The Road To Wigan Pier

George Orwell, the author of "1984" and "Animal Farm" and a prophet of dystopia, was a staunch socialist throughout his life. This may confuse today's readers who do not understand the changes in the political spectrum, but for Orwell, this was a natural choice.

In the 1930s, commissioned by a left-wing book club, Orwell went to the industrial areas of northern England to investigate and record the real situation of the working class. Orwell did more than just investigate; he went down to the deepest part of the mine, lived in dilapidated and filthy workers' houses, and used the tip of his pen to vividly reveal every aspect of the coal miners' lives. Read today, eighty years later, it remains shockingly true. The despair and poverty conveyed by this picture have a terrifying power that transcends time and national boundaries. At the same time, The Road to Wigan Pier is also Orwell's road to socialism as he examines his own inner life. Born into the British middle class, he recalled how he gradually began to doubt and then come to hate the strict class barriers that divided British society. For him, socialism ultimately meant one thing: "justice and freedom."