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Title: Down & Out In Paris & London by George Orwell ISBN: 0-436-23125-5 Publisher: Random House UK Distribution Pub. Date: 07 September, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Orwell's denial of the post war democracy
Comment: In Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell, otherwise known as Eric Blair, introduces his readers to a compelling tale that loosely retraces his own life during the time he spent in Paris and London in the thirties. In this semi-autobiographical chronicle, he records the hardships that he faced as a Parisian "plongeur" (a restaurant worker at the very bottom of the industry's hierarchy) and as a voluntary "tramp" in London. Clearly, Orwell's account is a very personal one; however, it resonates the destitution of so many others who were equally unfortunate to have been the victims of the post-war social reform failure and the subsequent Great Depression that descended upon the world in the late nineteen twenties and thirties.
The author focuses on France and Britain in particular because these two countries, magnificent superpowers of the past, have abandoned their poor in order to pursue different agendas in terms of their political policy. During this era, France was much concerned with securing its borders with Germany. This was a reaction to the Great War, during which France suffered great losses in every aspect. Although Britain was not faced with similar issues as France, it struggled with its political instability that arose in the light of the economic hardship of the Great Depression. Orwell acknowledges the differences between the two countries but insists on the recurring similarities in the treatment of the lowest social class. In his account, Orwell presents several important issues that would most likely be overlooked or altogether unknown to those outside the lower social order that Orwell describes. He points out the invisibility of the lower classes, forgotten or made forgotten by those for whom hardship of this kind was unknown, the abhorrent conditions in which existence had to be made possible, and the practically inevitable maintenance of the same class order throughout their entire life. The presentation of these three main issues highlights Orwell's repudiation of respectable democratic society and outlines his disdain for this ideology that he believed to be a failure.