Book Review: The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

The Road to Wigan Pier is a book by George Orwell that describes the living conditions of the working class in industrial North England before World War II and the author's argument on socialism. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part emphasizing the living conditions of the working class people in bleak industrial regions of West Midlands, Yorkshire, and Lancashire. The second part of the book discusses the connection of socialism to improving living conditions and raises questions about socialism. The book's strengths and weaknesses are also discussed.

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Table of Content.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Summary of argument..................................................................................................................1
About the author..........................................................................................................................2
Context of the book......................................................................................................................2
Summary of contents...................................................................................................................3
Methods........................................................................................................................................3
Strengths and weaknesses............................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
The Road to Wigan Pier is a book which was published in 1937 by George Orwell who is
a English writer. Wigan pier is an region around the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Wigan. This
region is famous all over the world due to its iconic landmark. The book is divided into two
parts, the first part describe the living condition of bleak before the World war II within the
working class in Lancashire and Yorkshire of North England in industrial region. The second
part of the book describe his middle class upbringing along with development of his political
conscience or increase questioning towards socialism. This book describe the social as well as
historical reality of depression in north England. Author does not want to show evil or injustice
society of north England. But want to reveal that he was unaware or unconscious around the
society as being from middle-class.
MAIN BODY
Summary of argument
George Orwell is an author of ' The Road to Wigan Pier'. He published his book in 1937.
the book contain two part the first of book is emphasize on working class life in bleak industrial
of west Midlands, Yorkshire and Lancashire. The author emphasize the living condition of
working class people because he spend his time as he also living with them. The first part of
book contain seven lesson. First lesson describe the life of Brooker family is wealthy family as
they have shop or cheap lodging house. The life of miners and their condition inside the coal
mine is describe in second lesson of book. The working condition are very poor inside the coal
mining. The next lesson describe the social situation of average miner as their hygienic or
financial conditions are explained. Apart from this, the author highlight the housing situation of
people living in industrial north of England. The unemployment rate or ugliness in industrial
north was describe in first part of the book by Orwell (Pedersen., 2022).
The second part of book, the author argument on the connection of socialism to
improving living condition. The author discussed the five main problem of misunderstanding the
socialist such as class prejudice, machine worship, crankiness, turgid language as well a failure
of basic concentration. Class prejudice is a real or non rational, the middle-class socialist do not
do any kind of favour on themselves as they pretending that it does not exist. The most socialists
feel guilt on machine worships. The author highlight that the advanced fictional method of
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socialists state are deadly dull. The author specified different types of people who has a
contribution in socialism and make negative impact on reputation of many other people. The
different people include are vegetarian, nudist, people who wear sandals or have beards etc. The
author highlight that the people who use turgid language can gain the most popular support.
While discussing on these argument the author take an devil advocate role (Malreddy., 2019).
About the author
Eric Arthur Blair is known by his pen name George Orwell. He was born on June 25 in
1093 in Motihari. He was described as lower upper middle-class family. In 1904, he was settled
at Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. At age five, he was sent in convent school. Before First
World War, the author family was moved to ship lake, Oxfordshire. Where the author became
friendly with Buddhism family. At Cyprian, the author wrote two poem which was published in
Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard. In 1922, the author join the Indian Imperial Police in
Burma. Author acquire the reputation as outsider in Burma. As he spent his time all alone, by
reading books or involving in non-pukka activities (Islam and et.al., 2018). In 1932, at The
Hawthorn High School, the author became teacher in Hayes, West London. He became friendly
or familiar with the local parish church and involved in the activities. In mid 1933, author left
Hawthorn to join Frays College in Uxibridge, West London. He brought a motorcycle and
moving around the countryside. While moving, he caught chill and suffered from pneumonia. He
was admitted to the hospital and believed that his life would be in danger. When he discharge
from the hospital in 1934, he left teaching and join Book-lovers corner as a part-time assistant in
Hampstead. He work in afternoon and write in morning and evening he socialise to people. This
experience help the author to write Keep the Aspidistra Flying in 1936. After that he write The
Road to Wigan Pier while spending short time in Northern England (Kawashima., 2022).
Context of the book
When the author write the book The Road to Wigan Pier while spending his time in
investigating the North England. The King Edward VIII renounce to marry Wallis Simpson on
the other side of the country. Some other event are also happen during this time such as the Rural
Electrification Act becomes law, the law stated that electricity have to bring more in each and
every remote part of the country. While writing the book, the author was unaware that the
Spanish Civil War was begins and Francisco Franco is named the Head of State. The author was
able to write his book, as he was influenced by the conditions or working people who was living
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in industrial areas of North England. He wanted to change the world. So he write the book by
giving the describing the living situations or conditions of people living in the industrial North
England (May., 2021).
Summary of contents
The issues raised by the author in his book that people living in the industrial areas in
north England have poor sanitation, their living conditions is very poor, the areas are over
populated, due to poor sanitation the spread of disease was increased. The unemployment is main
cause of many other problems such as increase abusive behaviour, increase consumption of
injurious substance or many other things. But the media mainly focus on the beneficial effects of
the region as coal mining helps in producing more electricity and these electricity reach to more
remote part of the country. The media shows that the industrial region increase the employment
rate but according to author, the employment rate is decreased or unemployment rate is increased
(Parker and Farmer., 2018).
Methods
The author approaches towards “The Road to Wigan Pier” because It is an perceptive and
compelling approach towards the lives lived in poorness and unprivileged in a time of minimum
pay-off and bare government help. Overall expresses gloomy housing (including the lodging
house where he stays), brutal working conditions and the ravaging consequence of
unemployment. The books faced has several feedback both positive as well as negative. Harry
Pollitt leader Communist Party of Great Britain gave a negative ethical feedback which states
that Road to Wigan Pier was a snobbish portrayal of working class life, which is concerned with
the ethical issue as it make the workplace toxic. The book was written under the consideration
and resources from various points so it suggest that the book is reliable and valid. The informs
about the sociological investigations of the bleak labour relation among the operative class in
Lancashire and Yorkshire in the industrial north of England before World War II. There is no
such issue or problem has been noticed with the book.(Davis., 2020)
Strengths and weaknesses
The strongest section of the Book The Road of Wigan Pier is the first part. The author
very precisely describe the living condition of the working people in industrial region of North
England. Also the book emphasised on the socialist impact on the people living in bleak north
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England. One of the strongest content of the book is that it completely describe the miners life as
well as the condition inside a coal mine. The author includes the processing as well as the
distribution of the coal very clearly. While describing the condition of coal mining, the author
emphasised the poor living conditions of the worker. Along with that the author raise the
working or social environment of the average miner. Author also describe the importance of
employment by describing the unemployment conditions or their raise issues because of that.
The weakest part of the book is that the author raise some question towards the socialisms but
does not argument in proper ways. As the reader may find difficulty to understand the second
part clearly. The question raise by the author while describing the situations of workers in
industrial areas of north England was unclear. The only clear point is education, prejudice
justice. The author need to neglect or omitted the word crankiness in his book. As it was not suit
for argument. Every individual have their own right to dressed up according their own will.
Judgements via physical appearance is not right in the context of argument (Williams., 2019).
CONCLUSION
From the above book review, it is concluded Wigan pier is a region around the Leeds
and Liverpool Canal in Wigan. There is an coal mining industries, where people are working for
living. But their living condition is very poor. It is also concluded that the book is divided in two
parts. The first part contain seven chapter and the second part is the straightforwardness of the
first part of the books. Where the author seems to be in argument mood or consider that he play a
an evil advocate role. The project work also concluded, the brief study of the early life of the
author. It also concluded the strongest or weakest part of the book which needed the author to
implement in order to improve his content.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Butler, R., 2019. Coal as an Actor in DH Lawrence's Early Plays: Challenging Anthropocentric
Perspectives in the Cultural Representation of Human-Energy Relations. Resilience: A
Journal of the Environmental Humanities, 6(2), pp.53-71.
Davis, S., 2020. Island Stories. In Island Thinking (pp. 1-29). Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.
Harvie, D. and Ogman, R., 2019. The broken promises of the social investment
market. Environment and planning A: economy and space, 51(4), pp.980-1004.
Islam, S., Small, N., Bryant, M., Yang, T., de Chavez, A.C., Saville, F. and Dickerson, J., 2018.
Addressing obesity in Roma communities: a community readiness
approach. International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare.
Kawashima, T., 2022. Miners, Wales and the BBC Radio Drama Richard Hughes’s
Danger. Journal of Radio & Audio Media, pp.1-16.
Malreddy, P.K., 2019. Imperialist shame and indigenous guilt: George Orwell’s writings on
Burma. European Journal of English Studies, 23(3), pp.311-325.
May, R., 2021. Saving Our Empire from the Bolsheviks: The British Fascisti from a
Transnational Perspective. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 49(1),
pp.70-92.
Parker, J. and Farmer, H., 2018. Using narrative fiction as a means of assessing and learning in a
history of social welfare module. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 42(3),
pp.289-300.
Pedersen, J., 2022. Frank Trentmann, Empire of things: How we became a world of consumers,
from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first.
Williams, R.A., 2019. Making Sociology Accessible in an Ohio Urban Prison: Facilitating a
Deeper Sociological Imagination Through ‘Ethnographic Seeing’. Journal of Urban
Ethnography ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ , p.84.
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