The Road to Wigan Pier

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1937

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-13

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Key Figures

George Orwell

George Orwell is the narrator of The Road to Wigan Pier and the only recurring figure. He spends time in working-class communities in the industrialized parts of North England to learn more about the poverty and suffering the people in these areas endure. Orwell is an empathetic and intellectually curious narrator whose willingness to involve himself in other people’s lives reflects a genuine desire to help improve society.

Orwell’s own class identity is important to the book, as it creates a sense of contrast. He portrays himself as the victim of a typical middle-class upbringing, absorbing prejudices and discriminatory attitudes toward working-class people without thinking twice about their veracity. The slow process by which Orwell came to overcome these prejudices creates a distinction between the misguided and snobbish Orwell of the past and the thoughtful, politically-engaged Orwell of the present. This character growth is important, as it reflects the change he wants to enact in society; the book itself is an effort to take the reader on the same journey that Orwell has found so elucidating and educational.

Orwell describes himself as a genuine socialist and uses his life and his experiences in working-class communities to make the case of socialism. He thus is not content with simply documenting and criticizing the world around him; his advocacy for socialism shows that he is an optimistic figure who believes that genuine change is possible.

Mr. Brooker

Mr. Brooker owns and operates a lodging house in a working-class industrial town. He is perpetually poor, even though he also works as a miner and runs a meat store out of his home. Mr. Brooker’s poverty has taught him to think of everything in financial terms, to the point where he is seemingly devoid of humanity. He and his wife take out life insurance policies on the elderly tenants in the house, and Mr. Brooker resents any elderly tenant who lives too long for cutting into his profit margin. He sees even the chores he must perform around the house as a hindrance to his ability to make money, and he forgoes all personal hygiene to dedicate every hour of every day to profit.

However, rather than simply a selfish or greedy individual, Mr. Brooker is representative of society itself. Mr. Brooker’s entire existence has taught him that his life, and the lives of other working-class people, have little value. He therefore sees no moral quandary in exploiting others in the way that he has been exploited. Mr. Brooker’s actions are not unique; instead, his callous lust for money exemplifies a society that values profit over human happiness.

Orwell’s physical descriptions of Mr. Brooker emphasize this lack of morality. The permanent dirt and grime on his hands symbolize Mr. Brooker’s corruption, as his soul and his morals are as filthy as his hands, which he uses to prepare the meat he sells and to cook the food he serves to lodgers. The most notable aspect of this poor hygiene is that it is a choice. As Orwell notes, the man has time to wash his hands but chooses not to. This choice again reflects Mr. Brooker’s broader moral character. He could wash his hands, just as he could stop exploiting those around him, but he exists in a world where he has not been taught to value personal hygiene, just as he has been taught to value money above everything else.

Mrs. Brooker

Mrs. Brooker is the wife of Mr. Brooker. She helps him to run the lodging house where Orwell stays. Unlike her husband, Mrs. Brooker is confined to a single place; where Mr. Brooker is defined by constant movement, moving from one job to the next in a bustling attempt to make money, Mrs. Brooker is sick and cannot move from the couch in her kitchen. However, this disability does not prevent Mrs. Brooker from exploiting other people. She shouts at passers-by and demands that they act out her orders. She demands constant cups of tea and criticizes anyone who dares to come into the kitchen. Rather than bathe, she wipes herself with greasy scraps of paper that are strewn across the floor.

As with Mr. Brooker, Orwell’s portrayal of Mrs. Brooker is overwhelmingly negative; he strives to avoid her and can barely hide his disgust for her personal hygiene and personality. However, his willingness to spend time with her is illustrative of his desire to understand everyone. In particular, Mrs. Brooker is an example of Orwell’s unflinching portrayal of the oppressive nature of the class system; she is a cog in an exploitative machine who has been ground down by a miserable existence and now wishes to inflict this misery on others. That Orwell wants to understand and help her reflects his belief that poverty is a social rather than an individual problem.

Mrs. Brooker’s injury is also a useful symbol for the plight of the working class in England. Because she can’t move, she burrows deeper and deeper into her filth and becomes further trapped. Her predicament is similar to that of the entire working-class community. Due to the punishing, exploitative nature of industrialization, poor people lack the time, resources, and finances to improve their position. They are stuck at the bottom of society, just as Mrs. Brooker is stuck on the couch in her kitchen.