Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

Orwell, commissioned by the Left Book Club to write a book about unemployment in England, travels to Northern England and lives in a slum while he investigates unemployment and poverty among coal miners in Wigan, Sheffield, and surrounding areas. In Part I of the text he provides details about their lives, and in Part II of the text he examines the idea that Socialism could provide a path out of mass unemployment and poverty. Alongside the assertion, Orwell provides a critique of Socialism and Socialists.

Chapter 1 begins Part I of the text. Having been commissioned to write the text about the plight of the working class poor in Northern England, Orwell travels to Wigan and takes residence in a boardinghouse run by the Brookers. The boardinghouse has several bedrooms and even features an indoor bathroom. The ground floor has a kitchen...