Introduction

When in 2003 I had to choose a topic for my thesis, what I knew about George Orwell was originated from my memories of the studies for our literature exam. Since George Orwell was one of the twenty topics, my factual knowledge was not so thorough. However, what I knew well, due to the media, it was the 100th anniversary of his birth in 2003. With the exception of the two most famous novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, I was rather unfamiliar with his writings. By analysing the topic of the thesis, I hoped that I would reveal Orwells new face. After becoming familiar with Orwells early writings, I faced the difficulty of which writing(s) to analyse. Since several of the early writings deal with some kind of social problems, finally, I have decided to examine Down and Out ... and A Clergymans Daughter because there is a link between them, namely the social layer of the tramps that Orwell describes in both books. In this analysis, my aim is to outline the signs of Orwells good critical sense and to prove Orwells sensitivity to social problems. I will examine how Orwell characterizes the average English peoples attitudes towards the marginalized people in the two books, which, in the present case, means the investigation of the attitudes towards the tramps and the unmarried women at that time. I will also point out the aim that guides Orwell when he reveals the faults of English society. In Chapter One, I will sketch the authors life relying on the Orwell-biographies and define the place of Down and Out ... and A Clergymans Daughter in the Orwellian corpus. In the next chapter, I will focus on the situation of the English society during the short period of Orwells life. With omitting the examination of the historical events and their consequences in the international politics, I will concentrate on the effects of these events on everyday peoples life. Chapter Three includes the social questions that Orwell poses in the two books. I will examine the parallels that can be drawn between Down and Out ... and A Clergymans Daughter and what the main difference is. Because sources in this subject field are not to be found, I relied on my own interpretation. After this examination, I will deal with the writers technique and I try to identify the genre of the two books.

Since I will be an English teacher, in the last chapter I suggest a lesson plan recommended to students of intermediate or upper-intermediate level. This sequence of three lessons has been based on the extracts of A Clergymans Daughter, hoping that they may arouse students interest in a girls life from the years of 1920s.

Chapter One 1.1. George Orwells life and literary activity

George Orwell was born as Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 in the Indian village of Motahari, which lies near the Nepalian border. India was the part of the British Empire at that time. His father, Richard Blair, was a civil servant in the Opium Department of the Government of India. His mother, Ida Mabel Limouzin, was the daughter of a French tradesman and she was eighteen years younger than her husband. The Blairs had two other children in addition to Eric: Marjorie, five years older than Eric, and Avril, five years younger than him. Not having a university education the father, Richard Blair could neither gain a well-paid position in the Service, nor was promoted fast to the highest posts at the ranks of the Opium Department. In spite of the fact that the fathers post had changed nearly every year until his retirement, the family were able to have a quite comfortable lifestyle in India. In 19041 Richard Blair decided to send back his family to England to give their children a more traditional Christian education. So the mother with the two children, Marjorie and Eric, returned to England, settled down in Henley, while the father continued to work in India until he retired. In England they led the same life as the other families of the lower-middle class did. But here the family had to face also the fact that, working in the British administration and belonging to the middle-class, they did not own a range of properties; besides, their subsistence totally depended on the Empire. The common strategy for attempting to change a middle-class familys social and economic position was to get a better position in the British administration. So the young Eric was sent to excellent schools with upper class children. From 1908 Eric studied at an Anglican convent school in Henley and three years later he went to a private preparatory school in Sussex. At the age of thirteen he won a scholarship to Wellington, and in 1917,

In his George Orwell Biography Bernard Crick puts forth a now accepted theory pointing out that Ida Blair went back with Eric and his sister to England in 1904. Crick supports this argument with the notes of one of Ida Blairs diaries from 1905 and a photograph of the three-year-old Eric in England. At the same time, there is another date of their return mentioned by Robert Welch, Raymond Williams and others, which is said to be 1907. Crick does not agree with them and reveals that They were all misled by Avril Blair, reminiscing confidently of a time before she was born (2).

he was admitted to Eton College. At Eton he was considered as a not extremely gifted student, which fact is proved by his final examination result.2 After finishing his studies, in 1922 he started working for the Indian Imperial Police. According to Robert Welch he was already breaking away from the path many of his school-fellows would take . instead of the further studies in Oxford or Cambridge he was drawn to a life of travel and action (5). He served in Burma for five years. His familys past in the service of the British Empire and his own experiences as a policeman in Burma highly inspired his writings. He made lots of references to his memories not only in Burmese Days (1934), which is the best-known Orwell-book on this theme, but also in a series of other essays and novels. For example, in his other novel, Coming up for Air (1939), the protagonists wife comes from an Anglo-Indian officer family, which belongs to the poverty-stricken officer class, to the penniless middle-class families, and to the officer-rentier-clergyman-class- as Orwell describes this social layer3. Orwell gives a colourful description of the atmosphere of these Anglo-Indians homes and their naive or biased attitude to life. In 1927 Orwell resigned his post. He had two main reasons for this, which can be found out from his references in his writings. On the one hand, he considered his job at the British Imperial Police as a distraction from his real aim, which was to be a writer. On the other hand, he was convinced that he was not able to support a political system in which he could not believe. Going back to England, Orwell settled down in London and decided to study how to write. He hired a low-priced room in London where he trained himself for writing for a year. From 1928, he lived among the poor to discover their life in the East End of London, and later he moved to Paris. At that time, Paris was regarded as a cultural centre of Europe and many ex-patriot intellectuals like Ernest Miller Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett made their home in this city. In the late 1920s, the French franc depreciated in comparison to foreign currencies, which meant that the well-off foreign artists could lead a bohemian life fairly cheaply in Paris (Welch 6). Unlike them, Orwell, who did not belong to the well-off, not following their path worked in a working-class quarter and earned his living from different, casual jobs.
2

According to the unnamed author of an Orwell-biography at http://www. k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/ about/biography.html, he was the 138th from the 167 student. 3 Attributes used by George Orwell in Coming Up for Air on the pages 137, 138, 139.

According to Robert Welchs view, Orwell wished to break away from the British imperialism, from his own inherited values (6), and to overcome his instilled physical disgust against working people (6). In Paris, he also wrote a lot but, because of his literary agents criticism and refusal, he destroyed these writings. At that time he changed his identity by taking a new name, thus he became from Eric A. Blair to George Orwell which name was inspired by the Orwell River. Next year he returned poor to England: because of a theft he lost all his money. He spent the Christmas of 1929 with his family. In this period he was making a living as a tutor and was writing a book which was inspired by his Parisian adventures. According to the unnamed author at the http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/about /biography.html: The original version of Down and Out in Paris and London entitled A Scullions Diary was completed in October 1930 and came to only 35,000 words for Orwell had used only a part of his material. After two rejections from publishers Orwell [began to write] Burmese Days ... We owe the rescue of Down and Out... to Mabel Firez: he was asked to destroy the script, but save the paper clips. Instead she took the manuscript and brought it to ... a literary agent at the house of Gollancz, and bullied him to read it. Soon it was accepted - on condition that all swearwords were deleted ... Down and Out in Paris and London4, was printed under a pseudonym in 1933. The publishing of the novel was due to Victor Gollancz, who became the editor of Orwells other writings, as well. Down and Out... reports on the plods exceedingly abhorrent living conditions, which shock the nowadays readers, even today. Furthermore, the writer tries to point out a way of betterment in these conditions by proposing, for instance, the renovation and modernisation of the lodging-houses. Here we see Orwells aim, which is to awake the English society to its faults. In a chronological order, his next book was the previously mentioned, Burmese Days, published in 1934. As Dervla Murphy notes in his Introduction to Down and Out, reading Orwells book readers can form an idea of Orwells view, which is that the
4

This title will henceforth be used as Down and Out...

British Empire mercilessly exploited colonial Burma (v, 1989). The next two years were highly fruitful in view of the fact that Orwell wrote two novels: A Clergymans Daughter (published in 1935) and Keep the Aspidistra Flying (printed in 1936.) The year of 1936 contained three moments influencing Orwells life: his employment in a shop in Wallington, his marriage and the most important one was that he was commissioned by the Left Book Club to make an examination by visiting the poor and the unemployed Yorkshire and Lancashire. Orwell spent two months in Wigan, Barnesley and Sheffield and he was tremendously shocked by what he experienced there. His inquiry about the conditions of these socially problematic areas provided the theme for his next volume, which was published in 1937, titled The Road to Wigan Pier. Regarding its literal merits, this work cannot be counted among his most enjoyable works, which is due to the numerous statistical data in the first half of the volume and to the critique of English socialism in the second half. In the first part, which can be regarded as a typical report, readers can notice an Orwellian characteristic: his accurate representation of details and facts. For instance, in this writing he lists factually the miners costs of living, earnings, and pensions in the mid-thirties. The writer aims to reveal and show the objective truth about the situation of this underdeveloped region. Robert Welch, draws our attention to Orwells confession in his essay Why I Write, in which Orwell expresses the same when he says Good prose is like a window-pane (Orwell quoted in Robert Welchs Orwell-biography to Animal Farm 8.) Nevertheless, The Road to Wigan Pier might be more useful for making sociological studies of English society in the 1930s than for literary analysis. In the second part of The Road to Wigan Pier, which is rather an essay, Orwell traces the faults of English socialism back to two main reasons. On the one hand, this socialism was based on an unrealistic ground; on the other hand, most of the people who called themselves socialists wanted to be associated with the members of the middleclass, this tendency developed a false image of the socialists in the other members of the society. In The Road to Wigan Pier the author pointed out that these hypocritical socialists could not protect the interests of the working class and the poor because their interests did not coincide with those of others. However, Orwells point of view evokes the publishers displeasure and Orwells first published books were complemented with a preface by Victor Gollancz.

Before the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier at the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain with two aims in mind: to fight for his idea of socialism, which, for him, consisted of three parts, such as anti-imperialism, anti-fascism, and equality. (Williams 55) His other reason for the travelling was to tell the truth for his readers through his newspaper articles on the events of the Spanish Civil War, as he saw them. Raymond Williamss opinion is about Orwells intention that simply wanted to fight against the fascists and at the beginning he was not interested in the doctrinal differences(55) of the socialist sects. George Woodcock in his book titled Orwells Message ... says in order to achieve his goal Orwell needed some kind of credentials to cross the Spanish frontier and make contact with the appropriate group on the loyalist side ... (70). Therefore, he met a leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain in order to ask his help but he was refused because Orwell was unwilling to join the International Brigades without any experience about it. Therefore, Orwell went to the Independent Labour Party, which was a rival revolutionary socialist group, where he got the necessary support. Arriving in Barcelona, he became aware of the fact that here his conceptions about the ideal socialism were achieved: there was no class distinction but equality. He joined the militia of the Spanish party, known as the POUM (it is the acronym of Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista), which was affiliated to the British Independent Labour party and consisted of excommunists and former anarchists. (Woodcock 70) Orwell received a basic military training and he was sent to the front in Aragon. Woodcock draws our attention that Orwell knew nothing about the political factionalism (70) in Spain and he was still naive enough (71) when he thought that his participation in fights in a Communist unit could preserve his neutrality from political sects. In April 1937, Orwell decided to discharge from the POUM and to join the International Brigades. According to Woodcock, it was due to a series of quite unexpected events [that] changed his attitude and perhaps saved his life (71) from the political commissars of the Brigades. In May, he participated in the fights brought out between the Communists and the POUM but by this time, he had already realized the Communists real aim to take control of vital points of Barcelona, by this means, to destroy those who wanted to carry out a social revolution and to fight against Franco. (Woodcock 71-72)

In 1937, he was wounded in the throat. Following his recovery, Orwell returned to Barcelona but he had to face the reality that during the few weeks which he spent in a sanatorium an important change happened in his ideal city, namely normal life came back. Moreover, the government banned the POUM; he and his comrades were accused of being servants of the Fascist militia. He also had to escape from Spain because the members of the POUM were persecuted. From these adventures Orwell produced a new book Homage to Catalonia (1938.) In 1938 he fell ill with tuberculosis and spent many weeks in a sanatorium but he never recovered from this illness. In this year Orwell went to Morocco for six months where he wrote another novel titled Coming Up for Air (1939.) Here readers can experience an average lower-middle-class salesmans feelings, his fear of the modern world where he lives and the war to come. From the protagonists anxiety we get a picture of the real world of the late 1930s. The problems and fears of the people of that time appear on the pages of the book. In the year of the publication of Coming Up for Air Orwell also drafted numerous essays such as Marrakech, Charles Dickens, and Boys Weeklies, which were collected in Inside the Whale in 1940. 1939 was the year when the Second World War broke out in Europe and England did not avoid participating in it. Although Orwell wanted to fight against Fascism, he could not do that as he was declared physically unfit because of his illness. However, he served in the Home Guard during the war and worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation as a producer in the Indian section. In 1943 he left the BBC and joined the Tribune as a literary editor and regular contributor. He wrote political and literary commentaries. At that time he began to write Animal Farm which was finished by 1944 but appeared only in 1945 because of the rejection of many publishers. Several critics regard Animal Farm as Orwells masterpiece, in which he allegorically tells the story of a group of farm animals who take over the power from the humans and try to create their ideal state. But their intention results in tyranny, which becomes a nightmare for the lower layers of the animal society who did not gain power. The novel is reminiscent of the Russian Revolution and Orwells experiences in the Spanish Civil War. S. H. Coote summarizes it Orwell came to the conclusion that all revolutions are betrayed from within.(78.)

In 1944 he and his wife adopted a son; he became a regular contributor to the Observer. His work sent him to France, Germany and Austria to send back reports from there. In 1945 his wife died during an operation and after this tragedy he moved to the island of Jura with his younger sister. Here he commenced writing the first draft of his other masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, in 1947. Since the climate of the island badly affected his tuberculosis he returned for a medical treatment to London. Though his health was gradually deteriorating, he succeeded in finishing this utopian political satire by 1949. In the same year he married Sonia Brownell but their marriage lasted for three months only because of Orwells death in London in 1950.

1.2.

The classification of Orwells works

For many decades George Orwell was mentioned as a so-called homo unius libri in Hungary. In Orwells case, it meant that not one but two books of the Orwellian corpus were available in the easiest way to Hungarian readers: Animal Farm, which was even a compulsory reading in many secondary schools, and Nineteen Eighty-Four5. The fact that Orwell wrote many other books was almost unknown or forgotten. This situation seems to being solved nowadays, as there is a tendency for the Hungarian book-market to translate and publish the other Orwell- novels6. The topic of the thesis specializes on two earlier writings of the Orwellian corpus. Before starting the analysis of Down and Out in Paris and London and of A Clergymans Daughter, it is necessary to discuss the categorization of the works. There are three ways of grouping: one of them is according to the chronological order of the writings, the second way can be according to their theme, while the third way of grouping can originate from the different degrees of realism in the writings. As for the first way of categorization, if one takes the fact into consideration that Orwell began to write in the early 1930s - his first book was published in 1933, which was the first version of Down and Out ...- and that Orwells last work was printed in 1949, he or she will be able to realize that it was fairly short period. It means that during sixteen years he produced nine novels, several volumes of essays, reports and some poems. Since the chronological order of their publication coincides with the fact that the last two books brought international reputation for Orwell7, these two books, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, are proclaimed by several critics to be his masterpieces. What has been said above foreshadows that each of the other novels are usually regarded as his first attempts, with a negative connotation.
5

Notwithstanding, in Hungary, firstly Burmese Days was published in 1948 and it was the only available one of Orwells books for many years. However, it had no an overwhelming success. 6 In Hungary, for instance, Cartaphilus Publishing House edited some of Orwells books such as Homage to Catalonia (2nd edition) in 1999, The Lion and the Unicorn in 2000, Down and Out ... in 2001, and The Road to Wigan Pier in 2001. 7 It is vital that we should remark, according to Bla Nv in his epilogue of the Hungarian edition of The Road to Wigan Pier, that the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier brought the first considerable literary success for Orwell in England. (260) As Nv says, Orwells first three novels were published in the USA and Down and Out ... was published even in France; but he comments that these books were unsuccessful. (262)

10

Notwithstanding this statement, these seven other novels are literarily perfect creations since they can be distinguished by their length, kinds of character, setting, plot and structure. The simple and direct style, the interesting themes of the books make them remarkably enjoyable for the public. Therefore, despite the fact that these writings were created prior to the two masterpieces, they are not a beginners attempts, moreover, with the passing of years these seven novels occupied their merited place in English and world literature. In many scholars opinion, there is another kind of chronological grouping. For example, Bla Nv divides Orwells books into three groups. (261) He regards the period between 1933-36 as the writers first period, which contains four novels, from Down and Out... to Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and which was signed by the formation of the Orwell-image (262). The second period begins, according to Nv, with the publication of Road to Wigan Pier and contains the next two novels in the chronological order, Homage to Catalonia and Coming Up for Air. He says that Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four belong to the writers third period. As it was pointed out above, the classification according theme of writings can be the second way of grouping. One group of the novels, containing Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, deals with political issues showing their readers different political systems in an allegorical or distopian way. On the contrary, the other group of novels deals with social issues of the contemporary England. Down and Out..., A Clergymans Daughter, and The Road to Wigan Pier can be ranked among the most important of this group. According to their theme, the third group consists of the writings, dealing with the writers experiences in colonial relations. This category includes the novel Burmese Days and many shorter writings such as A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant. It is worth remembering that there are some other novels that do not belong to any of these groups such as Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Notwithstanding, this novel contains biographical elements. If one examines the degree of realism in Orwells writing, he or she will find that the realism in the content decreases in his latest works. So, the works with the characteristics of journalism, such as the social reports Down and Out... and The Road to Wigan Pier, or Burmese Days with its colonial relations, or Homage to Catalonia with its historical relations, stand the nearest to reality. As for A Clergymans Daughter, Coming

11

Up for Air, although they contain several lifelike elements, such as setting, references to political events of Orwells time, the fictive theme and characters even bring these novels farther from realism. In spite of the reminiscences of certain political events, such as the picture of the Russian Revolution in Animal Farm, the political allegory in Animal Farm and distopian world of Nineteen Eighty-Four can be regarded to be the most unrealistic writings of Orwells. Maybe, Orwell wrote about the truth in all of his novels because he wanted to create a shocking effect on the readers, who themselves personally experienced the events of that bloody times and therefore they were reluctant to read again the negative memories of their life. For him, writing about the truth meant that his duty was to show his readers the facts simply as he saw them without any distortion. For the readers of the present these books are surely interesting and entertaining pieces providing information of the past through the eyes of a man who experienced numerous ways of living. In conclusion, two of the novels published before Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four will be analysed in the following parts of the thesis as the early works of the Orwellian-corpus. The reason why the analysis of Down and Out... and A Clergymans Daughter could fill a gap is that they were not given a widespread reception either at the time of their publication, or these days.

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Chapter Two Historical background

2.1. Introduction to historical background The approximately fifty years covering George Orwells life historically cannot be said to be an uneventful period at all. Wartime alternated with peacetime that caused radical changes in the balance of power and the face of the world. Similarly, to the other countries that felt the consequences of these troubled decades, the British Empire was not able to avoid the difficulties coming to the surface. This chapter of the thesis is based on David Thomsons book titled England in the Twentieth Century. The chapter aims to point out the international changes and their effects on the economy, to analyse the internal and international politics, and to describe the society of the British Empire during this half-century. The five main divisions between 1903 and 1950 automatically seem to be: the Great Peace(Thomson 24) in the early 1910s; the Great War- as the people named World War I; the period of the Great Depression in the 1930s; World War II; the tendencies of the post-war period till 1950. 2.2. The British Empire in the years of the Great Peace The main characteristic of the British society before 1914 was that most of the citizens of the British Empire enjoyed the benefits of development of the Welfare State. It is mainly true for people on average incomes who reached a higher standard of living. The reason for it is that, on the one hand, the social services showed an accelerated growth, on the other, the net income rose. As for the positive shift in the standard of living, it was due to the prosperous economy of the Empire. The economy was affected by the world trade, where a transposition could be noticed as trade to Asia, Australasia and Africa got more emphasis than the one to Europe and North America, which was caused by the economic growth of Germany and the United States. The trade within the British Empire meant that the exports went to the countries of the Empire, for instance, to India and the British Isles. Both the consequence and the prerequisite of the extensive commerce was, on the one hand, the development in the shipping techniques, which made the Empire a naval

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power of the world, and, on the other, the necessity of a growing industrial production. In spite of the fact that the emphasis of the production was on the textile industry and coalmining, which was considered to be a narrow range of commodities exported and could have easily become a harmful factor for the economy, the British Empire was judged as a significant commercial power in the world. In addition, her financial power came from the overseas investments, banking, credit and insurance services that meant that the English money market had an important influence on stability throughout the world. Regarding the national income, however, there was a slowliness in the rate of the growth compared to its late Victorian speed. In addition, quite many people felt it seeing the imminent greater poverty. Mainly the lowest but smaller sized layer of the society suffered from it. The very poor lived on an excessively flat standard of living because of the fact that almost all their income was spent on the basic necessities. In these days, a remarkable social change in behaviour towards the poor can be noticed. The society considered poverty as a social evil, which was unnecessary; therefore, it was officially measured and was treated as a remediable social disorder and a political question. This is the reason why numerous studies investigating poverty were written in those years. Many scientists tried to explore the reasons for poverty, there were different views as to the elimination of poverty; for instance, the government should distribute the national income in another way by using a larger amount for wages rather than profits and rents. According to other scientists, the cause of poverty was unemployment and underemployment although the phenomenon was an occasional one. (It happened in 1904, for example, when a trade depression occurred.) What was also a sign of the Welfare State was the advancement of popular education. In 1902, a new act was enacted for better secondary education with the help of the creation of local education committees, and in the 1910s, new universities were founded all over the country. The flourishing scientific life resulted in many practical inventions but the application of the new inventions was more restricted in Britain than in the rival countries, which reveals again the old-fashioned way of thinking of the Empire. This era brought a remarkable achievement in the arts, mainly in literature, especially in the drama and the novel.

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Regarding the internal policy of the British Empire, several tendencies can be found which affected everyday life differently. At first, a form of government was created which was based on the constitutional framework of parliamentary institutions in order to preserve the rule of law and the code of justice. This type of government worked with the help of the introduction of the civil service in the public administration and the local governments, which were responsible for many aspects of urban life: for the cleaner and better-lit streets, better water supply, free libraries and schools. Second, the Empire formed a new style of relationship with her colonies as many of them were given the rights to independent self-government. (Thomson 31) Therefore, Britain became the symbol of individual and national freedom for the subjects of despotic empires. Third, in 1906 the Labour Party was formed, which had twenty-nine representatives in the House of Commons and whose main supporter was the growing trade-union movement. Despite these facts the Great Peace was disturbed occasionally by revolutionary movements such as the struggles of the suffragettes for womens rights to vote in parliamentary elections, or the problematic question of Home Rule for Ireland, or the strikes, in 1911-1912, of dock and transport workers caused by rising prices. These movements in numerous cases ended in violent acts, which showed the darker side of the Great Peace. In the international relationships a recognizable shift of mood happened in the early 1910s; since the German sea-power was imminently getting stronger, the previous image of the Germans changed negatively, and in turn, the French, the former enemies of the British, became friends since they were regarded as a helpful ally and supporter in the defence of Britains position in the Channel and the Mediterranean. Besides this fact, Britain made efforts to enter into an alliance with Russia and Japan, as well. When Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 the British nation stood firm and was hopeful that a victorious war would end in six months (Thomson 35). Whether it became true or not, the next chapter will show.

2.3. Britain in World War I (1914-1918)

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The fact that on 28 June 1914 the crown prince of the Habsburg Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary and his wife were murdered in Sarajevo is considered as the casus belli by historians. The consequence of this murder was that in July 1914 AustriaHungary went to war with Serbia. On the side of Austria-Hungary stood Germany and Italy, while the supporters of Serbia were Russia, France and Britain. The official reason why Britain entered the war in August 1914 was the German intrusion in the neutral Belgium. The Empire relied on her resources of men and materials from the Dominions. Although people believed that the war would be finished quickly, it brought immense suffering for millions of people during its four years. Soon it turned out that Britains resources, which were believed to be immense and inexhaustible, had not been sufficient for the war; moreover, the country lacked the needed arrangements for producing new supplies. (Her naval army can be considered as the only exception because it was well prepared.) So Britain had to organize war-factories and armed forces if the country wanted to win. It means that by the end of the war 8 million men and nearly one million women served either on the fronts or in munitions factories (Thomson 40). While in the first two years of the war Britain used voluntary enlistment to form new armies, from 1916 the compulsory military service was introduced. Due to the geographical location of the British Isles, the civilian populationdid not feel the effects of the war at a high degree as long as the Royal Navy was able to defend the Isles from the German attacks. It was also evident that it meant Britains vulnerable point as she was in need of imports for food and many essential raw materials. Therefore, when in January 1917 Germany proclaimed an unrestricted submarine warfare for the second time in the hope of bringing Britain to her knees by starvation and shortage (Thomson 40); the threatening danger could be averted only with American help. According to David Thomson, by the end of the war Britain had almost one million dead, three million people maimed with shrapnel or bullets (39), six million tons of lost shipping (42). The war disrupted the international relations in trade. Adding the financial cost of the war and post-war period to this, thinking of the amount of the pensions and benefits paid to war-widows and veterans, the real success of the victory can be questioned.

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2.4. The years between the two World Wars8 The years of transition from war to peace brought many difficulties in the countries that participated in the war. Due to her geographical location, Britains loss of equipment in factories and mines was smaller than that of the other participants on the Continent. As David Thomson shows, the sinking of about 40 per cent of the merchant fleet was her largest single loss of capital equipment (58). Despite these facts Britain was not able to escape numerous problems in the 1920s: she went through a great influenza epidemic in 19199, and there were several governmental and economic crises, and many strikes in the country. The war being finished; four million men were released from the military service, which caused an increase in unemployment. It was made even worse by a great number of women who were discharged from industries to ensure jobs for men. By the late 1920s the rate of unemployment was at a high but constant level: at 9 or 10 per cent of the rate of the employees. (Thomson 124) In the first years of peace the acclaimed slogan of the government was to return to normalcy. (Thomson 67) However, it proved to be difficult: speculation flourished; the rise of prices was much faster than that of the wages. Faced with the threaten of strikes, the government set up several acts to resolve or lessen the problematic questions. Nevertheless, the range of new acts could not bring radical improvement, and as a consequence, different groups of workers - miners, policemen, railwaymen, and transport workers - went on strikes and stoppages demanding higher wages in the early 1920s. In conclusion, the violence of the war and its harmful effects were reflected in every aspect of public life in the first years after it ended. Apparently, there was a negative change in social manners and moral standards. During the war millions of people were trained to kill other men; furthermore, after the armistice lots of war-veterans faced unemployment and poverty, so the process of returning these men to normalcy did not proved to be easy. The strictness of the pre-war morals lightened with the appearance of
8

Historians divide the period between 1919 and 1939 into four major stages: the years of recovery (191923), the J.R.Macdonald - era (1924-29), the economic crisis of 1930-35 and the period of 1936-39. Each of them had their own characteristics in terms of internal and international policy, economic life and home affairs. This sub-chapter deals mainly with the economic and internal developments because these two show well the public mood of Britain in these twenty years. The rivalry between political parties, the elections, the changes in the relations of the Empire to India and the Dominions are not discussed here. 9 This epidemic caused 150,000 peoples death. (Thomson 66)

17

more social freedom in these post-war years, which was shown in, for instance, the emancipation of women, the easier facilities for divorce; moreover, in womens and mens fashion. David Thomson points out that since the United States stood in a leading position in the scientific and technical field, it was in the first half of the 1920s that the process of Americanisation of English life and culture (90) began. Because there was a serious housing shortage in the country after the war, in 1924 the government, setting up a new act, prepared a longer-term solution by building 2.5 million houses by 1939. As for the other urgent social evil, they extended unemployment benefits, rose both womens and mens payments, and doubled the childrens allowance. This added to a gradual betterment of British economy, so the society felt a sense of recovery in the early 1920s. In 1926 this process of recovery was halted, when the so-called General Strike broke out. The roots of this strike originated in the miners dissatisfaction, who claimed higher wages, shorter workdays. To support the miners demands, the strike extended to the workers of transport, the heavy industries, the building and printing trades, and the workers in gas and electricity services. The General Strike lasted nine days; nonetheless, its effects were felt more heavily by the citizens of the big towns, who tried to carry on their life in spite of the difficulties caused by public transport or the shortage of newspapers. As it turned out, several people thought that this strike was too late since the new technologies (the widespread use of cars and radios) had eased the strains caused by the strike. In countless ways the society was transformed in the 1920s; the place of practicing religious life was transferred from churches to homes; simultaneously, with the widespread use of radios which broadcast religious programmes, there was a decline in churchgoing. At the same time the population of the United Kingdom grew, but its distribution was uneven with a large number of inhabitants in the suburbs around London and in the south-eastern part of England. The growing problem of housing shortage made the councils of the big cities build the so-called council houses. David Thomson says these houses were built with minimum standards of density, size, and amenities and without any ideas of elegance, attractiveness, or even community life (121). As it has been shown, these houses were built satisfy the needs of the masses. Even massproduction, hire-purchase, mass-consumption, community singing, popular sports, and

18

mass-produced cheap volumes of classic writers appeared in these years. As David Thomson concludes people felt the imminent economic crisis; therefore, they wanted to exploit this brief time of relaxation (124). Because during World WarI the financial centre of the world was transferred into the United States and after the war her leading position grew with the American loans to Europe, when on 24 October 1929 the crash in Wall Street happened it resulted in the crisis of the whole European economic system. cent.11 This uncertain situation helped the radical right-wing groups to gain popularity for their propaganda, which was especially true for Germany where Adolf Hitler came to power. By the early 1930s the international circumstances were totally transformed, as Britain, the Soviet Union and France became almost passive participants in the events, while Germany, Italy and Japan got into leading positions. As the United States considered Europe to be responsible for the breakdown of the stock market, she did not interfere in the European affairs at that time. The British government tried to overcome the difficulties of the economic crisis from 1932; and with the devaluation of the pound, the reduction of the dole positive changes began to appear. The economic recovery lasted from 1933 to 1935. It brought about the decrease of unemployment to less than two million. Furthermore, in certain depressed areas there was a sensible betterment in many areas of life. The appearance of new industrial products, such as cars, radios, chemicals, and rayon, meant more jobs. As for the foreign affairs, Britain aimed both to save the balance of powers on the Continent and to transform the system of the Dominions.12 The importance of the Dominions grew after World War I because of their help given for the Empire. When the Nazi power became stronger, the British government started modernizing the Army; but their policy was appeasement instead of opposition.
10 10

This meant that the production, the

prices, the world trade were reduced, and that unemployment increased by 35-45 per

After the crash the United States reduced the loans to Europe by one third and introduced a fifty-per cent customs tariff ( Attila Herber et al 78). 11 According to David Thomson, in Great Britain the number of the actual unemployed was 3 million by the autumn of 1932. Thereupon the number of the people who lived on the dole was between 6 and 7 million (131). 12 Since 1922 the relationship between Britain and the Dominions was named to be the British Commonwealth of Nations. In 1926 Britain accepted the independence of Canada, New-Zeeland and South-Africa. In 1931 the Westminster Statute was passed which recognized that the Dominions could freely pass legislation, they had their own sovereignity in foreign policy and their own parliaments.

19

2.5. World War II (1939-1945) World War II can be named as the most severe conflict in the history of humankind, which has redrawn the map of Europe, the balance of power in the world and has made the United States the governor of world-policy, which lasts nowadays, too. Each of the belligerent countries suffered from the effects of the war, and considering the losses of either side, no real victor can be identified. According to David Thomson, during World War II Britain and the members of the Commonwealth lost 412,000 soldiers, some 60,000 civilians were killed in air-raids, 30,000 members of the Merchant Navy lost their lives (201). He even points out that one of the war-time effects was the stability in morals. In spite of the difficulties of war-time, such as the increased taxation, the rationing of supplies, evacuations and air-raids, the citizens of Britain showed willingness in giving essential services and solidarity towards the others being in need (202). Many war-time scholars confessed that the face of their society was transformed as the distinctions of wealth or birth seemed less crucial in these collectively hard times. There was a hope at that time for a better society in which social justice could be realized. What did the government do for the social reorganization in the early 1940s? It set out the concept of comprehensive public protection for all individuals ... against sickness, poverty, unemployment, squalor, and ignorance, by provision of minimal social services of public health and free medical aid, pensions and family allowances, insurance against unemployment, improved housing, and public education. (Thomson 207) So, in order to attain these governmental aims, the economy was replanned and reconstructed. Several reports were written to explore the situation of agriculture and industry; furthermore, various acts were introduced to ensure full employment, or to provide better schooling or social insurance. The new acts aimed to bring economic development and greater social security. 2.6. After World War II (1946-1950)

20

Despite the fact that Great Britain belonged to the victors, World War II accelerated her decline and intensified Englands suppression in connection with the balance of international powers, which process had already started in the nineteenth century. This war differed from World War I; while the British Isles were sheltered from the battles in the previous war, here, in this war the civilian population was not able to escape from the sufferings of the bloody fighting. After World War II Britain lost her former leading position because the Soviet Union and the United States became the most powerful countries in the world. Britain lost a considerable part of her exports and, simultaneously, her imports increased. The United States gave financial and material aid for restoration and recovery but this meant that the conditions of the loans destroyed the British economy. In addition to this, three important events happened in her foreign affairs: firstly, the loss of her influence in Greece, secondly, the independence of India, thirdly, the ceasing of the mandate for administering Palestine given by the Union of the Nations in 1922. In conclusion, on the one hand, new superpowers were born to, on the other hand, the former powers collapsed. (Herber et al. 213) However, it was not an easy and short-termed process to neutralize the negative effects of the war, such as the shortage of food and houses, the recurrent unbalance of payments, and the problem of unemployment. During the election campaigne of 1945 the two chief parties presented their strategies for the reconstruction. As for the national mood at that time, it was against Churchill and the Conservatives since the people felt that Churchill had not kept his former promises. In spite of the measures which were introduced by the Conservatives, the governments working was questioned. Many people said that the Conservatives most concrete achievement was the Butler Education Act of 1944. This change in the national mood explains that the Labour Party came to power in 1945. Summarizing the years of the late 1940s, the Labour Government started to fulfil its programme for reconstruction. This programme consisted of two main parts: one of them dealt with the nationalization of credit, power, and transport, and the other part consisted of the reforms in education13, and in social services14. Therefore, with this
13

In connection with education, the first reform to construct a full national system of education was introduced in 1947. (Thomson 221) 14 The Housing Acts (1946 and 1949) supported council-house building, and the National Health Service Act (1946) provided free medical service for all. (Thomson 222)

21

policy, Britain started on her way to recover to the Welfare State. Since Goerge Orwell died in 1950, I will omit to argue the years of the 1950s.

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Chapter Three Social questions in England in the late 1920s as George Orwell saw them
3.1. General remarks In the case of any literary work, the question is posed what the authors aim was with the writing of his work. Investigating this question, we find that George Orwell wrote the two books, A Clergymans Daughter and Down and Out in Paris and London15, to express also his disenchantment with the treatment of two groups of marginalized people on the part of the English society. It is necessary to mention that Orwell deals with the poor and tramp of the French society in the first half of Down and Out... Since the thesis is about the social criticism of the English society, I will omit the analysis of the French part. One of the two groups is the special class of the unmarried women and the other group consists of the tramp. In both Down and Out... and A Clergymans Daughter, Orwell illustrates life in the late 1920s and the early 1930s to his reader. These years were generally known as the years of the Great Depression, which predominantly made the lower classes life harder in the society. It is said that the mood of a society can indicate the situation, the development or backwardness of any country. On the one hand, national mood can be revealed officially with public opinion polls; on the other hand, a writer can disclose it with describing what and how men-in-the-street think about the functioning of the government. Orwell follows this method by giving a sort of social history in his readers hand when he shows us the atmosphere of these years. He demonstrates it from two viewpoints that have different and similar characteristics simultaneously. 3.2. The differences of the two books In the first part of this chapter, I will concentrate on the facts which differentiate the two books. As for the main difference, it is the consequence of the Orwellian choice of the protagonists. Evidently, not all the problems of the two sexes are the same. The first book, A Clergymans Daughter, written in 1935, provides a mirror about the unmarried womens facilities for life by showing a short period of a spinsterish girls
15

This title will henceforth be used as Down and Out...

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life. In A Clergymans Daughter, Orwell chooses a female character that means that we receive impressions about the English society from a womans adventures. The second book, Down and Out..., written in 1933, also contains the Orwellian disillusionment with the English society. The theme here is the life of the tramps and it reflects Orwells own experiences he gained by spending a few months among these people. Here, we can see the events from a mans view and it is the author himself who portrays the society. In Down and Out..., Orwell studies a chosen social layer and he examines how the English society does harm to this layer. During the examination, the figure of the author as the protagonist disappears because in this book the importance is on the exploration of the faults of the society and the situation of the chosen layer, furthermore, on the results of this examination. Therefore, we can call the protagonist rather the reporter of the exploration than the protagonist of the events in the traditional sense of its meaning. This statement will be analysed in connection with the genre of the book in more details in Chapter Four. In Down and Out..., one could easily face up the fact that the exploration of social problems does not include the thorough account of womens problems on the level of tramps. The only example Orwell gives is on page 196 where he describes a woman tramp, who was, no doubt, a respectable widow woman, become a tramp through some grotesque accident. Beside a short description of this womans behaviour, Orwell does not deal with the question of women. The reason why he leaves out this question may be the impossibility for a male tramp to enter a female spike. In my opinion, if ones aim is to reveal the situation and the problems of a social layer thoroughly, his or her gender would not prevent him or her searching; otherwise his or her examination would not be complete. However, the examination of female problems can be a rightful claim from the readers side. This defectiveness also proves the fact that men were in the centre in Orwells society. The author demonstrates the difference originating from the protagonists sexes in many cases mainly in A Clergymans Daughter. Orwell makes his readers see a female portrait that is similar to the nineteenth-century womens model in many ways rather than to the twentieth-century-model. We know the historical changes, which were due to the suffragette-movement, and resulted in many acts and laws for women and in theory brought spectacular improvement in the womens situation. However, not an immediate

24

betterment happened with the introduction of new acts. It was a long-time process when the new female rights were gradually built in the common knowledge and were put in use. Orwells descriptions reflect this slow process. In the English society of the late 1920s, women still did not only meet discrimination in many areas of their life but they suffered from the rigid social conventions. One sign of this rigidity is reflected in A Clergymans Daughter when the author explains the reason for Dorothys loneliness during her schoolmistressing. He points out that For anyone so situated, and particularly for a woman, it is all but impossible to make friends (219). According to Orwell, the reason for this impossibility is that a woman like this has no money, no family and no home of her own so she is not able to invite guests (227). Besides, at this time women were guided by the etiquette, as well. Evidently, breaking the rules of it resulted in serious troubles. Dorothys case proves it: when she visits Mr Warburton, the proper old rascal (37) of the village, in the evening, she acts against the rules of conduct. The consequence of her mistake is her popularity in the newspapers that believe the local scandalmongers theory and give an unfavourable account of Dorothys nature. Later this false image depicted by the journalists becomes the source of her shame and prevents her asking her fathers help and her returning home. If it had not been for her shame, she could have avoided suffering. The existence of a fixed etiquette is visible in the chemistry lesson of the girlsschool when Dorothy has to stay in the classroom during the chemistry lectures because it is improper to leave the girls alone with a man (216). For a woman, it is also her defencelessness that causes troubles and differentiates her life from the mens life. Nevertheless, it was a much stronger characteristic in the nineteenth century. Focusing on it, we find three examples16 when single men try to make love with Dorothy against her wish. Orwells talent is revealed in the description in which he brings out the male behaviour towards the plain girls. He excellently recognizes that average girls are rather exposed to male roughness. Orwell gives his observation into the protagonists mouth explaining that the men of all description want a little casual amusement with women; nobody of the not too pretty can escape their pursuit (76).
16

Mr Warburton tries to make love twice, in the beginning and the end of the story, and Nobbys trying occurs in the middle of the story. They react differrently to Dorothys refusal; Nobby accepts his defeat happily, which comes from his happy temperament. As for the other man, he is at a loss to know why Dorothy refused him. He is incapable of understanding the girls behaviour because he is used to getting women easily.

25

The nineteenth-century female image is also illustrated by the question of employment in the book. Despite World War I, which made more jobs for women, in A Clergymans Daughter Orwell reveals almost all possible types of jobs for an unmarried woman in the late 1920s. In each of the first four chapters of the book, there is one job which is presented by the protagonist, while in the fifth one some kind of summary is given into Mr Warburtons mouth about these jobs. These possibilities, however, are limited in number and remind us of those that existed in the nineteenth century or even in the earlier centuries. Going through these possibilities, at first the author informs us about the life of a woman if she lives at her familys mercy. In the case of Dorothy Hare, she lives under the same roof with her father; she suffers from his old-fashioned way of thinking. She has not got her own property; furthermore, her future heritage is going down the sink (248) because of her fathers investment in gambling. She depends on her fathers money given to cover the costs of their household, and which always run out, making Dorothy feel ashamed. Besides, her life is made even harder by her fathers inability to fulfil the dirty work of the parish and his duties outside the four walls of the church (20). So Dorothy runs the household, she plays the role of the curate, and maintains relations with the community while her father immerses himself in his past with nostalgia. The life, which is outlined here, ignores the achievements of the end of the nineteen-century and the betterment that was introduced with the enactment of new laws in the early twentieth century. In the next chapter, Dorothy, who originally belongs to the lower middle-class, sinks down to the level of the agricultural workers. When she earns her living as a daylabourer, a hop-picker, her position is highly uncertain since the wages, the length of the time of her employment depend on the quantity and quality of the hop. In addition, by the description of Dorothy and her companion, Nobbys wandering to find a farm where they get work Orwell makes us feel the difficulties of the time of economic crisis. As for the fact that Dorothy lives in an open relationship with a man without marriage, it results in the common opinion about her that she is Nobbys tart. The other workers form their opinion on the basis of what they saw during those few days that Dorothy and Nobby spent together, and in their eyes Dorothy and Nobbys relationship cannot be considered to be sinful.

26

Orwell characterizes the community of hop-pickers with the presence of huge communism17, when he says ...everyone was extraordinarily kind(109), as it is manifested in several cases. However, he depicts the nature of this communism in such a way that it always originates from female benignity. It is the women who give help to those in need. For instance, when, until they get their first wages, Dorothy and Nobby have to work in the first few days without money to buy food so they would starve to death without Mrs Turles help. Alternatively, after Nobbys arrest everyone in the set came across with a hatful of hops and dropped it into her bin (119). Dorothys descent continues in the third chapter reaching the deepest point when Dorothy is reduced to begging for her food in the streets. Beggary proves to be an equal profession both for men and for women. As Orwell points out, on this level, every distinction disappears, people do not exploit their mates, and they rather help each other. The writer introduces by several examples of the tramps communism and mutual help to his readers. Orwell describes these people, who struggle against starvation and the cold weather day by day, while they create a community where nobody is insulted because of his or her strangeness. Orwell shows their strangeness with the disorder in the characters dialogues. Everybody has a bee in his or her bonnet, but, when one of them is in need, everybody is ready to help. They know that it is the solidarity what alleviates suffering. The difficulties join these marginalized people. Evidently, Orwell tries to counterbalance the predominance of the nineteenth-century features with this way of characterization which reminds the readers rather to the twentieth century where World War I taught the human race solidarity in a higher degree. The last possibility that Orwell suggests as a usual job for an unmarried lady born and bred is school-mistressing. The writer enumerates few other jobs like that of the manicurist, the private secretary and to be companion to an old lady .... who leave you ten thousand quid and care of the parrot (173) which are acceptable for girls of good upbringing but not for Dorothy. In her eyes the job of a housemaid or a parlourmaid (173), or of a nursery governess (126) is a more acceptable because any of them could open up a possibility to help her to keep her past history secret easier (126). Orwell portrays school-mistressing and the conditions of lower-rate private schools in the darkest

17

Orwell also uses the word communism later for the community of tramps in the meaning of solidarity, mutual help, and team spirit. When I use this expression I think of this meaning.

27

colours. With a good critical sense, he points out the deficiencies of these schools, which can be divided into the following groups: - The problems originate from the teachers inaptitude and their lack of methodological knowledge. For instance, in the schools there is no need for any qualification on the teachers part (174), even a teachers drunkenness is acceptable like in the case of the teacher of chemistry. - The troubles whose source is the owners avarice, which means that they have ultimately no purpose except to make money (212). This widespread notion negatively affects the quality of teaching. As the owners of the private schools do not teach themselves, they do not have experience in teaching. Furthermore, as they are only interested in making money, they do not pay money to develop teaching aids and create appropriate circumstances for learning (fundamental things such as heating, lighting). Orwell criticizes these types of schools for the usage of old-fashioned books, for the badly selected subjects with which the students are not given the knowledge useful in everyday life. - The above-mentioned problem, avarice, poses another question, the teachers defencelessness. At first, teachers depend on their employers whose aim is the reduction of the wages as much as it is possible; second, these ill-paid teachers are dependent on the parents want since the schools are alive with the parents money; thirdly, the teachers are at the mercy of the pupils. Orwell shows their tragic situation through remarkable examples pointing out the helplessness and powerlessness of thousands of teachers. In this part about private schools, there is another proof of the female discrimination against men. Although the author himself does not declare it directly this statement is still proved in the book. Mr Booth, the teacher of chemistry, has been teaching for many years in Ringwood House despite his constant drunkenness, which is a well-known fact both for the children and for Mrs Creevy, the owner of the school. In spite of his weakness, which prevents him from teaching more than the same two sentences lesson by lesson, not only is he allowed to teach but he receives no punishment, either. On the contrary, when Dorothy makes an effort to modernize the teaching by using her own money and to give something from the Facts of Life (205) to her pupils, she is seriously punished by the parents, by her employer, and finally by the children.

28

Undoubtedly, the social class that can only afford to send their children to these lowerrate private schools rather excuses male imperfection than a female mistake. 3.3. The similarities of the two books In the second part of this chapter, I will collect the similar features in the treatment of social problems in the two books. The commonest feature of the two books is the situation of the main characters when they spent several days on the streets of London. In the manifestations of the social problems, which occur in both books, three other similarities can be pointed out, which are outlined in the treatment of three social features: the average peoples attitude to growing unemployment, to the care of the old, and towards the Church. 3.3.1 On the periphery of the society Undoubtedly, the events of the two books join on the point when the two main characters get to the periphery of society. Their condition is not a constant one either in Down and Out, or in A Clergymans Daughter, nevertheless this short period of their life is still suitable for the portrayal of the marginalized peoples hard life. The plot of the former book, which can be rather called an account of experiences, comes from the protagonists (who is the author) deliberate choice to be a tramp. We know that the protagonist has some kind of job18 but he could not ask for any money since his employers went abroad. Therefore, with some money left in his pocket he chooses the streets instead of making any serious effort19 to find some work. Based on the experiences in France where life was cheap at that time he hopes to succeed in spending the next month with the little money that is in his pocket, and then later, when he runs out of money, he succeeds in asking two poundworth sums from the unnamed Mr B. (181) In contrast, in the other book, the few days, which, due to ill fortune, the protagonist is forced to spend in the streets of London, can be regarded as a short episode in the plot as a whole. Furthermore, it cannot be regarded as her deliberate choice that she becomes a bum. Orwell talks about Dorothy Hares struggle for finding a job in London and he attributes her fruitless attempts to such circumstances as her educated accent, her ragged
18

According to the autobiographical data Orwell, in 1928 lived in the East End among the poor. Later that year he went to Paris where he earnt his living from casual jobs. The next year he returned to London where he continued the poorish life, which was hardened by a theft of his money. 19 Except that case when he and his fellow tried for a job as a sandwich man (181).

29

clothes, and her lack of references were against her (134). He depicts the suburban housewives whom Dorothy visits hunting for a job as prying and suspicious women who reacted to her in precisely the same way (134) and who sniffed ... that she had been in trouble - that is, had an illegitimate baby - and after probing her with their questions they got rid of her as quickly as possible (135). Although Orwell does not mention openly the real reason for her lack of success, which can be found in the historical events, he still refers to it when he clarifies Dorothys chances of finding work unaided were practically nil (134). 3.3.2 The unemployment In the historical review given in the second chapter, I have pointed out the changes in the number of unemployed people during the years of the Great Depression. Despite the governments efforts to lower the number of the unemployed, quoting David Thomsons words the official rate at best 9-10 per cent was alarmingly large (Thomson, 124). This proportion meant at least one million men out of work permanently. If we examine the question of unemployment in the two Orwellian writings, the first observation is in connection with being out of work with which he makes the readers face unemployment as a widespread feature all over England. He shows us that the high rate of unemployment appears not only in urban areas, as it turns out from the above about Dorothys efforts, but also in the agricultural parts of England. Orwell points out that the unemployment in the case of the agricultural areas is worsened because of the migration of the townspeople. As a matter of fact, he says that half of the casual workers in the agriculture are gypsies and ... most of the others were respectable East Enders, costermongers and small shopkeepers and the like, who came hop-picking for a holiday and were satisfied if they earned enough for their fare both ways and a bit of fun on Saturday nights20 (108-109). However, by the time Dorothy and her mates arrive at the hop-fields, which is in September, they ... began to meet discouraged people, mostly tramps, trailing back to London with the news that there was nothing doing ... (94). According to Orwell, there are three reasons for the lack of work; the bad quality of the

20

Orwell refers to the workers practice to go out on Saturday evenings when fifty or sixty of the pickers used to get drunk in the pub and then march down the village street roaring bawdy songs (107).

30

crops, the low of wages, and that the gypsies and home pickers21 had collared all the jobs (94). The second evidence, which is noticeable in both books, is the negative behaviour of the people, permanently hired, towards the unemployed. Their behaviour is manifested in several ways such as abuses and contempt. In Down and Out ... Orwell complains about the usage of meal-tickets because the proprietors of the eating-houses ... knowing that the tramps could not go elsewhere .... always cheat them by giving less food than the real value of the tickets (187). In addition, they deceive the charitable people who give these tickets to the tramps. Orwell suggests a disputable way to solve the problem, since, according to him, giving money instead of tickets to the tramp would prevent their victimisation (187). The situation is the same with the merchants who are depicted in A Clergymans Daughter to be the people whose main aim is to profit from the casual workers everlasting hunger. Orwell says that The local shopkeepers ... made more during the hop season than all the rest of the year put together ... (110). As for the working peoples contempt, Orwell demonstrates it with the characterization of the postmistress of the village in A Clergymans Daughter. She treats Dorothy with bitter contempt when she takes no notice of the picker-girl (124). The author gives an explanation for this attitude in Down and Out ... when he analyses the roots of it. He arrives at that opinion that the working men consider the beggars and the other people out of work as parasites (174) since they do not work and do not produce anything profitable. As for the beggars, Orwell states that their biggest fault is their choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich (175). Thirdly, there is the authors tendency in the two books to make the members of the English society who are actually employed understand that most of the unemployed and the beggars at that time are unable to find such work which is called - according to their notion - a normal one. Orwell still wants to get them recognise that this lack of success is not the poor devils fault. He emphasizes, on the one hand, how difficult it is for the members of the lower middle-class to find a job in the years of economic crisis. In A Clergymans Daughter, Dorothy Hare tries to find work becoming to her rank in
21

In A Clergymans Daughter, home pickers are those people who have got homes of their own. The law, which was brought in by the Labour Government, stated that the farmers have to give proper accommodation for their workers (95). This law, however, made both the farmers and the workers situation harder since, on the one hand, the ensuring of proper accommodation increased the farmers expenses; on the other hand, the homeless peoples prospects decreased.

31

London, visits eighteen places in four days and sent written application for four others (134) without success. On the other hand, both in Down and Out ... and in A Clergymans Daughter we meet many men who were originally clerks, shopkeepers and even one of them was a doctor (Down and Out ..., 170), but at that time, they are out of work. It was by no means unusual that educated men were sacked, priests such as Mr Tallboys in A Clergymans Daughter or real artists such as, in Down and Out ..., the screever who had studied in Paris and submitted pictures to the Salon in his days (172). It seems Orwell attempts to change the English societys attitude towards the class of the poor by showing a range of examples: men who do their best to earn their living while they brave the societys contempt, overcome their sense of shame and struggle with the elements on the street day by day in order to look after their family. Orwell comes up with another problem that is the consequence of the high unemployment. All of the marginalized people whom the writer talks about suffer from malnutrition. The writer proves to be well informed on this problem and he depicts a remarkably distressing view for the readers. He tries again to draw the societys attention to the fact that many people, including women and children, starve in England at that time. When comparing the two writings, it turns out that the situation of those who live in towns is worse than that of the casual workers in the countryside, who have the possibility to supplement their meals, though in an illegal way, with stolen fruits and vegetables. He states in A Clergymans Daughter that Probably it was only the abundance of stolen apples that prevented the camp from being ravaged by scurvy (111). Later on this page he mentions that in the countryside there were vast orchards full of piles of rotting fruits because the farmers could not sell them. Evidently, the fault of the state afflicts the poor, lower class-people. In A Clergymans Daughter, he uses stronger words in order to make the starvation of the masses more perceptible for the readers. He characterizes the meals of these people as a filthy diet and the hawkers groceries from London as horrifyingly cheap (111). Or in Down and Out ... he calls the tramps meal bread and margarine diet (151).

3.3.3. The care for the old

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After unemployment, the next criticized social feature worth discussing in connection with Down and Out ... and A Clergymans Daughter is the care for the old or rather the lack of it. Orwell draws a very saddening picture about it and there is no doubt that the question of the care of the old was unsolved in England in Orwells time. The writer chooses such old people who have no family to take care of them. He concentrates on those who stand alone in the world. Here we see again Orwells sympathy for the marginalized people. In A Clergymans Daughter one of the protagonists duties when she lives her normal life as a clergymans daughter is to visit the old of the parish. Day by day she makes visitings which consist not only of chatting, consoling and praying together with the aged housewives but of nursing the invalid, which means that in some cases Dorothy needs to overcome her disgust. Besides, she has to do anything that these old people ask for. Orwell describes an episode when Dorothy is asked to give an old woman a bit of rub-down (52). Just when the woman does not see her she has to exhort herself why ...she really [does] not enjoy rubbing Mrs Pither down (52) because of the bad smell of the house. It is worth remembering that this Mrs Pithers husband, although he and his wife are over seventy in the story, is away at the time of this episode since he is digging in the doctors garden (49). Although the writer does not express it directly but reading between the lines it is evident that these tasks should belong not to the priests daughter but the state should find some kind of solution for the problem. The examples of the aged men whose lives are described in both books mirror how far the taking care of the old are unsolved in England. The Pithers above can be considered lucky because they have their own home and they are members of a community that takes care of them to some extent. But the white-haired people, who have no home and who live among the tramps, are in a worse situation than the old of a community. In spite of the mutual help that the members of the class of the tramps and of the beggars give each other, homeless old people suffer much more because of undernourishment and they are exposed more to the harshness of the weather. Their illnesses are not treated properly. Orwell also refers to the medical inspection in the spike in Down and Out ..., which, on the one hand, was a humiliating procedure for the tramps, on the other hand, was designed merely to detect smallpox ... not inquiring whether any man was well or ill (149). Orwell mentions a man who is an old mummy-

33

like creature of seventy-five and in his case it is a wonder how he could possibly make his daily march (149); however, there are more than five very old men introduced in Down and Out ... during the narration. These very old men often have to work hard for their living - as Orwell describes their life. In A Clergymans Daughter Orwell talks about a deaf old man who goes to work every year as a picker to Kent for the hop-season and the only happy and comfortable period of his life is when he spends his salary for a paradisiac week staying in a lodging-house. Orwell explains his use of the word paradisiac which means in Deafies case sleeping in bed (129). The other examples are not necessary to mention since the others above can make the readers understand how far Orwell was shocked by the critical situation of the homeless, the paupers, and old people. 3.3.4. Change in the religious attitude As I mentioned above the author introduces the attitude of the marginalized people to the different Churches, which needs elaborating. At first, I would like to emphasize that Orwell turns his readers attention to a twentieth-century characteristic of the English society, namely the one that the religious interest decreased at that time and this fact was independent from the social class a person belonged to. Perhaps it is not only the fault of Dorothys father, in A Clergymans Daughter, that the congregation of his parish is reduced but it is the fault of the cogregations members, as well. Orwell gives a thorough explanation (21) stating that the peoples religious needs had changed by that time. The Rectors High Anglicanism proved out of date that is why it could not keep up with the average peoples requirements. With the description of the trendy religious movements and the peoples changeable nature Orwell makes the readers see the value of Dorothys struggles to maintain the peoples feeling towards their Church, which are going to be mentioned on the next pages. Dorothy is the only person who holds together the congregation instead of its appointed leader. Nevertheless, Orwell describes a few of people who represent the opposite attitude with irony. For instance, there is Mrs Pither who was always ready for a little prayer at any hour of the night or day and whose only consolation is the thesis that the principal inhabitants of Heaven are the poor working folks (51). Or, Mr Tallboys is an unfrocked priest who is not able to undress the habits coming from his education. The readers can see Orwells criticism of the institution of the Church of England. On the one side, there

34

are huge numbers of people who leave their religion for the sake of a more modern one, which proves that the Church of England is unable to keep its congregation. On the other side, there is the tiny group of zealous people, which shows that the church made a mistake somewhere during the religious education of these zealous people. As a schoolmistress, her employer insists on Dorothys going to church regularly. Nevertheless, what shows Mrs Creevys hypocrisy is that she chooses the church where to send Dorothy according to the parents taste. She sizes up the future situation when she says that the Church connexion might be worked up a bit (219). Behind her hunger for money is her aim. Mrs Creevy tends to adjust to those from whom she gets the money and therefore she is ready for anything. As for the most marginalized peoples attitude, Orwell, having lived among the tramps, gained experiences also about their feeling toward the Church. Examining their attitude, there are three important episodes22 that enlighten it in Down and Out... The first one, on pages 141-143, serves for the readers to take a sample of the tramps feeling. The author, in the company of other bums, participates in a service made for the tramps which is linked with their getting free cups of tea. Despite the ladys politeness and good intention, they behave ungratefully. Although the way how Orwell depicts this episode is detailed, he leaves his readers in uncertainty why these people are not grateful for the charity towards them. During the narration of the episode he mentions many times how far the tramps feel uncomfortable during the service; for instance, he says that the tramps hate the religious subjects (142) or during the prayers they grinned and winked at one another (143). Having compared this episode with the next one, we can state, however, that the tramps behaviour here is more low-key than in the other place. Nevertheless, there is the question: Why? The key word will be humiliation which is mentioned in the end of the episode. The lady filled with religious zeal was not able to recognize how far her attention was offending for these poor devils. They felt that they had to pay for the free cups of tea. The innocent and well-intentioned ladys case prepares the better expression of the humiliation in the second episode on the pages 183-185. If a ladys charity with good intention can humiliate those for whom it is given, how far will the charity that originates
22

In Down and Out... there are four episodes connected with the religion. Since the fourth one (on the pages 182-183),which is in the second place if we consider the order of time of the four episodes, is similar to the firstly mentioned one and it contains the writers summary (183), it is omitted from the arguing above.

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from hypocrisy be humiliating? In the second episode, in spite of the fact that the charity is the biggest one according to its size23, Orwell expresses that the charity takes an opposite turn since the priest, who practices charity, expects the tramps to show visible gratitude. In the beginning of the practicing charity Orwell uses such expressions that make the tramps degradation evident, for example, they were shepherded into the church like the sheep or the tramps were separated from the regular congregation and sat on the gallery (184). Orwell details the tramps reaction to this discrimination saying that they ...treated the service as a purely comic spectacle... (184). The writer draws a parallel between the ministers and an old tramps acts to make the readers see the tramps behaviour with the help of comic elements. Orwell sharpens the situation during the next sentences, which reaches its highest point when the author indicates his criticism with a short exclamation But much we cared! (185) answering the priests loudly-said discrimination as the tramp will be unsaved. As an ending, Orwell concludes the episode with his thoughts about the reason why the tramp behaved in this unthankful way. Nonetheless, the writer wants the readers to learn from the case and he contrasts it with another way of charity putting it immediately after the previously mentioned one on pages 186-187. Here, in the third story, his aim is to make the readers compare the two stories. There are striking differences between the two episodes such as the clergymens behaviour (one priests thundering behaviour versus the others shyness and embarrassment), or in the mood of the two events (noisy, self-satisfied Hallelujahs versus silence), or in the two ideas about helping (the congregations attitude waiting to be thanked for their goodness and the second clergymans unselfishness.) We can find another difference if we examine the tramps attitudes in the two episodes. In the second one they show genuine gratitude (187) and praise the clergyman since they feel that the priest treated them in an altruistic way. Orwell, by the third case, shows the readers the proper way of charity. Although the writer in A Clergymans Daughter does not describe any similar situation to these three above from Down and Out ..., we can consider the existence of the references to the Church as another connection between the two books after the previously mentioned problems of unemployment and care of the old. 3.3.5. Other common features
23

In this church the tramp get six slices of bread instead of the usual two slices. (184)

36

There are also some less important similarities between Down and Out ... and A Clergymans Daughter, from which I will highlight two common features. In both writings Orwell criticizes the English laws about beggary for their absurdity and not being enforceable24. He expresses public opinion when he introduces these laws as ridiculous whereby anybody who does not directly beg the passers-by for money but makes some kind of work for the thrown down pennies is considered as a person following a legitimate trade (Down and Out ..., 174). Furthermore, he prompts his readers to realize that the enforcement of the laws is beyond the capacity of the state. Undoubtedly, it is impossible to imprison all of the beggars in London who are denounced to the police. On the other hand, what can be regarded as another similar aspect of the two books is that Orwell concentrates on the situation of the men-in-the-street. One sign of this endeavour is that he omits the high political events. When a change of government comes, Orwell is interested in the change on such a level that affects the men-in-thestreet. As for the elections, he thinks of them only in localterms. In A Clergymans Daughter, he describes what efforts Mr Blifil-Gordon, a proprietor of a sugar-beet refinery, made to win a seat in Parliament. Orwell, with his good critical sense, puts emphasis on what the average people perceive from the election. The inhabitants of the village of Knype Hill hear and read the slogans like Blifil-Gordon and the Empire or Wholl put the Beer into your Pot? Blifil-Gordon! Blifil-Gordon for ever! (Orwell, A Clergymans..., 35). They themselves participate in the terrific din of cheering (Orwell, A Clergymans..., 35) and the normally sleepy village becomes a sort of triumphal procession - as the author depicts the atmosphere of the village (Orwell, A Clergymans..., 35). People, who are normally ignored, now, when their votes are important, get attention. The protagonist, Dorothy Hare, who had been deigned to recognize for several years by any of Blifil-Gordons company, gets a smile so warm that it [is] almost amorous (Orwell, A Clergymans..., 33). The hypocrisy of the candidate is marked not only by the Orwellian remark about the carefully graded smiles (36) but also by showing the opinion of a man-in-the-street about this campaign. Orwell gives the view of the average people into Proggetts mouth, when the churchman comments on the election with the following words: All honey and butter they are till theyve made sure as

24

The critical remark can be found on page 174 in Down and Out ... and on page 165 in A Clergymans Daughter.

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youll vote for them; and then theyve forgot your very face the day afterwards (Orwell, A Clergymans..., 34). In Down and Out... Orwell also ignores the high politics and he is interested in the events or the laws that affect the characters of the book. He mentions the defects of the Vagrancy Act many times when he experiences something working badly. For instance, he is especially fond of protesting against the unreasonable prosecutions in the spikes25 such as smoking (155) or having money more than eightpence (145), and against the lack of rules about comfort or cleanliness in the spikes (213). In the last chapter Orwell gives the readers a conclusion of his experiences and he suggests many changes. He makes only one exception in connection with the high politics when he characterizes a pavement artist called Bozo (163). In this episode Orwell mentions some political events or characters but in such a way as a marginalized man sees and makes fun of them. This man proves to be exceptionally interesting in the Orwellian description. Despite his bad circumstances of life, such as his poverty, his damaged leg, and the dark future26, he is able to remain brimful of life. This self-educated man is up-to-date as for the politics and has his own opinion about the events of that time. It clearly turns out from his drawings. Orwell places him before the readers as a model inspiring them that here is a man with several problems but he is able to appreciate his freedom and to see the world optimistically. In my opinion, the writer suggests that we should follow this mans philosophy and recognize the good in the things around us. Therefore, it is true also for this example, which was pointed out in the third paragraph above, that the writer deals with events only from the average peoples viewpoint. According to Orwell, these social problems, which have been examined on the pages above, are waiting to be solved. His disillusionment is shown when he experiences many examples for unfairness within the English society, for instance, when people inside the society27 humiliate the outsiders. It is felt from Orwells descriptions that he accuses the insiders of their blindness why they are not able to realize their fortune. I mean that all of us, the so-called insiders, should be aware of the fact that at any time we
25

Many times in Down and Out ... Orwell uses the word spike referring to the casual wards in England. 26 Orwell says about his future that His damaged leg ... would probably have to be amputated .... [and] there was ... no future for him but beggary and a death in the workhouse (168). 27 When I use this expression I think of the people who are ordinary members of the society, who have job, their own home, and family, etc. On the contrary, everybody who stay on the periphery of the society I consider as anoutsider.

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can be in a similar situation either by a war, or by accident. The outsiders are often only the victims. Orwell expresses his hope that if he shows his readers who the insiders of the society are, their errors, he will be able to make them correct their way of thinking, rid themselves of their prejudices, and by this means their mistakes.

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Chapter Four Orwells technique and the identification of the genre

Orwell uses a large number of literary devices in order to help his readers notice the social criticism that can be heard in Down and Out ... and in A Clergymans Daughter. At first, I will focus on the examination of A Clergymans Daughter as for Orwells technique, then I will examine it in Down and Out ... In my opinion, making an analysis of the writers technique is essential for the identification of the genre of the two books supposing that each of them might contain such distinctive features by which each of them can be put into a category. The definition of the genre of the two writings will be the third part of this subchapter. 4.1. Orwells technique in A Clergymans Daughter In A Clergymans Daughter the writer tells the readers a fictional story in which there is an exciting story-line built on the events of a girls life. Beside the protagonist, there are many subsidiary characters by whose lives Orwell makes the readers recognize the social problems. The statement above about the fact that this book belongs to the category of fiction poses a question. Why can this writing be considered as a fictional one? In my opinion, the answer can be found in the part of the book when the protagonist gets to London (from her village) under mysterious circumstances. The writer leaves his readers in doubt because he cannot give any credible explanation for the protagonists disappearance and the strange gap in her memory either immediately after her disappearance, or later during the story. As if the deus-ex-machina from the classic dramas suddenly appeared but here this god is the creator of the further events not the one solving the problems. What also supports that this writing can be regarded as a piece of fiction is the analysis of the characters. Since E. M. Forsters famous study on the novel, titled Aspects of the Novel (1927), we have distinguished two types of characters, a flat, unchanging type and a round, dynamic one28. I will examine the characters of Orwells writing according to this distinction.
28

I have used the Baldwick varients for the characterization from this: Chris Baldwick s Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, 1990.

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In A Clergymans Daughter, the protagonist seems to be an everyday girl at first sight, but Orwell makes us recognize later in the story that she has some special qualities. In my opinion, one of her specialities is her spinsterish attitude, which is mainly due to the lack of sexual education combined with her childhood shock because of those certain dreadful scenes (77) between her parents. Her sexual coldness makes her a spinster and defines her relationships to men. This quality does not change during the story, but there is another one that can be defined as a changing characteristic. Due to her family background she got religious education, and the religion considerably defined her days. At the beginning of the story the protagonists strong love of God is expressed when the beauty of the summer nature evokes a prayer from her and she praises the maker of the earth and all created things (53) in such a powerful way that some moments later she will be ashamed of the realization of the joyful worship. However, because of her sufferings during the eight months, she has lost her faith and she is not able to feel the power of the worship (220) any longer. The losing of her faith means that a deep change happens in the protagonists behaviour. For her there is no possibility for a better future, I mean that a loving husband and her own family can be a way out from her situation, nonetheless her terror of sex precludes her from this possibility, therefore the only way of life is to remain with her father and to continue the former life pretending to have faith. I identify the part of the protagonists life spent under her fathers control as the stage of believing slavery29. The next period, when she can try enjoying freedom whose cost is the loss of her faith, can be called the stage of unbelieving freedom. The final period is between the first two, if I consider the change of the character and her choice for her life, and I name it as the inter-stage of unbelieving slavery. The fact that the protagonists character remains between the two stages at the end of the story obviously does not mean a dynamic change which was usual in many nineteen-century novels, such as in the case of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice or in several of Thomas Hardys main characters. Nevertheless, because the protagonists character is changeable and complex, it can be determined that it is a round type of characters using the Forsterian naming. There is no doubt that Orwell employs a large number of minor characters in the story. It poses the question what it serves. To answer this query, it is worth investigating
29

The expressions of believing slavery, unbelieving freedom, and unbelieving slavery are my creations.

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at first how Orwell distinguishes the minor characters and then how he distributes them in the five chapters. In each of the five chapters, we can differentiate two groups of minor characters. The first group consists of those who are in an effective contact with the protagonist such as the Rector, Victor, Nobby, Mr Warburton, and Mrs Creevy. In the other one are the people who have only indirect roles during the plot, for example Miss Mayfill, Mrs Semprill, Victor, the gypsies, the measurer, the tramps, Mr Boulger, the schoolgirls and their parents. All the characters in the first group somehow determine the protagonists life, in a short period, for instance, either in Nobbys case, or in a long lifetime, by this means they become the active participants of the plot. Several of the people belonging to the first group pop up repeatedly during the story and their appearances predict changes in the protagonists life. I mean, for example, that Mr Warburtons appearance in the first chapter finally causes the protagonists troubles; his letter in the fifth chapter is the herald of the saving. These characters of the first group have one or two constant features and do not change during the story. Mr Warburton, the elderly bachelor and freethinker is incapable to break away from his narrow-minded way of thinking and he can see the world from his own viewpoint. Hereby, he is unable to realize the protagonists situation and to understand her way of thinking and feelings. The events that the selfish, tyrannical, and mean father of the protagonist goes through do not influence him at all. At the end of the story, he remains in his dream world filled with old-fashioned ideas and he is unable to believe her daughters explanation about her disappearance. Nobby with his neverending inner radiance that warms ... the surrounding air (91) and his happy temperament even keeps these positive qualities when he gets into trouble. What is true for both of them and for the other minor characters in the first group is their incapacity for any metamorphosis. Therefore, the Forsterian category of the flat character is applicable to them. Beside the flat characters strong influence on the main character, Orwell uses them even to evoke other effects. Nobbys happy temperament makes his companion take the difficulties of their vagrancy easier. Moreover, it is used to relieve the readers shock that was caused by the characters terrible circumstances. Mr Warburtons narrowmindedness brings about our critical remark about so-called freethinkers. The Rectors old-fashioned thinking makes him ridiculous for the readers of the Orwellian age.

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The members of the second group often occur in short episodes or in descriptive parts and they remain mute; even if they speak, it will be often to a mob or in the centre of a community and not to only the protagonist. Obviously, the writer uses them to describe several groups of the society, mainly from the lower class. These people are usually the sufferers of the events and do not have important roles in the development of the plot. Since many of them appear in descriptive parts of the story, their presenting often expresses the writers criticism for the societys or the governments faults. There is another reason why the author uses these minor characters in the second group, and it is the simple desire to entertain and to teach his readers. The descriptions of the gypsies custom, the process of hop-picking, and the pickers life serve this aim. As I mentioned above, it is interesting how the author distributes the characters in the chapters. In each of the five chapters, the number of the characters is approximately the same; the number of people who are represented as individuals is between 11-14. We can add to this amount those who appear in the crowd scenes. According to the count of the minor characters, it turns out that Orwell distributes them equally in all the chapters. The fifth chapter can be considered as a point of interest. Its characters, with whom Orwell has already made the readers acquainted in the first chapter, appear only on a descriptive level, but with the exception of two men. The two perspectives that they offer for the protagonist will differently determine her future no matter what perspective she chooses. This is the obvious reason why they are in conversational contacts with the protagonist. The characters in the first and the fifth chapters are the same, so these two chapters create the frame of the story. The other three chapters have their own special characters according to their settings and their plots. Since Orwell wants to characterize the possibilities of an unmarried woman at that time, he has to use the right characters to the right plot. Since Orwell depicts such female jobs each of those are made in some kind of community, it explains the usage of a large number of characters. Other two points will help us to define the genre of the book and are useful for the presentation of Orwells technique. On the one hand the proportion of the dialogues and the descriptions and on the other hand the question of narration need elaborating. It is noticeable that the proportion of the dialogues and descriptions shifts towards the latter but not in a high degree. As it has turned out from the analysis of the minor characters, the second-typed characters occur rather in descriptions; thus, Orwell is able to show us

43

many types of the different social layers. Everything is visible in the story, the writer works out the characterization in great detail, and the same is true for the description of the settings. Therefore, his descriptive parts of the story are long and full of attributes. In the case of attributes, the use of adjectives is more dominant than that of the participles. As for Orwells use of words, it is remarkably varied, colourful, and free from the repetition of words. The dialogues mostly occur between the protagonist and the firsttyped minor characters. Notwithstanding, the third chapter can be regarded as an exception because a large part of it is a stream of dialogue. The writer rarely interrupts it with shorter descriptive parts used for giving explanations for the ignorant readers. I intentionally named the third chapter a stream of dialogue. It reminds me of James Joyces stream-of-consciousness technique since Orwell also presents the tramps rapidly changing thoughts. On the other hand, it is also obvious that this technique is closer to the genre of the report, which I will examine later. How well Orwell knows the people of the lower levels turns out from the richness of the regional dialects used by the characters. Summarizing, while the use of several descriptions and regional dialects serves to inform the readers and improve their knowledge, the dialogues make the story more dynamic and realistic. The other important question raised in the previous paragraph is the narration whose examination will also promote the definition of the genre. Being written in thirdperson narrative, the writer stands outside the events and he is only the story-teller. He is similar to the nineteenth-century omniscient narrator because he knows all the details of the events and all about the characters. He expresses everything directly and clearly, and does not entrust the finding out of those questions to the readers. When he characterizes the ousted people from the society, it is imbued with deep humanism and at the same time, he is still critical of their faults.

4.2. Orwells technique in Down and Out in Paris and London In this part of the subchapter I will focus on Orwells Down and Out ... in a similar way as in the case of A Clergymans Daughter. It is obvious from the plot that this writing belongs to the category of non-fiction. We cannot speak about plot in the

44

traditional sense of its meaning; even the author himself compares his work to a travel diary (215). The reason why this book has no traditional plot on the one hand is that the writer tells his readers the events in the form of a loose chain. These events are connected with each other according to the chronological order that is determined by the writers money running out. On the other hand what explains that the story of the book is not regarded as a traditional plot of fiction is the fact that the author is both the protagonist and the narrator of the events, so this first-person narrative makes an inside and limited point of view possible. The narrator is able to depict the events happening one after the other and the readers see the events through the narrators eyes. We cannot consider either the characters of the writing in the traditional sense real characters. They can be described rather as the subjects of a report. Although each of them has some kind of special qualities, for example in Bozos case his astronomical interest and view of freedom, the writer does not have any essential purpose with the description of these qualities. Hereby they do not produce any effects on the story. What is another characteristic of the personae of the book is that they do not show any development in their personality during the story. The narrator is the only person who develops by the end of the book. His way of thinking has changed positively towards the marginalized people. Therefore, his character can be placed in the round category of characters. Another proof can be acquired for our non-fiction theory by an investigation of Orwells style. Since the author gives his readers a simple account of his experiences, he adjusts his style to this kind of content. Progressing from the top to the bottom, I will start the analysis of the peculiarities of the Orwellian style with the examination of the largest units: the dialogues and descriptions. Then I will turn to the smaller units such as the sentences, and finally the words. It is obvious that the proportion of the descriptive parts is higher than that of the dialogues. Orwell inserts complete explicative chapters, which would be suitable for independent studies, into the chronicle of events. This practice becomes even more frequent in the end of the book. In my opinion, he inserts them in order to inform the readers and those who have the power to make changes in connection with the problems raised. He suggests solutions for them after he has accurately explored the facts and their relations, which might be invisible for the average society. Notwithstanding, these

45

theoretical chapters make his style much drier and less enjoyable for the everyday readers. The descriptions between the dialogues are factual because Orwell prefers objectivity. Therefore, the descriptions contain concrete data when he depicts either a room in a spike, or an interesting person. The dialogues are varied in length, in occurrence within each of the chapters, and many of them are written in one of the regional dialects. All these mostly depend on the settings and the participants. For instance, Orwell supplies a larger number of people and makes them speak if the setting is in a spike since it is a useful device for the expression of the marginalized peoples opinion. If we look at the comments introducing or finishing the dialogues, it will turn out that they are short and uncomplicated, which is a characteristic of journalism and is the opposite of the comments in A Clergymans Daughter, which are complemented with subclauses. The former statement brings the investigation with one-step more foreward, to the level of sentences. Orwells formation of sentences adjusts to his aim when he writes something similar to a travel diary. In Down and Out ... Orwell prefers using shorter sentences. Syntactically, one part of them belongs to the category of simple sentence and the other one to the category of coordinated sentences. The rate of subordinated clauses is lower than in A Clergymans Daughter. This technique keeps the writers account of events as factual as possible. It still explains that emotions are missing here since they might be at the expense of the credibility of the events. As for the lowest level, Orwells vocabulary proves to be less decorated than it is in the other book. He uses more repetitions and fewer synonyms. The use of verbs is on a very high level, which goes with the decrease in the number of adjectives and participles. According to these features, it can be stated that Orwell writes in the verbal style Down and Out ..., which is in contrast with the nominal style of A Clergymans Daughter. The simple past in active voice is used most frequently for the verbs since the writer tells his readers a story from his past. Although it was stated above that his vocabulary was poorer in general, an important trait must be emphasized. In spite of his restricted use of tenses and nominal phrases, it is still Orwells intention to introduce his readers into the peculiarities of the tramps slang. In order to carry out this purpose not only does he use some slang instead of ordinary language but also he devotes a whole chapter to ... putting

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in some notes ... on London slang and swearing (176). By so doing, Orwell makes the otherwise dry and factual narration more coloured and credible. 4.3. The identification of the genre It can be stated from the comparative examination of the two books that they show differences rather in consideration of form, though they possess some connecting points for their content. The analysis of form and of the writers technique raises the question of clarifying their genre. For making any decision, E.M.Forsters statement could give one possible starting-point. In Aspects of the Novel (1927), he presumes that the fundamental aspects of the novel are its story-telling aspect (40), its actors (54) and its plot which is a narrative of events .... with a mystery in it, a form capable of high development (87). One could come nearer to the response as for the question of the genre on the basis of making a comparison between the results of the analysis before and the Forsterian requirements. In the case of A Clergymans Daughter numerous signs point towards the direction of novel. It has been stated previously, at first, that its story and the characters, amongst which one can find flat and round characters, are fictional. Second, there is a third-person narration here. The third sign is that Orwell uses longer descriptive parts, which are richly decorated, but there is no so high shift towards the descriptions in the rate of dialogues and descriptions. What still gives another proof in favour of the novel is the writers vocabulary. Since the author is interested also in the faults of English society, he introduces to his readers many typical members of different social levels. Hereby the reader will hold in his hand a kind of social history. His criticism expressed in the book is also evident. Orwell says his critical remarks on the basis of his correct knowledge and with his aim of betterment. Thus, summarizing the arguments, one could assert that the genre of A Clergymans Daughter can be called a social novel because it not only satisfies the requirements of the novel but it examines social problems. In contrast, when one focuses on clarifying the genre of Down and Out..., he or she will arrive at the evident fact that this writing cannot be put into the same genre as A Clergymans Daughter. On the one hand, the strongest argument for it is the authors remark on his aims, which was mentioned before, to write something similar to a travel diary. On the other hand, there are further arguments for another genre. Does this book satisfy Forsteraspects mentioned before? Based on the features related to the writers

47

technique, our answer will be a no to the question. It is apparent that this writing does not have a plot like the novels, its characters do not develop during the story, and its style reminds the readers of what characterizes journalistic writings more. Thus these are the proofs that this writing does not belong to the novels. It poses another question, regarding its genre. The Hungarian scholar, Istvan Szerdahelyis statement can be viewed as the decisive step in clarifying the genre. According to him in Irodalomelmlet mindenkinek (1996, 141-142), there is a literary genre, he calls literary report, that is a species of report, but the two greatest differences between it and the journalistic report are its artistic traits and its experience-like representation. He makes his explanation of literary report more complete in another book, titled Mfajelmlet mindenkinek (1997, 174), saying that the literary report like the journalistic report portrays an event or a social process, its important criterion is its authenticity, and it puts emphasis on the revelation of casual relations. According to Szerdahelyi, other characteristics of this genre are its narrative-dissertative style and the lessened use of dialogues. Regarding Down and Out..., these qualities are in it, so this writing can be placed among the literary reports.

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Chapter Five Pedagogical Implications

5.1. Introduction In my opinion, teaching the topic of the life of people in socially disadvantageous circumstances in secondary schools would be very significant. While the teacher has the students read original texts or solve exercises based on these texts, he or she can draw his or her students attention to the fact that nowadays aversion to the poor, the tramp, and the beggar is not the correct behaviour. Many of these people get in their hard situation through no fault of their own. This fact is a truth forever, which is regarded to be really valid for George Orwells age. The historical events of that time made several peoples lives difficult, and Orwells realistic writings inform their readers about the condition of those people thus completing the readers knowledge gained from history books. My aim would be to awaken interest with the topic of George Orwells book, A Clergymans Daughter, in the social problems of Orwells and our own time. One of the aims of teaching the English language is to make learners able to read in English. Reading original English texts is a great opportunity for students to enlarge their knowledge about a foreign culture. With the help of reading original literary texts and comparing them with what the students have learned in their previous lessons, the teacher is able to develop their language skills especially vocabulary and grammar. By this means, students will be able to translate sources from one language to the other, mainly from English to Hungarian; furthermore, the teacher can raise the students interest in reading whole book. I have selecred extracts from George Orwells novel, A Clergymans Daughter, to bring literature into an English class. Students can see a sort of lifestyle, mainly a womans, and can make distinctions between their way of life and the protagonists. This could be the material of three lessons and I recommend it to secondary school students, at an intermediate or upper-intermediate level. In order to introduce students to the age of the novel and to make them familiar with George Orwell, I have already asked them to collect information about the authors life and works, the age of the 1920s in the previous lesson as homework. I gave them, on the one hand, some points with which they can start their search, for instance: a womans life or womens jobs in the 1920s, or the suffragette movement; on the other hand, I

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mentioned them titles of books or websites where they could find something about the topics. 5.2. The lesson plan The first lesson (45 min.) It is about what the students found about Orwell and the society of that time. The students read their pieces of information; the teacher writes down the main pieces on the blackboard, meanwhile the class together produce a new biography of George Orwells and a sketch of the society of that age. The aim would be that each of the students materials be heard, for this reason, after some students have made the main pieces of information known, the teacher asks the other students about those data that have not mentioned yet. Certainly, there will be new words, expressions for some students; by this means, their vocabulary will be extended. As a finish, for homework the teacher dictates seven Hungarian sentences, containing some of the newly learnt words, to translate to English. The students have to write their homework to sheets of paper so that the teacher will collect them in the next lesson. The second lesson (45 min.) 1. Collecting the homework (2 min.) 2. Warming up exercise (5 min.): Aids: blackboard, flashcards (on which adjectives are written for describing people), Blue tack The description of the task: The teacher divides the blackboard into three parts, writing FOR WOMEN at the top of the first part of the blackboard, FOR MEN in the second part and BOTH FOR WOMEN & MEN in the third one. The teacher shows flashcards one after the other; and the students have to decide whether the given card fits mainly the characteristics of women or of men or both of them. The teacher puts the cards in the right place and fixes them with Blue tack on the board.

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The adjectives for the flashcards:

FOR WOMEN beautiful skinny spinsterish anorexic shapely FOR MEN handsome bald well-built muscular receding-haired BOTH FOR WOMEN & MEN slim stout attractive overweight untidy-looking

3. Pre-reading task (5+5 min.) Aids: a picture The description of the task: a, The teacher shows a picture of an elderly woman (which is from the cover of the book A Clergymans Daughter) to the students. The teacher asks questions about the woman:

i. Could you tell me what she looks like? ii. Is she married or single? iii. Is she young? iv. What is she wearing? v. What does she do / what is her job?
(The aim would be that the teacher makes the students tell free associations. After the questioning, the teacher reveals the source of the picture by showing the cover of the book.)
b, The teacher turns the conversation to George Orwell and his book based

on the previously learnt information. (The aim of the task is a kind of repetition.) 4. Reading and vocabulary (25 min.) The description of the task: The teacher makes the students read and translate the text sentence by sentence. They check the new vocabulary, using a dictionary or the teachers explanations in English. Having finished reading, the students answer the questions in Exercise A in writing, and then the whole class check the

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answers orally. As for Exercise B the students can solve parts a, and b, parts individually, and then the whole class check the answers. Exercises C, D and E will be written homework. A. Look quickly at the text below and answer these questions. a) Has the Reverend Charles Hare got several children? b) How many people live in the Reverends house? c) Why does Dorothy have to do the morning duties herself? d) Is Dorothy an attractive girl? The note for the students:

You are going to read extracts from George Orwell s novel, A Clergymans Daughter, about a spinsterish girl of a priest who is treated badly and abused by her father. Later somehow she looses her memory and becomes a beggar. Finally, she finds a job as a schoolmistress but she gets disappointed in teaching and returns home.
1. It was just half past five, and coldish for an August morning. Dorothy (her name was Dorothy Hare, and she was the only child of the Reverend Charles Hare, Rector of St Athelstans, Knype Hill, Suffolk) put on her aged flannelette dressing-gown and felt her way downstairs. 2. ... from either side of the passage on the second floor she could hear the antiphonal snoring of her father and of Ellen, the maid of all work. With care ... Dorothy felt her way into the kitchen, lighted the candle on the mantelpiece, and, still aching with fatigue, knelt down and raked the ashes out of the range. 3. Having set the kettle to boil for her fathers shavingwater, Dorothy went upstairs and turned on her bath. Ellen was still snoring, with heavy youthful snores. She was a good hard-working servant once she was awake, but she was one of those girls whom the Devil and all his angels cannot get out of bed before seven in the morning. 4. Dorothy filled the bath as slowly as possible - the splashing always woke her father if she turned on the tap

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too fast - and stood for a moment regarding the pale, unappetizing pool of water. Her body had gone gooseflesh all over. She detested cold baths; it was for that reason that she made it a rule to take all her baths cold from April to November. ... Dorothy got out of her bath, and she dried herself with a towel hardly bigger than a table napkin - they could never afford decent-sized towels at the Rectory. 5. ... she was a girl of middle height, rather thin, but strong and shapely, and her face was her weak point. It was thin, blonde, unremarkable kind of face, with pale eyes and a nose just a shade too long; if you looked closely you could see crows feet round the eyes, and the mouth, when it was in repose, looked tired. Not definitely a spinsterish face as yet, but it certainly would be so in a few years time (Orwell 5-7). B. Read the text again and find these words: maid kettle dressing-gown b) Dorothys life. C. Look at the text again and say if the following sentences are true or false. a) Dorothy is a rich girl who dresses in brand-new, modern clothes. b) Ellens duty is cleaning the cooker. c) Dorothys father prefers to have cold baths. d) Ellen usually gets up after seven oclock. e) Dorothy filled the bath with hot water. f) Dorothy is a snub-nosed girl with an ugly face. D. Find the 11 words hidden in the square. (The following words are hidden: bath, bed, ashes, tap, height, crow (d), gown, shade, eye, mouth, awake. goose-flesh table napkin crows feet -

a) Which paragraph is each one in? Explain each item and say what significance it has in

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B A T H L C W

E S A E R R T

D H P I E O O

A E B G O W N

Q S S H A D E

M O U T H C Y

I X A W A K E

E. Match the word with its definition. 30

A priest in the Church of England or the Episcopal Church who is responsible for an area from which he receives his income directly. Very great tiredness. To push a stick backwards and forwards in a fire in order to remove ashes. To breathe noisily through your mouth and nose while you are asleep. Some liquid hits or falls on something noisily or it moves noisily. (BrE) a large long container that you fill with water and sit in to wash yourself. An act of washing your body in a bath. A piece of equipment for controlling the flow of water, gas etc from a pipe or container, where hot or cold water comes from. 1 having a much whiter skin colour than usual, especially because you are ill, worried etc. 2 this colour is much lighter than the standard colour (pale blue/pink/green etc.)

TO SNORE TAP RECTOR BATH2 TO RAKE PALE TO SPLASH FATIGUE

BATH 1

The third lesson (45 min.) 1. Warming up exercise (5 min.) Aids: flashcards (Each of them contains one word - noun, adjective, verb coming from the Reading task but on one half of the cards there are English
30

The definitions are based on the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Pearson Education

Limited 2000

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words, and the other half contains the Hungarian equivalents. Suggested words for making cards: child, dressing-gown, passage, maid, candle, mantelpiece, to kneel, ashes, range, kettle, to boil, angel, etc. There would be as many cards as the students in the group.) The description of the task: The teacher distributes the flashcards to the students,one card per student. The students are free to walk in the classroom and try to find their own pairs while they are asking each other: Who/What are you?, What are you doing?, Have you got the word ...? etc. Those who have found their pairs would sit down to their chairs. 2. Presentation (15+15 min.) Aids: monolingual (or bilingual) dictionary The description of the task: The whole class read the text in Exercise A, and then they check the meaning of the possibly unknown words from their dictionaries. The students individually do Exercise B, then they check the found adjectives and solve Exercise C together. If it has been checked, they look at the Grammar Explanation. A, Read the text about the school where Dorothy Hare was employed. Ringwood House was a dark-looking, semidetached house of yellow brick, three storeys high, and its lower windows were hidden from the road by ragged and dusty laurels. Above the laurels, on the front of the house, was a board inscribed in faded gold letters: RINGWOOD HOUSE ACADEMY FOR GIRLS Ages 5 to 18 Music and Dancing Taught Apply Within for Prospectus . Dorothys heart sank at the sight of Ringwood House. She had not been expecting anything magnificent or attractive, but she had expected something a little better than this mean, gloomy house, not one of whose windows was lighted, though it was after 8 o clock in the evening (Orwell, A Clergymans Daughter, 175-6). B, Underline the adjectives in the text.

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C, What are the roots of the following adjectives? If you need, use your monolingual dictionary. ragged rag (noun): a small piece of old cloth faded to fade (verb): to lose colour and brightness dusty dark-looking semi-detached attractive gloomy

Grammar Explanation31
In the text of Exercise A you can find many examples for forming adjectives. As you see, we can form adjectives from nouns or verbs. The other type of formation is the compound adjectives when we use present participles (e.g., a long-playing record32), or past participles (e.g. undercooked meat, a rolled-up carpet). There are certain common endings for adjectives which we call suffixes in English. These are: -able/ -ible -al /-ial -ary -ant /-ent -ful
remarkable flexible antiphonal (artificial) elementary important persistent youthful

-ious -ish -ist -ive -less

rebellious smallish socialist suggestive penniless

-ly -ory -ous -y

likely, deadly compulsory humorous windy, foggy

The suffix -able/-ible combined with verbs gives the meaning something can be done. E.g., washable - a jumper which can be washed. The suffix -ish modifies the original meaning of the adjective, e.g., oldoldish = sort of old or fairly old. The suffix -ly can be confusing because -ly is most often used for forming adverbs. But there is a small group of adjectives with -ly in English, e.g., lonely, lovely, friendly which cannot be used as an adverb. There are also certain beginnings for making adjectives, which we call prefixes. These are:
31 32

For this part I used the book of Virginia Evans, entitled FCE Use of English. 75. The examples are from Virginia Evans, FCE Use of English. 75.

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antidisilimin-

anticlerical distasteful illegal impolite intolerant

irnonoversuper un-

irrational nonfinite overweight supernatural unhappy

The prefixes un- and dis- can form the opposite of the adjectives, with the use of the prefix -in/-il/-im/-ir the adjective can also have a negative meaning. The prefix anti- means against, over- means too much, and super- means more, larger, or more powerful than usual. We can use present and past participles as adjectives. E.g. ...[there] was a board inscribed in faded gold letters... 3. Grammar Practice (10 min.) The description of the task: The students individually do the first three sentences from Exercises A, B and C, then they and the teacher go over the sentences. The other ones would be their homework. A, Contradict the following statements in the same way as the example. It is said that Peter is a happy man. I dont agree. I think he is

very unhappy.
It is said that the Chinese meal is possible to eat. ........................................... I always find Anne very sensitive. ................................................................... Tina loves wearing fashionable clothes. ................................................... I have read in National Geography that the Russian archeologists last travel was successful. ............................................................................... People always make legal acts in our country. ......................................... B, Use the word in brackets to form an adjective that fits in the sentence. a, Plazas are very ..................... (fashion) among the young in towns. b, Dont cook the mushrooms you picked on the picnic yesterday. They can be .................................. (poison). c, You should be extremely .............................(caution) when you put your head into the mouth of a crocodile.

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d, Bill Gates is considered to be the most ........................(success) businessman today. e, If Tom hadnt given up running and didnt eat so many sweets in these days, he wouldnt be so .......................(weight). f, We bought some newly-designed gadgets for our kitchen that are not so much ................................. (to use) as nice. g, My computer is not working at the moment. It is .............. (to act). h, At this time yesterday the sun was shining warmly, but today it is snowing heavily. The weather is .................... (to change) in March. i, Johnny has got a muscular body, a white-skinned face with blue eyes and blond hair. Everybody says that he is a ....................... guy. C, Make compound adjectives to describe the following: a, A half-marathon that was well organised. marathon... b, Jane and John s love never ends. ... a ...................... love .......................workers... c, A pair of jeans that lasts a long time. ... a ...................... pair of jeans... d, The workers of the company are paid well. qualified scientists. g, In many e, The students who have taken degree at this university will be well ....................................... scientists... the animals are treated ill by their f, Having fallen yesterday, my mother hurt her leg badly. ...a ...........leg... circuses trainers. ................animals... ... a well-organised half-

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Conclusion

I hope that I have been able to fulfil my aims successfully in my thesis. As a conclusion, I would like to report that during the examination of Down and Out ... and A Clergymans Daughter Orwells sensitivity to social problems has been proved by several examples. His sensitivity originated from his family background and his political views. Being a member of the lower middle-class and being short of money, he knew the problems of the poor in more details. Due to his political views, he was very critical of the faults of the society which are directly expressed in both books. Considering the historical events of Orwells time, it is evident that although men-in the-street were affected by these events heavily, marginalized poor people suffered even more. It turned out from Orwells two books that even the average people had damaged those who belonged to a lower-level class than theirs. Having analysed Down and Out ... and A Clergymans Daughter, I pointed out that the main difference between the two books came from the protagonists gender, but the appearance of the marginalized layer of society, which was the tramps class, was regarded to be the connection between the two writings. Beside this link, I found other similarities, such as the question of unemployment, the care of the old, and the decreasing tendency in practising religion. Orwells criticism can be traced in these areas. I drew the attention to the fact that by describing his disillusionment Orwells aim was to teach his readers and to make them better and more sympathetic to the poor, to tramps, and to beggars. Not only did he criticize the faults of the English society but he also made suggestions how to the correct the errors. I have determined the genre of the two books on the basis of an examination of the writers technique. So having considered the criteria of the novel according to E.M. Forster, it became obvious that the two books are different in their genre, since A Clergymans Daughter belongs to the category of the novel, while Down and Out ... is closer to reportage. I hope that in the pedagogical chapter I have been able to present useful ideas for bringing the English literature closer to the classroom. In my opinion, literature is one part of the culture of any civilization, so reading literature is the quintessence of learning

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a foreign language because literature brings its readers closer to becoming acquainted with the custom and history of a given civilization. Finally, I would like to point to a number of things that todays readers might learn from Orwells experiences. He summarizes his experiences in Down and Out ...: I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy.... That is a beginning (216).

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