George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Quotes

A collection of quotes by George Orwell, The Road to Wigan.

George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903, was an English writer and journalist. He is best known for his novels "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Animal Farm," which have become iconic works of dystopian literature. Orwell's non-fiction book "The Road to Wigan Pier," published in 1937, is a powerful exposé of the living conditions of the working class in industrial England. Through his firsthand experiences and meticulous observations, Orwell shed light on the social and economic struggles faced by the miners and their families in the town of Wigan. His work continues to resonate and inspire discussions on social inequality and political corruption.

Economically, no doubt, there are only two classes, the rich

Economically, no doubt, there are only two classes, the rich and the poor, but socially there is a whole hierarchy of classes, and the manners and traditions learned by each class in childhood are not only very different but--this is the essential point--generally persist from birth to death. 'Hence the anomalous individuals that you find in every class of society. You find writers like Wells and Bennett who have grown immensely rich and have yet preserved intact their lower-middle-class Nonconformist prejudices; you find millionaires who cannot pronounce their aitches; you find petty shopkeepers whose income is far lower than that of the bricklayer and who, nevertheless, consider themselves (and are considered) the bricklayer's social superiors; you find board-school boys ruling Indian provinces and public-school men touting vacuum cleaners. If social stratification corresponded precisely to economic stratification, the public-school man would assume a cockney accent the day his income dropped below L200 a year. But does he? On the contrary, he immediately becomes twenty times more Public School than before. He clings to the Old School Tie as to a life-line. And even the aitchless millionaire, though sometimes he goes to an elocutionist and leams a B.B.C. accent, seldom succeeds in disguising himself as completely as he would like to. It is in fact very difficult to escape, culturally, from the class into which you have been born.

George Orwell, The Road to Wigan

Wealth