the Paris section, Orwell compares the slavery and suffering of a
plongeur
to that of an Indian rickshaw puller and a coal miner, which both looks back to Burma and anticipates Wigan. The most striking aspect of the continuity of Orwell's books in this period is that his description of the infernal
plongeur
's cellar is extraordinarily like the hellish mine in Wigan:
[I came] into a narrow passage, deep underground, and so low that I had to stoop in places. It was stiflingly hot and very dark, with only dim, yellow bulbs several yards apart. There seemed to be miles of dark labyrinthine passagesâactually, I suppose, a few hundred yards in allâthat reminded one queerly of the lower decks of a liner; there were the same heat and cramped space and warm reek of food, and a humming, whirring noiseâ¦. It was too low for me to stand upright, and the temperature was perhaps 110 degrees Fahrenheitâ¦. Scullions, naked to the waist, were stoking the fires.
(Down and Out
, 41â43)
Most of the things one imagines in hell are thereâheat, noise, confusion, darkness, foul air, and above all, unbearably cramped spaceâ¦. You can never forget ⦠the line of bowed, [naked], kneeling figures, sooty black all over, driving their huge shovels under the coal with stupendous force and speed.
(Wigan Pier
, 19â21)
The theme of class exploitation is dramatized most vividly amidst the luxury and squalor of the grand hotel where the splendid customers sit just a few feet away from the disgusting filth of the kitchen workers. The only connection between these two worlds is the food prepared by one for the other, which often contains the cook's spit and waiter's hair grease. From this fact Orwell posits a wonderfully ironic economic law: âthe more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with itâ (59).
One of the larger ironies of the book is that Orwell fled this unjust social hierarchy only to find among the down and out an even more elaborate and rigidly military caste system. The staff of the hotel descended from the exalted heights of the
patron
and manager, through the
maître dâhôtel
, head cook,
chef du personnel
, other cooks, and waiters, to laundresses, apprentice waiters and finally
plongeurs
(who aspired to become lavatory attendants) and who had only chambermaids and
cafétiers
below them. And a similar social line existed among the London beggars, âbetween those who merely cadge and those who attempt to give some value for moneyâ (123).
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is Orwell's description of the psychology of poverty, as he discovered it in the hotels, hospitals, pawnshops and parks of the mean and degenerate Paris of Zola and of Baudelaire's âTableaux Parisiensâ; and in his âvery narrow streetâa ravine of tall, leprous houses, lurching towards one another in queer attitudes, as though they had all been frozen in the act of collapseâ (5), whose ancient and sinister quality suggests the medieval city of Villon and of Hugo's
Notre Dame de Paris.
Orwell seemed happier as a
plongeur
than as a tramp, perhaps because it was easier to be
déclassé
outside his own country, and because he wasfresher and the life had an exotic tinge despite the patina of antique filth. He speaks of the eccentric freedom from the normal and the decent, the mindless acceptance when you reach destitution after anticipating it for so long, the animal contentment of the simple rhythm of work and sleep. But in the long run, of course, the degrading human effects are disastrous. Hunger reduces men to a spineless, brainless condition and malnutrition destroys their manhood, while extreme poverty cuts men off from contact with women: âThe evil of poverty is not so much that it makes a man suffer as that it rots him physically and spirituallyâ (148).
Orwell's suggestions for the alleviation of poverty are both
plongeur
to that of an Indian rickshaw puller and a coal miner, which both looks back to Burma and anticipates Wigan. The most striking aspect of the continuity of Orwell's books in this period is that his description of the infernal
plongeur
's cellar is extraordinarily like the hellish mine in Wigan:
[I came] into a narrow passage, deep underground, and so low that I had to stoop in places. It was stiflingly hot and very dark, with only dim, yellow bulbs several yards apart. There seemed to be miles of dark labyrinthine passagesâactually, I suppose, a few hundred yards in allâthat reminded one queerly of the lower decks of a liner; there were the same heat and cramped space and warm reek of food, and a humming, whirring noiseâ¦. It was too low for me to stand upright, and the temperature was perhaps 110 degrees Fahrenheitâ¦. Scullions, naked to the waist, were stoking the fires.
(Down and Out
, 41â43)
Most of the things one imagines in hell are thereâheat, noise, confusion, darkness, foul air, and above all, unbearably cramped spaceâ¦. You can never forget ⦠the line of bowed, [naked], kneeling figures, sooty black all over, driving their huge shovels under the coal with stupendous force and speed.
(Wigan Pier
, 19â21)
The theme of class exploitation is dramatized most vividly amidst the luxury and squalor of the grand hotel where the splendid customers sit just a few feet away from the disgusting filth of the kitchen workers. The only connection between these two worlds is the food prepared by one for the other, which often contains the cook's spit and waiter's hair grease. From this fact Orwell posits a wonderfully ironic economic law: âthe more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with itâ (59).
One of the larger ironies of the book is that Orwell fled this unjust social hierarchy only to find among the down and out an even more elaborate and rigidly military caste system. The staff of the hotel descended from the exalted heights of the
patron
and manager, through the
maître dâhôtel
, head cook,
chef du personnel
, other cooks, and waiters, to laundresses, apprentice waiters and finally
plongeurs
(who aspired to become lavatory attendants) and who had only chambermaids and
cafétiers
below them. And a similar social line existed among the London beggars, âbetween those who merely cadge and those who attempt to give some value for moneyâ (123).
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is Orwell's description of the psychology of poverty, as he discovered it in the hotels, hospitals, pawnshops and parks of the mean and degenerate Paris of Zola and of Baudelaire's âTableaux Parisiensâ; and in his âvery narrow streetâa ravine of tall, leprous houses, lurching towards one another in queer attitudes, as though they had all been frozen in the act of collapseâ (5), whose ancient and sinister quality suggests the medieval city of Villon and of Hugo's
Notre Dame de Paris.
Orwell seemed happier as a
plongeur
than as a tramp, perhaps because it was easier to be
déclassé
outside his own country, and because he wasfresher and the life had an exotic tinge despite the patina of antique filth. He speaks of the eccentric freedom from the normal and the decent, the mindless acceptance when you reach destitution after anticipating it for so long, the animal contentment of the simple rhythm of work and sleep. But in the long run, of course, the degrading human effects are disastrous. Hunger reduces men to a spineless, brainless condition and malnutrition destroys their manhood, while extreme poverty cuts men off from contact with women: âThe evil of poverty is not so much that it makes a man suffer as that it rots him physically and spirituallyâ (148).
Orwell's suggestions for the alleviation of poverty are both