He recalls, “I felt that I had got to escape not merely from imperialism but from every form of man’s dominion over man. I wanted to submerge myself, to get right down among the oppressed, to be one of them and on their side against tyrants” (Orwell 148). To relieve his guilt, he dedicates himself to studying lower class life and publishing a book which draws attention to the lower class’s struggles and poverty. Interestingly he reveals his own prejudice towards the Burmese when he fails to engage his energies in helping the people that he has harmed. Instead he desires to help the white working class people of England.

Despite Orwell’s attempts to honestly define his prejudices and position in the text, scholars have often criticized the second half of the book. Pearce states “that almost every commentator has subscribed to a basic consensus: the auto- biographical part II of the book is considered to be highly prejudiced and mud- dle-headed, needing to be treated with caution …” (411). Commentators’ distrust of the second half of the book relates to Orwell’s ranting tone as he introduces his long list of prejudices. Orwell’s directness and complete honesty shocks and repulses readers. However, at the same time, his honesty adds to his credibility. In response to commentators’ negative attitudes toward part two, Pearce defends Orwell: “Yes, the views are unfair. Why should he dislike fruit-juice drinkers and sandal-wearers, or even nudists and pacifists?” (412). Despite its unfair views, Pearce admits, “Part II could have been written by no one else. It is a personal statement, Orwell’s credo from 1936. To argue that he should not have had such views is beside the point. His opinions may be infuriating, but they were his and he voiced them with characteristic fearlessness” (413). While Orwell’s views were not popular, the second half of the book provided readers with descriptions of his political views in terms of what he sees as the shortcomings in Socialism’s spokespeople as well as his own ideas for the middle and working classes working together to stop Fascism.

PrOsE sTudIEs 147

Giving back

Ethnography involves giving back to the informants or the community in general. For published ethnographies, depending on the financial success of a project, ethnographers may pay individual informants a percentage of their earnings or donate a portion of the money to a charity or organization within the community. For profitable as well as unprofitable projects, ethnographers’ publications serve to bring about awareness of a specific problem in a community, produce a call for action, or attempt to rid the general public of false beliefs concerning a specific culture. In light of The Road to Wigan Pier, how does Orwell or his work give back to the working class communities?

Considering the financial success of Orwell’s publication, one would assume that he provided financial compensation to his contributors. Rodden and Rossi comment on the money and fame Orwell reaped as result of publishing the book: “The Road to Wigan Pier was published in March 1937 and eventually sold more than 40,000 copies. Including his advance of £50, Orwell made more money from The Road to Wigan Pier (£549) than from all his past writings. It made Orwell well known in political and literary circles in England” (56). Despite Orwell’s fame and money, there is no evidence to indicate that Orwell paid any of his informants. As mentioned above, Orwell even failed to send copies of his published work to his working class informants.

Yet perhaps Orwell contributed to the working class community in other ways, and while temporarily living and interacting with the working class, he physically provided a helping hand to those in need. The evidence is limited. In his diary on March 23, Orwell describes a Maplewood slum area where residents, behind in their rent payments, are being forced to leave. Interspersed throughout his descriptions of the slums, Orwell points out the desperate looks on the residents’ faces: “In the first one old father, out of work of course, obviously horribly bewil- dered by his notice to quit after 22 years of tenancy and turning anxiously to F. and me with some idea that we could help him” (Diary 78). Even the children look to Orwell to help them in some way. However, in the end, Orwell just gives them a piece of advice: “I told them the landlord was only bluffing and to hold their ground and if he threatened taking it to court to threaten in return to sue him of lack of repairs. I hope I did the right thing” (Diary 78). Being an outsider, Orwell is not acquainted with disputes between landlords and tenants. He does not know if landlords are actually deceiving the tenants and whether the working class tenants are ever able to win cases on the basis of living in unfit dwellings. With so many slums and unkempt houses in existence, it seems doubtful that courts would readily side with the tenants. Aside from the court’s decisions, Hamilton questions whether it even occurred to Orwell to assist those whose poverty and circumstance served as the source of his book: “He does not seem even to have thought of doing so. As usefully as anything in Wigan Pier itself, this diary entry demonstrates the extent to which Orwell’s impartiality took strength from his

148 K. L. CrAWLEy

impersonality” (61). Orwell’s detachment prevented him from being moved by the circumstances of the people and offering money or a helping hand.

Regardless of his detachment, Orwell uses his book as a vehicle for giving back to the community by producing an awareness of the working class’s living condi- tions. Orwell’s ugly descriptions force past and present readers to understand the level of poverty that existed in the 1930s. His depiction of caravans, consisting of single decker buses, paints a vivid picture in the reader’s mind: “One, for instance, measuring fourteen feet long, had seven people in it – seven people in about 450 cubic feet of space; which is to say that each person had for his entire dwelling a space a good deal smaller than one compartment of a public lavatory” (Orwell 62). Orwell ensures that readers understand that the people living in caravans are not simply travelers or single men; the caravan colonies are the permanent residence of “thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of families” (The Road 61).

Besides raising an awareness of working class living conditions, Orwell discred- its false beliefs about the working class. As mentioned earlier, Orwell emphasizes the overpowering odors of lower class homes to address middle and upper class members’ beliefs about the lower class’s hygiene: “It is a pity that those who ide- alise the working class so often think it necessary to praise every working-class characteristic and therefore to pretend that dirtiness is somehow meritorious in itself ” (The Road 130). For the middle and upper classes, the dirtiness of the lower class appears to be natural. They believe that lower class people are dirty simply because they want to be. In reality, as Orwell illustrates in the chapters on mining communities, the tiny houses do not have enough “room to have a proper bath” (The Road 38). Acknowledging those who persist in this belief, Orwell counters this false belief with evidence related to pit baths: “Moreover the pithead baths, where they exist, are paid for wholly or partly by the miners themselves, out of the Miners’ Welfare Fund” (The Road 38). Miners’ willingness to contribute to the Miners’ Welfare Fund to have pithead baths truly shows their desire to be clean. Landlords and employers simply do not provide the resources for the lower class to bathe. Orwell clearly sends the message that if the lower class had bathing facilities, they would use them.

Another myth that Orwell uncovers concerns the Means Test. Many believe that the Means Test serves as a helpful tool for determining whether an individual should receive financial assistance from the government. However, Orwell shows readers that the Means Test actually harms families, specifically elderly and dis- abled family members. The elderly and disabled who are unable to work and pay their rent are often forced to leave their homes. While it seems logical that they would simply live with other family members, the Means Test prevents adult chil- dren from caring for their aging or disabled relatives. Orwell explains, “Under the Means Test, however, he counts as a ‘lodger’ and if he stays at home his children’s dole will be docked. So, perhaps at seventy or seventy-five years of age, he has to turn out into lodgings, handing his pension over to the lodging-house keeper and existing on the verge of starvation” (The Road 79). Orwell tugs on readers’

PrOsE sTudIEs 149

heartstrings by highlighting the fact that the Means Test separates families. As a result, the elderly suffer in their last years of life when they are forced to live in a crowded, unkempt lodging house, possibly a house closely akin to the Brookers’ boardinghouse.

In addition to uncovering false beliefs, Orwell’s work offers a call for action. To combat Fascism and promote Socialism, Orwell calls for middle class Britons, who see themselves as different from the working class, to recognize that working and middle classes “are being robbed and bullied by the same system” (The Road 226). If the middle class does not recognize its oppressed state, Orwell foresees the following consequence: “It is quite easy to imagine a middle class crushed down to the worst depths of poverty and still remaining bitterly anti-working class in sentiment; this being, of course, a ready-made Fascist Party” (The Road 226). Like the upper class, many members of the middle class possess an education, manners, dress, and speech which set them apart from the working class. Despite the differences between the working class and the middle class, social changes or difficult economic times can easily force middle class members with low incomes into the working class. As Orwell points out, the middle class will continue to cling to their positions and identify with their oppressors, which will in turn open the door for Fascism. His book gives back to the community, for his call for action encourages the oppressed to join forces in an effort to stop Fascism.

Concluding remarks

After viewing Orwell’s approach to producing an ethnographic text, it is worth- while to return to Pearce’s question concerning the usefulness of Orwell’s text. The Road to Wigan Pier ignites interesting discussions on the definition of work- ing class writing by posing the following questions: Can middle and upper class authors paint an accurate picture of working-class life? Is it possible for a middle or upper class writer’s interactions with the working class to serve as the ingredients for shaping a story about working-class life? Will they simply pity or patronize the working classes with an exaggerated depiction of their lives? The aforementioned questions illustrate the existing struggle to define working-class writing. Must writers be members of the lower classes in order for their works to be considered working class? Should the definition of working class writing be expanded to include works about the lower class written by middle and upper class authors?

When scholars debate whether middle class and upper class writers’ works should be included in the British working-class literary canon, their debate centers on questions of credibility. Ethnography provides a pathway for nonworking-class writers to garner credibility. As mentioned in the introduction, due to the fact that ethnographic techniques were relatively new in Britain in 1930s, Orwell’s text serves as an early example of ethnography. Students can easily see how eth- nographic texts and techniques have evolved over the years. While The Road to Wigan Pier does not function as a model for today’s ethnographers, its strengths

150 K. L. CrAWLEy

and weaknesses prompt productive discussions that lead ethnographers to ques- tion their own approaches in terms of gaining access to a subculture, presenting their research in an accurate manner, presenting their informants, considering their positionality in the text, and giving back to their informants.

Some may argue that other ethnographic texts which are less problematic than Orwell’s work should be studied. In reality, however, all ethnographic texts possess flaws, for “[c]ontemporary field work doesn’t claim to be a totally objective social science” (Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein 40). Orwell’s embellished descriptions and disturbing political views seem problematic to today’s critics and illustrate the difficulty of producing an objective text. Therefore, it is important to recognize Orwell’s work as an early experimental ethnographic study. His portrait of work- ing class life and his efforts to uncover false beliefs serve the purpose of making a meaningful contribution to ethnographic studies, for his ethnographic text oper- ates as a vehicle for social change. The Road to Wigan Pier brought Wigan Pier as well as other poor communities to the public’s attention and prompted discussions about the lives of working class people.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Kristy Liles Crawley, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, teaches in the English Department at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston- Salem. Forsyth Technical Community College, 2100 Silas Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, NC 27103, USA. [email: [email protected]]

References

Brockway, A. Fenner. Hungry England. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1932. Print. Chiseri-Strater, Elizabeth, and Bonnie Sunstein. Fieldworking: Reading and Writing Research.

New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print. Clarke, Ben. “‘Noble Bodies’: Orwell, Miners, and Masculinity.” English Studies. 89.4 (2008):

427–46. Print. ______. “George Orwell, Jack Hilton, and the Working Class.” The Review of English Studies.

Advance Access. 26 Feb. 2016. doi:10.1093/res/hgw014 Davison, Peter. George Orwell: A Literary Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. Print. Hamilton, Ian. “Along the Road to Wigan Pier.” The World of George Orwell. Ed. Miriam Gross.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971. 53–61. Print. Hanley, James. Grey Children: A Study in Humbug and Misery. London: Methuen Publishers,

1937. Print. Hoggart, Richard. The Uses of Literacy: Changing Patterns in English Mass Culture. Fair Lawn:

Essential Books, 1957. Print.

PrOsE sTudIEs 151

Hoggart, Richard. “George Orwell and ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’.” Critical Quarterly. 7.1 (1965): 72–85. Print.

Orwell, George. The Road to Wigan Pier. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1972. Print.

______. The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. George Orwell Diaries. Ed. Peter Davison. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2012. 25–79. Print.

Pearce, Robert. “Revisiting Orwell’s Wigan Pier.” History: The Journal of the Historical Association 82.267 (1997): 410–428. Print.

Rae, Patricia. “Orwell’s Heart of Darkness: The Road to Wigan Pier as Modernist Anthropology.” Prose Studies. 22.1 (1999): 71–102. Print.

Rodden, John, and John Rossi. The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell. New York: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.

“Publisher’s Note.” The Road to Wigan Pier. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1972. vii–viii. Print.