Chapter 10, 11, and 12 Summary and Analysis

The middle class often conflates the working class with tramps, beggars, criminals, and social outcasts. This is a mistake, in that these types of individuals are exceptional and no more representative of the working class than they are of the middle class. It is easy to be on equal terms with such individuals, however, as their society is very open and porous. Orwell suggests that many literary figures have mistaken their access into the society of tramps and criminals as having been access into the working class. Indeed, access into the real working class is exceptionally difficult for middle class investigators. Orwell notes numerous anecdotes revealing that while it is easy to e.g. live alongside the working class it is altogether another thing to merge into it. Orwell states that the working class is not penetrable, and suggests...