Summary of George Orwell's The Road To Wigan Pier

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The first sound in the morning was the clumping of the mill-girls’ clogs down the cobbled street. There were generally four of us in the bedroom, and a beastly place it was. The room had been turned into a bedroom by thrusting four squalid beds among this other wreckage.

#2 I lived in a house with a large open range that burned night and day. The kitchen was always full of smoke, and the floor was covered in Worcester Sauce and other food scraps. I never discovered how many bedrooms the house had, but I did see a bathroom that dated from before the Brookers’ time.

#3 The Brookers were a family who ran a shop as a side business. They had been doing so for many years, and had never been able to make money. They were very dirty, and their hands were always black.

#4 The only permanent lodgers were the Scotch miner, Mr. Reilly, two old-age pensioners, and an unemployed man named Joe. The Scotch miner was a bore when you got to know him. The old-age pensioners had been driven from their homes by the Means Test. They handed their weekly ten shillings over to the Brookers, and in return they got the kind of accommodation you would expect for ten shillings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822504318

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on George Orwell's The Road To Wigan Pier

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first sound in the morning was the clumping of the mill-girls’ clogs down the cobbled street. There were generally four of us in the bedroom, and a beastly place it was. The room had been turned into a bedroom by thrusting four squalid beds among this other wreckage.

#2

I lived in a house with a large open range that burned night and day. The kitchen was always full of smoke, and the floor was covered in Worcester Sauce and other food scraps. I never discovered how many bedrooms the house had, but I did see a bathroom that dated from before the Brookers’ time.

#3

The Brookers were a family who ran a shop as a side business. They had been doing so for many years, and had never been able to make money. They were very dirty, and their hands were always black.

#4

The only permanent lodgers were the Scotch miner, Mr. Reilly, two old-age pensioners, and an unemployed man named Joe. The Scotch miner was a bore when you got to know him. The old-age pensioners had been driven from their homes by the Means Test. They handed their weekly ten shillings over to the Brookers, and in return they got the kind of accommodation you would expect for ten shillings.

#5

I met a lot of commercial travellers while I was in the North. They were usually out-of-work clerks or commercial travellers, and they were sent from town to town to collect orders for magazines. If they couldn’t get at least 20 orders per day, they got fired.

#6

The Brookers had many children, who had all fled from home. The only son who was still living nearby worked at a garage. His wife and two children stayed at the shop all day while Mrs. Brooker napped on her sofa.