以共同體作為人性之綻放：喬治・歐威爾《巴黎倫敦落魄記》與蔡明亮《郊遊》之比較

全文

(1)國立臺灣師範大學文學院英語學系碩士論文 Department of English, College of Liberal Arts. National Taiwan Normal University Master’s Thesis. 以共同體作為人性之綻放：喬治・歐威爾《巴黎倫敦落魄記》與蔡明亮《郊遊》之比較 Community as the Budding of Humanity: The Comparison between George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London and Tsai Ming-Liang’s Stray Dogs 粘正穎 Nien, Jeng-Ying 指導教授：梁孫傑博士. 中華民國 109 年 9 月 September 2020.

(2) i. Acknowledgements. The completion of this thesis has to be credited to my advisor, Dr. Sun-Chieh Liang, an admirable and respectable professor. He guided me through the journey of analyzing literary materials and organizing my ideas logically. Without his instruction, the layout of this thesis would have been much looser and less academic. He also gave me much time and space to conceive my own thoughts freely, and he would act as the role directing me to the correct path whenever I got lost in digression. I really owed a great debt of thanks to my instructor. I am also grateful to the committee members of my oral defense, Prof. Kun-liang Chuang and Prof. Yuh-chuan Shao. They gave me an abundance of advice and comments which was not only helpful in my subsequent revision but also inspiring for future study. I also thank so much Annie Chuang, Mary Wang, and White, who helped review my thesis before the oral defense. My parents were my best support. They let me explore the meaning of life and choose what I wanted to do without pressure. I also have to thank Prof. Tzu-chung Su, Prof. Hsiuchuan Lee, and prof. Shih-Chieh Chien, who provided me with burdenless jobs and decent pays, so that I could survive the program for master’s degree without economic worries. This thesis was also inspired a lot from Prof. Han-yu Huang’s courses about literary theories and biopolitics, leading me to discover the issue of homelessness. During my study, I also received mental support from my best friend Jimmy, who listened to my complaints and the ups and downs in life. The administrative members in our department office, Bartleby, Muhan, and William, all gave me a hand whenever I needed administrative aids. Phoenix Chang was one of my mentors; I always felt relaxed when I was having small talk with her. Kay Lee, a sunshine girl, we often shared the learning and use of Thai language.

(3) ii. and interesting things about Thailand. We shared bittersweets in life, too. When I was preparing for the trip to London for a conference, Marshall Lin provided me with many suggestions regarding the academic presentation and the travel routes. Last, my thesis would not have been complete if there were no Do You A Flavor’s homeless projects and guided tours. I also have to express my gratitude to Jia-ting Li, the social worker of Homeless Taiwan, for encouraging me on her book launch event. I sincerely appreciate all the people around me, backing me up, listening to me, and giving me useful advice. With the completion of this thesis, I will embrace these treasures and embark on the next adventure..

(4) iii. 摘要. 隨著《無家者——從未想過我有這麼一天》（2016）的出版，以及在 2017 年開始舉辦的「貧窮人的台北」等活動，無家者議題近幾年漸漸在臺灣受到重視。因受到社會學領域的啟發，首先我將在此論文中探討喬治・歐威爾的《巴黎倫敦落魄記》中倫敦的部分，藉此了解無家者的成因以及英格蘭貧窮法案的發展。接著我將以蔡明亮導演的《郊遊》來討論臺灣的無家者議題，並比較無家者現象在臺灣與英國的異同。最後，受到歐威爾「經營一座小型農場，或是一畦家庭菜園」提議的啟示，以及汲取在二十一世紀由格蕾絲・李・博格斯和埃里克・歐林・賴特的社區發展理論等發想，我將討論藉組織當地、互助的共同體以反抗資本主義的可能性。以在地為基礎的共同體中，透過互相關懷與支持，將會產生愛與歸屬感的氛圍，而人性也將成為可能。如同阿蘭・巴迪歐宣稱共產主義理念旨在將革命思想灌注於日常實踐中，地方共同體的計畫也可以是彈性且滾動式進化的。本共同體營造計劃可被視為實驗的過程，依據不同的時間與空間而有所調整。透過分析英格蘭與臺灣的無家者議題，本論文將焦點置於人性以及人類本身，期望為這個存在已久的問題找到一個可行的解決方案。. 關鍵詞：無家者、共同體、人性、《郊遊》、《巴黎倫敦落魄記》、共產主義理念.

(5) iv. Abstract. With the publication of Life Stories of the Homeless in Taiwan (2016), and the serial activities called “The Poor’s Taipei” launched in 2017, the issue of homelessness has recently gained attention again in Taiwan. With such sociological inspiration, in my thesis, I will first investigate the London part of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, to understand the cause of the homeless and the development of the Poor Laws in England. In the next part, I will discuss the homelessness in Taiwan with Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs and compare it with the homeless phenomenon in England. Finally, inspired by Orwell’s suggestion of running a small farm, or a kitchen garden, plus the theory of community development promoted by Grace Lee Boggs and Erik Olin Wright in the twenty-first century, I will discuss the possibility of acting against the capitalistic oppression by organizing local and mutuallysupporting communities. In the locally based communities, by caring and supporting each other, the atmosphere of love and the sense of belonging will be established, and the humanity becomes possible. As Alain Badiou claims that the Idea of communism intends to invest revolutionary ideas into everyday practices, the proposal of local communities may also be flexible and evolutionary. The community-building project can be seen as a process of experiment, adapting to different time and space. By analyzing the homelessness in England and Taiwan, this thesis aims to find a probable solution to the long-lasting question by focusing on human beings and humanity.. Keywords: homeless, community, humanity, Stray Dogs, Down and Out in Paris and London, Idea of communism.

(6) v. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................i Chinese Abstract .................................................................................................................... iii English Abstract ......................................................................................................................iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... v. Chapter One: Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 Chapter Two: Homelessness in Early Twentieth Century’s London: Discussion on George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London ......... 8 I. The Origin of the Workhouse in England ........................................................................ 12 II. The Workhouse as a Good Place..................................................................................... 14 III. The Poor’s Attitude—in View of Religion .................................................................... 15 IV. The Poor Law—the Institution Putting the Disadvantaged under Control.................... 23 V. The Operation of the Workhouses .................................................................................. 27 VI. The Pre-Community Scheme ......................................................................................... 29 Chapter Three: Tsai Ming-Liang’s Stray Dogs and the studies on the homelessness in Taiwan ...................................... 32 I. Capitalism and Homeless Life .......................................................................................... 40 II. Political Allusions ........................................................................................................... 46 III. The Ontology of Life ..................................................................................................... 48 IV. Ruins and the Capitalistic Exploitation ......................................................................... 51 V. Repetition of the Plot ...................................................................................................... 56 Chapter Four: Sociological Theories of Community-building Schemes .......................... 60.

(7) vi. I. The Detroit Experience ..................................................................................................... 61 II. The Russian Revolution .................................................................................................. 62 III. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, or the GPCR ............................................. 65 IV. Revolution in the Twenty-first Century ......................................................................... 66 V. The Sociological Theory of Community-Building Projects ........................................... 73 Chapter Five: The Community Hypothesis......................................................................... 78 I. The Idea of Communism .................................................................................................. 79 II. Capitalism in literary works ............................................................................................ 80 III. Underlying problems of Capitalo-Parliamentarianism .................................................. 82 IV. Education ....................................................................................................................... 83 V. Humanity......................................................................................................................... 86 VI. Community as the New Possibility of Communist Experiments .................................. 88 Chapter Six: Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 93 Works Cited............................................................................................................................ 95.

(8) Nien 1. Chapter One: Introduction. Poverty is an old topic that has existed almost since the beginning of human history. Among types of poverty, homelessness is one of the extremes. In the modern era, with the progress of technology and amelioration of life quality, the homeless are still in our society. Their looks sharply contrast with the landscapes in a city: dirty, filthy, sordid, and the like. Ironically, in spite of their miserable lives, few active solutions are taken to solve the situation. Even though welfare policies more or less exist in every state, and few benevolent people might wholeheartedly care about this issue, the silhouettes of the tramps are still either visible on the streets or hidden in the margin of a city. The idea of investigating the homeless issue was partly inspired by a report made by Public Television Service of Taiwan (PTS): The Stone Soup Project (Shitoutang jihua 石頭湯計畫 ), in 2015. This project can be considered as a metamorphosis of the 318 Sunflower. Student Movement in Taiwan in 2014. The team initiated the Stone Soup project because during the student movement, they saw homeless people who failed to receive enough food supply while the students received more than what they needed. Therefore, Wu Yen-de (巫彥德), Zhu Guan-zhen (朱冠蓁), and Zhang Shu-huai (張書懷) began to solicit donation of baozi. (包子, stuffed buns) for the homeless people around Longshan Temple in Taipei. After the movement, they launched the monthly activity collecting donations of expiring food from stores as ingredients to cook meals for the homeless people. They also launched the activity called the Poor’s Taipei (Pinqiong ren de Taibei 貧窮人的台北) in cooperation with the guided tour, Hidden Taipei (Jieyou 街遊 ), hosted by Homeless Taiwan Association (Mangcaoxin xiehui 芒草心協會 ) and several related associations. Personally I also attended once as a photographing volunteer when the activity first took place in 2017. By “travelling” through the.

(9) Nien 2. most famous homeless spot around Longshan Temple, Wanhua, Taipei, and listening to several homeless stories either shared by the association members or the tour guide who had been a homeless person, I became interested into the homeless issue and was sure that the homeless question needed to be probed and excavated. These years in Taiwan, the books on homelessness have been published one after another, aiming to rectify common stereotypes against the homeless, such as being dirty, lazy, immoral, and so on. For example, in Life Stories of the Homeless in Taiwan (2016) (Wujiazhe—congwei xiangguo wo you zheme yitian 《無家者——從未想過我有這麼一天》), the homeless stories were individually collected through dictation to display their vivid characteristics. They are no longer as plain as the rough sleepers we glance over on the roads, whom we might never have a chance to talk with. Sun Ta-chuan (孫大川), in one of the recommendations, remarks that to write stories for the homeless and paupers is to record the testimony and history for those who are excluded from the norm in a society (9). One of the books, If You Don’t Hand Out, How Long Will He Lie at Here? —A Struggle and Tears of a Young Social Worker (2019) (Ni bu shenshou, ta hui zai zheli tang duojiu? – yige nianqing shegong de zhengzha yu leishui 《你不伸手，他會在這裡躺多久？：一個年輕社工的掙扎與淚水》) was written from the perspective of a social worker, Li jia-ting (李佳庭).. The bittersweets of homeless social work are laid out explicitly and poignantly. Indeed, the homeless more or less do not know how to live well. For instance, they rarely possess essential means and skills to earn money or they do not have the habit of saving money, and a portion of them are alcoholic. As a social worker managing homeless cases, Li sometimes feels helpless when she is faced with the stubborn and diehard homeless people. However, all of the above are not the reasons to discriminate, for any social outcasts might be victims of miseries in life, or of even graver institutional and structural problems in a society. At the end of this book, Li emphasizes that the characteristics of the homeless are no difference from other people..

(10) Nien 3. The homeless also want to earn money as much as possible. They work odd jobs that can hardly earn and save money for them, even though the working hours are long and they might have been soaked in sweat after laboring. They will also be sick, and therefore need health care service. Overall, their characters as human beings are not so different from other civilians, but have to bear the stigmas and labels stuck on them. Ironically, they also discriminate each other by claiming “I’m different from the other homeless people,” “I’ve never been a rough sleeper. I’ve just slept in the shelter for three years,” “I’m a ‘high-class’ homeless person” and so forth (296). Above is either the testimony through interviewing the homeless or the social worker’s working journal in twenty-first century’s Taiwan. We might expect the situation of the poor has improved over the past century. However, through literary investigation, we get to realize that once the homeless take to the roads, the miserable nomadic life will be no difference from the homeless life of a century ago. Regarding the mindset, the homeless in 1930s’ England also discriminated each other as those in today’s Taiwan. It is the coincidence of the homeless phenomena makes the transtemporal and transnational comparison meaningful. In fact, these phenomena were discovered and recorded in the work of incognito social investigation—Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) composed by the literary master George Orwell, who also composed celebrated Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). 1 He pays attention to the labor issue in the Paris section, while homelessness is the focus in the London section. In this thesis, I will discuss homelessness in modern era by making references to the London section in Down and Out in Paris and London (hereafter Down and Out). As sociology. 1. I prefer to investigate modern poverty through George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London mainly for the reasons that Orwell composed this fictionalized incognito social investigation in the early twentieth century, chronologically nearer to the present day than the times of William Blake, William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, etc., and that he also personally involved in the British colonial experiences in Burma and the Spanish War between the communist front and the fascist alliance. These key factors help broaden the scope to discuss the conflicts between capitalism and communism on the issue of homelessness. Profounder discussions will be laid out in this thesis..

(11) Nien 4. and the field of social work have found, the homeless today lead filthy and sordid lives and are pervasively discriminated, either by people from upper classes or even inside the groups of the homeless. Inspiring and interesting enough, this phenomenon has already been presented in Down and Out. Through Orwell’s own observation and his conversation with the homeless partners, he finds that the homeless are generally oppressed by the national power of illestablished welfare institutions and the police system, both of which orient towards the capitalistic ideology. In addition, the charity and reliefs from the religious service also fail to complement the governmental insufficiency. The clergy described in this work seldom sincerely care about the homeless’ needs. They want the homeless to show their faith to God but ignore their physical conditions, which is basic. The unfriendly image of the Church and the clergy in Down and Out might also be related to Orwell’s life experience, which will be elaborated in Chapter Two. In this thesis, the history of English poor laws and the development of workhouses will also be investigated. It might be the national attitude of anti-idleness that shapes England as an efficient and well-developed society, but meanwhile the lower orders are constantly produced, kept out of “the norm,” and leading undesirable lives. Even though this is an incognito social investigation, which might be as objective as possible, still the readers can find Orwell’s meticulous arrangement of the selected contents. Through visiting different lodging houses and casual wards, the ideal way of living in Orwell’s eyes gradually comes to light. At the end of the London section, he finally proposes the community-like scheme to cope with the uninhabitable and inhumane environments of the workhouses. This scheme can probably be an inspiration when people are rethinking the possibilities of local community-building against the overwhelming capitalistic trends of globalization, together with international money flow which poses threats to the independency of a government’s sovereignty and people’s wellbeing under it..

(12) Nien 5. The globality of homelessness can be found in the process of excavating the history in Taiwan, too. In this thesis, I will also discuss the film, Stray Dogs (2013) as the locally-based comprehension of the homeless question in Taiwan through investigating the history of capitalistic development and political change of the sovereignties in Taiwan. Among the regimes governing Taiwan, Japanese colonial government is the first and most direct factor that molded Taiwan into a modern state, followed by Kuomintang from Mainland China. After the westernization, industrialization, and urbanization under Japanese colonial reign, the reasons for the appearance of the homeless and the oppressing juridical system became similar to those in England. The misunderstanding of and discrimination against the homeless also ensue. After Kuomintang came to Taiwan, the trend of pursuing economic success was further reinforced, and money became common topics of politics in modern Taiwanese society. However, in Stray Dogs, the material surplus is used to contrast the futility of the homeless life. Through the deliberate layout of the scenes, the viewers might notice the boring and slow life of the homeless in contrast with the weariness of the busy commuters shown in the film. Slowness is the hallmark of Tsai Ming-liang’s full-length film. As usual, Stray Dogs is also presented in the framework of slow time—the time as long as that in the real life. This anticommercial operation will make the film-watching experience nearly intolerable for the viewers. In Chapter Three, the design of the time in the film and its relationship with the homeless issue will be discussed. When it comes to the image of the homeless in Stray Dogs, the discrimination is not especially displayed. What is exhibited is their plain, yet boring and annoying, lives. Regardless of the filthy image of the homeless family and the ruined buildings they live in, the protagonist Lee Kang-sheng lives as other people in the city, Taipei, working, eating, wandering, and relaxing. The director subtly buries the agonies of life in the presentation of ruined but dwellable buildings, the hand-to-mouth way of living, and the noises of the.

(13) Nien 6. construction sites and automobiles on the roads. I will play the role to fill the meanings in the slow movie, contemplating the possible reflections on Stray Dogs. In connection with Kao Junhonn’s mural shown in this film, the artistic movements introduced and acted by the artist, Kao, will also be borrowed to analyze the impacts that the capitalistic ideology brings about. It is enlightening to find the commonality and universality between the homelessness in England and Taiwan under the operations of nationalism and capitalism. Artists in Eastern Asia launched several artistic movements to cope with the conspiracy between the international enterprises and the local governments. In fact, Orwell also comes up with an idea to deal with the destitute lives in the merciless capitalistic England. He already mentions the blueprint of an ideal workhouse in Down and Out: With a kitchen and a small farm, the inmates are able to stay lifelong in the facilities, work and eat together, and support each other. This tribe-like living style is a reflection upon the devastating effects brought by the purely monetary relationship in a capitalistic society, and can be looked upon as the third phase in the “tribecapitalism-community” development. This blueprint corresponds to the community-building project promoted by Grace Lee Boggs based in the US. In 1970s, James and Grace Lee Boggs commenced on thinking about the alternatives to the destructive power of capitalism when they saw the economic recession in Detroit and numerous laborers became unemployed. In the twenty-first century, Grace Lee Boggs continues to refine her philosophy of communitybuilding. By caring for the neighborhoods, holding regular artistic and educational activities, physically and mentally supporting each other, etc., the connections among human beings are not tied by monetary relationships but by love and humanity. James and Grace Lee Boggs’s practice of community-building in the US can be categorized as the “socialism functional compatible with capitalism” proposed by Eric Olin Wright. With the social and philosophical discourses, the rethinking of socialist utopia again becomes plausible and practical, especially when the communist countries are almost declared to have failed in the twenty-first century..

(14) Nien 7. To be more precise, the community-building scheme in the twenty-first century inherits the spirit of equilibrium and humanity in Marxist communism, but denounces the static communism adopted by the failed communist countries, such as USSR, North Korea, and China. This thesis will briefly introduce Badiou’s deduction of communist China’s paradox, which can serve as the apocalypse for Taiwan when we are thinking about the economic and political future of this island. The discourse regarding homelessness in literary studies is still rare in Taiwanese context. Contrary to the rarity in academic sphere, the homeless are always visible in cities. This thesis intends to bring out the commonly neglected issue before readers’ eyes, and hopes to make the journey of investigation meaningful through further philosophical analyses. Furthermore, the study on the economic minority is not only relevant to the homeless, but also related to the overall welfare system of a society and the inherent topic of social safety net. Looking into the literary works will help reimagine the humanity in the material and spiritual ruins left by the capitalistic power of monstrous international enterprises and democratic parliaments at the service of the capital giants. Even though the society in England and Taiwan might be richer than before, poverty seems to be a permanent question that wants solutions. Only by antidiscrimination and looking into the homeless’ lives and sufferings can we have access to reflect on and rethink of the crucial yet long-ignored social challenge. The alternatives to the deadend capitalism will also disclose themselves through the textual analyses and sociological theories and practice. This is also the significance of doing this research. I believe that the interdisciplinary study between sociology and literature, and the transcultural comparison between England and Taiwan can bring some new energy to the discussion of homelessness and poverty..

(15) Nien 8. Chapter Two: Homelessness in Early Twentieth Century’s London: Discussion on George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. Down and Out in Paris and London (hereafter Down and Out) might at first glance be regarded as a sociological study or a journalist report of the poor life in Paris and London, but the reality might be far more complex than its appearance. Before George Orwell (deliberately) began his down-and-out journey in Paris and London, he just came back to England in 1927 from Burma where he served for the Indian Imperial Police (George Orwell: A Literary Life xvi, hereafter A Literary Life). Intentionally undergoing and experiencing the poor life in London and in Paris, Orwell started pondering on the issue of the homeless and the laborers. At first sight, Down and Out might be considered a work of social investigation; however, this perspective can only be partially correct. As Orwell claims in “Introduction to the French Edition” of Down and Out, he has “exaggerated nothing except in so far as all writers exaggerate by selecting” (221). He does not “describe events in the exact order in which they happened” but he claims that everything he describes does take place (222). Luke Seaber’s finding is in consistence with Orwell’s own claim that this work is partly factual and partly fictional. Orwell’s writing of incognito social investigation might be influenced by, or to say inherited from, David Railton. Seaber finds that Railton’s pioneering writing of incognito social investigation mixing “the personal and the social” in his writing style, was the mainstream during 1920s and ‘30s (61-62). This writing style marks Railton’s difference from the creator of the genre of incognito social investigation, James Greenwood, who tends to stand at the impersonal and objective position to describe the situations of the poor whom he observes. By using Railton’s ideas, Orwell further develops the genre of incognito social investigation. Seaber contends that “Orwell’s text is strongly fictionalized, and this in terms of the genre of incognito social investigation texts is rather rare” (65). At the beginning of his destitute life in.

(16) Nien 9. London, Orwell makes inquiries about the cheap lodging houses from a tramp on the road. However, Seaber claims that the lodging houses were well known for the contemporaries, even including those who were not tramps, and the Rowton Houses were among the famous. That is, Orwell as an author might be far more knowledgeable about how to survive as a tramp than he pretends in this work as a narrator (Seaber 66).1 Far from being innocent, he even has insight into the gender inequality among the homeless and cites the figures from an LCC publication, finding that “at the charity-level men outnumber women by something like ten to one” and “below a certain level society is entirely male” (213). The act of doing research on the gender issue of the tramps excludes Orwell from the ignorant group of the objects observed by him. Being a conscious investigator and a real tramp, Orwell is at the same time inside and outside the frame of tramping life. By defining Orwell as a real/intended tramp and meanwhile an incognito social investigator, instead of a mere observer, Seaber positions Orwell at the peak of the genre of “Greenwoodian tradition,” arguing that Down and Out “cannot be surpassed,” since Orwell has set the “boundary stone marking the genre’s end” (73). Orwell’s life experience may give an account of his standpoint as a humanist, the lifelong change from receiving the imperial education in England to distasting the politics of imperialism in Burma and totalitarianism of the Soviet Union. In The Road to Wigan Pier, published in 1937, Orwell remarks, “I hated the imperialism I was serving [as an Imperial Police Officer in Burma] with a bitterness which I probably cannot make clear” (Chapter 9). Obviously, Orwell’s belief in patriotism and imperialism taught by St Cyprian’s School was changed after the experience in Burma (A Literary Life 18). After serving in Indian Imperial Police in Burma for five years, Orwell “returned to England fiercely anti-imperialist and anti-. 1. Seaber argues that the lodging houses and “the existence of the Rowton Houses, created by Lord Rowton at the end of the nineteenth century to provide working men with a better option for accommodation” were commonsensical for those who have yet started tramping (66). The assertion implies that Orwell as a narrator exaggerates his ignorance when he tries to acquire the information about cheap beds from a navvy on the road (Orwell 199)..

(17) Nien 10. racist” (A Literary Life 24). At that time, Orwell was probably a pro-communist. In fact, when he went to Paris, he argued with his uncle, Adam Eugène, who had just come back from Soviet Union and found there “instead of socialism, a future prison” (25). In the London part of Down and Out, Orwell described a fight between two tramps: One misheard another saying “‘Bullshit,’ which was taken for Bolshevik—a deadly insult” (205). This description connotes that England pervaded an atmosphere of anti-communism. Orwell might remain unattached from the anti-communist atmosphere around Western Europe, but he was suspicious towards communism’s true colors and its feasibility. Orwell was disillusioned when he saw, in the Spanish Civil War, the pro-Soviet Communist accusing “all the Trotskyist of being closet fascists and counter-revolutionaries fighting for Franco” 2 (Makovi 194). Orwell was also concerned about the poor as if he were a public-choice economist3 when making comments on the living environments of the lodging-houses in London, opining that “[i]f the authorities are going to concern themselves with lodging-houses at all, they ought to start by making them more comfortable, not by silly restrictions that would never be tolerated in a hotel” (220). This comment is close to the “incentive structure” theory in public choice. The “incentive structure” provided by institutions “promote consistent and predictable behavior,” and public choice concerns about finding a way to solve the market failures by aligning the public officials’ private interest with the public interest (Makovi 184-85). In the case of the filthy lodging houses, if the lodging houses provided the lodgers with better environment so that the lodgers could regain their energy soon, pay more attention to their work, and repay more rental to the lodging houses, the relationship between the proprietors and the lodgers would be a win-win. 2. The accusation of Trotskyists as the fascists in Spain derived from the foreign policy of the POUM under Stalinist reign, whose government aimed to decrease Trotskyist influence in Spain, and decided reversely to eliminate some revolutionary power of the workers who are pro-Trotskyist, especially in Barcelona (Newsinger 44). 3 Public choice applied the economic model to the political realm, assuming that every individual is rational and will make choices and decisions in accord with their maximized interests; “bureaucrats strive to advance their own careers [,] and politicians seek election or reelection to office” (Shughart II). https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html.

(18) Nien 11. model. To sum up, with biographical research defining Orwell as a socialist, as well as antiimperialist, anti-communist, public-choice economist, plus his anti-capitalistic attitude in the Paris part of Down and Out, then it is self-evident that Orwell is all in all an anti-totalitarian socialist. Even though Down and Out is a work of incognito social investigation infused with intentional arrangement of the plots and personal comments, the pseudo-fictional part does not eliminate the core value, humanity, which Orwell intends to convey. By defining him as an anti-totalitarian socialist above, I argue that Orwell’s design of the plot in this work is intentional. One of the evidences is the chronological inversion of Paris and London. In fact, Orwell came back to London first to investigate the poor in 1928 and then went to Paris as a dishwasher (Davison xvi). In this work, why does Orwell inverse the chronological order? It is possible that he wants to create an atmosphere of going home from the foreign city, Paris. England for Orwell was the “Paradise,” which Orwell imagines on the way “home”: I was so pleased to be getting home, after being hard up for months in a foreign city [Paris], that England seemed to me a sort of Paradise. There are, indeed, many things in England that make you glad to get home; bathrooms, armchairs, mint sauce, new potatoes properly cooked, brown bread, marmalade, beer made with veritable hops—they are all splendid, if you can pay for them. (156) However, the following scenes reveal that the poor London is another desolate world. The building beside the Tilbury pier betrays Orwell’s dreamlike imagination. It is a hotel, “all stucco and pinnacles, which stare from the English coast like idiots staring over an asylum wall” (156). The implication of the London underclass and the intentional refusal to accept B’s financial aid mark the onset of Orwell’s tramping life.4 The arrangement of the disillusionment. 4. According to the context mentioned in Chapter XXI, B is Orwell’s friend who is responsible for finding jobs for Orwell..

(19) Nien 12. regarding the splendid London, or even entire England, paves the way for Orwell and the readers to ponder on the issue of poverty and homelessness. In this chapter, I will first excavate the historical development of the Poor Law, causing the desolate and sordid workhouses, or the spikes, Orwell observed from 1927 to 1928. Next, I will discuss Orwell’s critiques, or his personal comments on the tramping life. Orwell expresses his own opinions in terms of religion and politics during his journey to poor London. He also shows his concerns about the preventive police system and the problematic system of the workhouse. Near the end of Down and Out, Orwell puts forth a solution to the question of poverty—to run a small farm, or a kitchen garden in the workhouses; and such proposal contributes to today’s theory of local economy and local community-building, which will be further developed in Chapter Four.. I. The Origin of the Workhouse in England The phenomenon of poverty has existed since the earliest record of human history, as Norman Longmate puts it that the pauperism is “as old as society itself,” but in England, the governance over the poor commenced as late as sixteenth century (14). Brian Inglis points out that in the Old Testament, Jesus “remarked that the poor are always with us;” in the Gospel of John, Jesus rejected Judas’s idea of selling the expensive perfume and giving the money to the poor (9). From the biblical perspective, no natural or divine law is laid down to put the poor under command (Inglis 9). However, the disintegration of the monasteries caused by the Black Death, the Enclosure Movement, and the Age of Discovery, to name a few, all gave rise to the debut of the Poor Law in the sixteenth century until its end in the twentieth century. It might be the social changes that propelled the English government to enact laws to cope with the poverty and the lack of labor, and England was further developed into the welfare country that we see nowadays. In the following, I will focus on the historical development and its impacts on and consequences of the Poor Laws..

(20) Nien 13. According to Longmate’s historical survey in England, because of the Black Death, “the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 [by Henry VIII of England] disrupted” the supporting system constituted by family, neighbors, and churches (14). The monasteries were in responsible for assisting the poor, including “the very old, the very young, the sick, the crippled, the blind and the insane” and the able-bodied poor who were out of work and got no income (Longmate 14). To replace the supporting system provided by the monasteries, the intervention from the government started in 1547 onwards. During the reign of Edward VI, the laws about the poor were passed continually for several years (Longmate 14). The Poor Act of 1552 instructed the churches to provide the poor with accommodations, but also deterred the ablebodied poor from being idle for over three days, or they would be “branded with a red hot iron on the breast with the letter V” and be sentenced to be slaves “for two years” of those who reported them as idlers (Longmate 14). Furthermore, the Poor Act of 1572 regulated that the one who begged without a license, or “came from another parish [and] failed to wear ‘some notable badge or token both on the breast and on the back of his outermost garment’, was to suffer ‘burning through the gristle of the right ear’” (Longmate 14). It was not until the Elizabethan Poor Law (officially “the 43rd Elizabeth”) consolidated in 1601 that the English government started to prevent unemployment by providing them with work rather than punishments (Longmate 15-17). Despite the fact that the Elizabethan Poor Law set the basis of welfare legislation, focusing more on relieving the poor than punishing them, the Act of Settlement and Removal of 1662, Longmate comments, was “possibly the worst law ever passed by a British Parliament” (17). According to the law, if the paupers could not live in the new parish for forty days without complaint from the locals, or could not prove they rented “a property worth £10 a year,” they would be sent back to the parish they escaped from, or to the last place where they had resided for over one year (Longmate 17). Although the statistic showed that the “removals and associated legal expenses over the whole country cost.

(21) Nien 14. £287,0005” in 1815, and although records showed that paupers were forced to part from their family or familiar residential area, as late as 1907, there were still “more than 12,000 people [being] removed each year” (Longmate 20-22). In company with the Act of Settlement and Removal, the upper classes’ demand for controlling over the paupers caused the embryo of workhouse to appear (Longmate 22). Longmate sorts out that the New Workhouse set by a merchant called John Cary, in Bristol in 1698, was probably one of the first effective workhouses (23). This workhouse provided the poor with clothes, beds, and “good nourishment” (Longmate 23). The description shows that the workhouse is not like the ones later we know in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist or what Orwell experienced in Down and Out. It is more similar to the private welfare institutes, not the workhouses designated by the officials. With this huge contrast between the first workhouse and the notorious later ones, it is worth probing the changes of the governor’s attitude and scientific theory towards the poor through history.. II. The Workhouse as a Good Place The origin of workhouse is not as dim as it appears in Down and Out. From John Locke’s pamphlet A Report of the Board of Trade to the Lords Justices respecting the Relief and Employment of the Poor (1697) to several bills followed, all aimed to find ways to provide the poor with decent lives and employment (Longmate 25-26). In 1756, a workhouse in Nacton Heath opened, and the poor came there “in a most miserable and filthy condition” (Longmate 26). In the workhouse, the poor were “shaved and cleansed thoroughly by washing in warm water, and all new clothed throughout from head to foot” (Longmate 26). Longmate finds in the record that “[m]any children […] are rendered useful” and “within four years £2,0006 had. 5 6. About £21,812,000 in 2018. http://inflation.iamkate.com £2,000 in 1760 is about £370,000 in 2018. http://inflation.iamkate.com.

(22) Nien 15. been saved and the poor rates had been cut by half” (26-27). Similar condition occurred in other workhouses in East Anglia, Suffolk and Norfolk, where the inmates were employed by “making fishing nets and ropes or corn-sacks and plough-lines” (Longmate 27). One of the reformers, Jonas Hanway, also urged the legislation in 1762 and 1767 respectively to lower the death rate of the children in the workhouses, and the workhouses introduced the children to be apprentices in factories (Longmate 28). In light of the historical record above, it appears that the workhouse was not a horrifying place which accommodated the most miserable and helpless paupers in the parishes. By establishing the workhouses, the poor and the parishes were both benefited from lowering the poor rates and solving some part of the poverty.. III. The Poor’s Attitude—in View of Religion In spite of the welfare the paupers received, the paupers, according to Longmate, were “strangely ungrateful” (27). In 1765, a mob of paupers even destroyed one workhouse when the parishes stopped paying the reliefs (Longmate 27). In addition, the reliefs aroused the corruption among the “Overseers of the Poor” and the licensed traders, benefiting “those grocers, bakers and shoemakers who sat on the vestry” (Longmate 35). Confronting the problems, in 1818, the Rev. Robert Lowe “abolish[ed] out-relief and offer[ed] instead food and shelter in the workhouse, where conditions were made so strict that soon all its former occupants, apart from a dozen or so senile, sick or insane people with nowhere else to go, had voluntarily moved out” (Longmate 45). This implementation succeeded in cutting “the poor-rates by three-quarters,” leading to the new form of workhouse which became the deterrent ones Orwell observed at the beginning of the twentieth century, but the austerity simultaneously aggravated the exploitation of the poor. Formerly the participants of charity were in suspicion of corruption by procuring the sidebenefits of the reliefs. Nonetheless, after the financial austerity of the workhouses, the charities.

(23) Nien 16. were still a profitable trade in the early twentieth century. They were always able to squeeze out the profits from the poorest. What was changed after the reform was the even more desolate life of the homeless, constantly bullied and exploited by the privileged. In the Edbury spike, the tramps “[can] get extra tea in the morning, as the Tramp Major7 [is] selling it at a halfpenny a mug, illicitly no doubt” (Orwell 176). Another time in the Salvation Army, Orwell and Paddy, one of his tramping fellows, buy a cup of tea which “appear[s] to be made with tea dust” (178). Orwell guesses that it is “given to the Salvation Army in charity, though they sold it at threehalfpence a cup” (178). The meal ticket is also a lucrative business. Before released from the Romton spike, the tramps get tickets, which are “worth sixpence each,” but Orwell finds that they can only get four penny-worth of food with a large tea and two slices for each ticket (17273). Orwell surmises that “the shop habitually cheat[s] the tramps of twopence or so on each ticket” and comments that “having tickets instead of money, the tramps [can] not protest or go elsewhere” (173). Once again on the Embankment, literally for the rough sleepers, Orwell gets a ticket worth sixpence each from a clergyman (200). Likewise, the eating-house only gives him “four penny-worth of food for each ticket” (200). Orwell once more criticizes that the proprietor is swindling the tramps “to the tune of seven shillings or more a week” as “[t]he clergyman [have] distributed well over a pound in tickets” (200). Orwell imputes this sort of fraud to the malfunction of the welfare system: “This kind of victimization is a regular part of a tramp’s life, and it will go on as long as people continue to give meal tickets instead of money” (200). Even though replacing tickets with cash is still questionable, by experiencing as a tramp himself, Orwell does detect the inadequacy of the system and the evil of human minds, which, in this case, tend to be egocentric. The tickets distributed, albeit in the name of charity, are always profitable for the people involved in the welfare deeds. To enact an effective policy,. 7. Orwell explains that the Tramp Majors’ job “is to supervise casuals, and he is generally a workhouse pauper” when Orwell came to the spike (the Romton spike) for the first time (169)..

(24) Nien 17. not only the interest from the perspective of the governments, but also the interest of the homeless should be taken into consideration. For instance, if the homeless can acquire the knowledge of how to use money properly when they get cash from the charity, then this invisible advantage will be more influential than the sheer extent of physical needs. When it comes to the lodging-houses, Orwell criticizes that it is because of the immense profitability that the owners refuse to ameliorate the living conditions: “Any improvement would mean less crowding, and hence less profit” (219-20). The examples shown in this literary work reveal the inconvenient fact of the “poor business,” squeezing profits from every sphere of society, including the miserable paupers. In spite of the amendments to the laws, the corruption among the privileged and authorities does not cease. What brings to tramps and paupers is only more suffering. Apparently, the paupers, including Orwell, hardly pay respect to charity even at the most desperate moment in life. They strive to preserve their dignity and do not show their humility even after the welfare reformation makes the living condition unbearable and even destroys their willpower. In Down and Out, Orwell mentions the tramps’ ungrateful attitude when they receive the welfare from the churches. After staying overnight at a lodging-house in Bow, Orwell travels to Romton to seek another casual ward to stay. At Romton he meets an old Irish tramp8 (165). Since the spike will not open until six in the evening, to “[pass] the time away,” the tramp leads Orwell to a place where they can get free tea from the church (166). In the “tinroofed shed in a side-street,” the tramps get the tea and bun from the “lady in a blue silk dress, wearing gold spectacles and a crucifix” (presumably a nun) (166). In the meantime, the nun starts to “[talk] upon religious subjects” (166). Nevertheless, Orwell claims that “we [hate] it” (166). When the nun asks a tramp how long he has not knelt down and spoken with his Father. 8. Most of the tramps Orwell encounters are Irish. According to Higginbotham, the Irish people enormously immigrated to England during the Great Famine. http://www.workhouses.org.uk/vagrants/index.shtml Web. 12 Jan. 2019..

(25) Nien 18. in Heaven, Orwell taunts that “his belly [answer] for him, with a disgraceful rumbling which it set[s] up at sight of the food” (167). Most of the tramps are eager to leave that place as soon as possible once they get their serving of tea, except for a “red-nosed fellow looking like a corporal who [has] lost his stripe for drunkenness” (167). Orwell surmises that the man has been in prison so he knows how to please the charity by saying “‘the dear Lord Jesus’ with less shame” (167). The speculation reveals Orwell’s distaste for the juridical system and the hypocrisy of the clergy. Putting the criminals, including the tramps and beggars at that time, in jail will probably reinforce a man’s will to survive by any means unscrupulously instead of getting liberal or vocational education which might help him socialize and start a new life. At the end of this event in Chapter XXVI, one tramp shows his contempt for the church by commenting that they have to “pay for” the tea and bun with the prayers which “[last] half an hour” (168). This comment represents the mercantilism and commercialism permeated in every stratum of English society, including the destitute. Partly since the discrepancy between the charity and its recipients might be caused by the institutional insufficiency, and partly to display the objectivity, at the last sentence of this chapter, Orwell speaks for the churches that the religious group is not intended to humiliate the tramps, but the tramps are simply not grateful to the clergy.9 Once more, in Chapter XXXIII, another religious scene again shows the unfriendly and unapproachable religious congregation and the ungrateful vagabonds. A group of “slummers,” including “a grave and reverend seignior in a frock coat, a lady sitting at a portable harmonium, and a chinless youth toying with a crucifix,” appears in the kitchen of a lodging-house “without any kind of invitation” (196). They hold a religious service, and the lodgers pay no attention to them, on which Orwell makes a bitter comment that “it was a pleasure to see how the lodgers met with the slummers”: “They did not offer the smallest. 9. This comment shows Orwell’s complexity of double identity—simultaneously a real tramp with the subject “we” and an incognito social investigator (Seaber 70-71)..

(26) Nien 19. rudeness to the slummers; they just ignored them” (196). Orwell mentions that the religious congregation is so powerful that the officials cannot exclude it from the workhouse. He then asserts, wryly, that “they [the clergy] have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level” (197). On the same day, Orwell comes to a church near King’s Cross Station with Paddy. Bozo, their tramp fellow, rejects, for he claims that “churches were not his style” (197). The tramps come there also for the free tea. They also ought to listen to the sermon after the tea. As always, the tramps do not attend the sermon. Instead, they “lolled in their pews, laughed, chattered, leaned over and flicked pellets of bread among the congregation” (197-98). Witnessing this, Orwell remarks, “we were frankly bullying them,” but “[i]t was our revenge upon them for having humiliated us by feeding us” (198). In the eyes of the helped, the church’s charity resembles more the trade between the belief and the reliefs than the pure act of kindness. Seeing the ironic and unreasonable scenes, Orwell’s emotion of anti-hegemony might be triggered by the “peaceful” violence derived from the overbearing clergy towards the unwilling tramps. Regarding Orwell’s attitudes towards religion, especially the Anglican Church, Peter Davison provides explicit explanation and analysis in the article “Orwell—Religion and Ethical Values.” From Orwell’s description of the school St. Cyprian in Such, Such Were the Joys, written in 1947-48, Davison speculates that Orwell might have lost his faith in his teens. In St. Cyprian, Orwell as little boy who kept wetting the bed inflicted corporal punishment from the headmaster Sambo. Another time, a priest took his daughter to the garden party and introduced that she wetted the bed, “and to underline her wickedness he had previously painted her face black” (qtd. in “Orwell—Religion and Ethical Values,” hereafter “Religion”). Orwell also describes the school to be expensive and snobbish. From his memoir about the school, it is hard to say that the school left a joyous impression in Orwell’s life, especially concerning the religion. In addition, Davison finds in Orwell’s letter to Eleanor Jacques, his lover, in 1932,.

(27) Nien 20. that Orwell criticized the Church of England for being hypocritical, deceitful, and dishonest. However, the Rev. Ernest Parker’s10 widow, Madge Parker, refused the idea that Orwell “was not a genuine believer”, for they together “prepare[d] the sick to receive the sacraments” and took care of the unemployed (“Religion”). Orwell even “developed an antipathy to religious practice” (“Religion”). He opposed Christianity and “‘political Catholicism’ which he likened to Communism as a form of nationalism” (“Religion”). Despite Orwell’s antipathy to religious formality, Davison contends that Orwell “strongly believed that ‘the good of mankind is worth fighting for’” (“Religion”). Davison also cites that “our job is to make life worth living on this earth, which is the only earth we have” from Orwell’s declaration in “Reflections on Gandhi,”11 1949. In Davison’s view, no matter Orwell believed in God or not, he was deeply influenced by the humanitarian aspect in the moral lessons taught by the religion. In Down and Out, Orwell also exhibits his attitude through other tramps’ deeds regarding the religion (for he as an author claims to be selecting the contents). Evidently, below a certain level of society, the religion’s practical function is more prominent than its spiritual support. The tramps take advantage of the religious items in exchange for what they need so as to survive. For instance, the tramps smuggle money in the “papers,” or the Bible, to avoid searching and confiscation before entering the spikes (Orwell 169). The “papers” are considered sacred so they will not be searched. In other situations, the tramps might sell off their bibles for more practical reasons. For example, Orwell’s friend, Paddy, cares more about his appearance and has sold his papers. Orwell surmises that the caring of the appearance is to gain respectability, even though “one [will] have known him for a tramp a hundred yards away” (173). When it comes to nourishment, Paddy will go to the Church of England for reliefs, despite the fact that he is a Catholic. His exclamation goes:. 10. Orwell befriended with the curate when he taught in a high school in Middlesex (Brenman 33). Orwell does not agree with some of the doctrines Gandhi holds and he dislikes the air of sainthood that Gandhi gives off, though, for he thinks at some point, the ascetism is inhuman. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/reflections-on-gandhi/ 11.

(28) Nien 21. Ah, what’d a man do widout religion, eh? I’ve took cups o’ tay from de convents, an’ de Baptists, an’ de Church of England, an’ all sorts. I’m a Catholic meself. Dat’s to say, I ain’t been to confession for above seventeen year, but still I got me religious feelin’s, y’understand. An’ dem convents is always good for a cup o’ tay…. This passage exposes not the spiritual but the material console that the religion can provide for a tramp (174). In comparison, the religious rites and sermons seem quite useless and suspicious of putting the cart before the horse. The churches ask the tramps to keep their faith, but ignore the even more complicated and influential issues about physical health and the knowledge to work, to save money, and to lead a decent life, etc. Other scenes show the variety among the tramps. Not all the tramps are nonchalant about the faith. In the Salvation Army shelter, Orwell witnesses a “young clerk […] praying” and he finds that the face of the clerk looks “agonised,” from which Orwell guesses that “he [is] starving” (178). In the context, the clerks in the Salvation Army shelter are all “out of work, pallid and moody” (178). This foreshadows that the clerks may be on the edge of taking to the roads. Perhaps that young clerk implies the last grasp of faith before he reaches the point of no return. Perhaps it means that faith can still be the last hope and spiritual support for those who are unemployed and starving. On the contrary, Bozo refuses not only spiritual support but material aid from the churches even though “it [is] rainy weather and he [is] almost penniless” (197). He refuses the religious charities, saying “it stuck in his throat to sing hymns for buns” (186). Orwell describes him as “an embittered atheist” and put in the parentheses that “the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally [Orwell himself] dislike Him” (186). Bozo’s background is similar to Orwell’s, educated, back from India, having been in Paris, and suspicious about religion. Possibly Bozo is a real character in history, but he seems more to be the double of Orwell. Orwell might express his opinion through the character, and the dialogue between them might be Orwell’s self-catechism about the role of religion in the.

(29) Nien 22. lowest social stratum. Their suspicion of faith is different from other tramps. The former’s loss of faith is ontological; the latter might seldom reflect upon the issue of religion, and the faith goes hand-in-hand with money. The description at the beginning of the London part might foreshadow the dark side of religion: “In Whitechapel somebody called The Singing Evangel undertook to save you from hell for the charge of sixpence” (163). Judged from the tone of the narrator, the belief in God might belong to those who have yet become social outcasts. The development of Orwell’s attitude towards religion can be tracked down along with his writing history. Down and Out was composed as early as 1930-31, when Orwell was back from Burma, where he saw the brutal colonial government of England. It was composed before A Clergyman’s Daughter in 1934, in which the “meanness and spite” of the “orthodox Christianity” is displayed (“Religion”). Later on, in “The Prevention of Literature” in 1946, Orwell draws an analogy between the formality of the religion and that of the communist party (qtd. in “Religion”). In view of the later works, Orwell’s hatred to the formalism of religion might be reinforced by his experience as a tramp in the workhouse, receiving the reliefs from the churches. Furthermore, his disbelief in religion was mixed with the disbelief in and disillusion to communism after he attended the Spanish Civil War during 1936-37, for both of which imply certain hypocrisy and autocratic tendency. The disbelief in the hypocritical religious and political groups, nevertheless, did not destroy Orwell’s central idea to be a humanist. Although Orwell’s belief in Soviet Communist Party was disillusioned in the Spanish Civil War, he did not give up the value of humanity and equality in communism. He still held the value of “the good of mankind.” With this value in mind, Makovi’s argument makes Orwell’s profile more complete that Orwell is actually a public choice economist, who cares “moral, behavioral, and psychological equivalence between public and private actors” (184). From Orwell’s critiques, Makovi finds that Orwell objected to the centralized control of Soviet Union and Nazism (192-93). The former is.

(30) Nien 23. communism in totalitarian form, while the latter is totalitarian capitalism. Therefore, with the ideal of egalitarianism and anti-totalitarianism, Makovi finds that Orwell is more democratic socialist than anti-communist or anti-capitalistic. Orwell’s such attitude can explain why he always stands with the poor and the underprivileged against the exploitative authority. It is no surprise that he chooses the first-person plural “we” in sentences: He is one of the tramps, such as “We hated it [the sermon]” and “We ranged ourselves in the gallery pews and were given our tea” (166, 197). Ostensibly, Orwell may “pretend” to be an incognito social investigator, but with the discourse above, he does wholeheartedly care about the homeless, and rationally analyze the laws, the police and the religious system that oppress them.. IV. The Poor Law—the Institution Putting the Disadvantaged under Control When dwelling in the spikes, Orwell mentions several restrictions and disciplines indicating the consequences of the Vagrancy Law in 1824 and the New Poor Law in 1834. In fact, some of the rules were deduced from the old poor laws. For example, England has its tradition of hatred for idleness long before the philosophy of Utilitarianism proposed by Jeremy Bentham. Longmate finds that during the reign of Edward VI, anyone able to work but refused to, “and live[d] idly for three days,” “should be branded with a red hot iron on the breast with the letter V […]” (14).12 The workhouse in the nineteenth and twentieth century also followed this pattern to deter the able-bodied paupers from flooding into the spikes. However, in comparison with the lack of labor caused by the Black Death, in the nineteenth century the reason became the issue of overpopulation. Kenneth Morgan proves that the old poor law faced pressure from the statistics of population in England and Wales, finding that the population grew from 7.9 million in 1781 to 14 million in 1831 (62). In addition, partly influenced by the. 12. Peter Higginbotham indicates that the attitude of anti-idleness and the urge of labor force resulted from the Black Death in 1348-9. http://www.workhouses.org.uk/vagrants/index.shtml Web. 12 Jan. 2019..

(31) Nien 24. enclosure movement, the industrialization, and the insufficient harvest, the poor rate increased almost threefold from 1792 to 1812 in England and Wales (Morgan 62). In the meantime, the Malthusian principle of population also influenced the economists, including David Ricardo, John Ramsay McCulloch, and John Stuart Mill, to believe that abolishing the reliefs would possibly limit the number of the poor people (Inglis 219-20, Morgan 64). Morgan mentions that Ricardo even proposed to abolish the poor law entirely according to the theory of free market: Everyone had to compete equally without governmental intervention (64). On discussing the issue of poor law, Morgan finds that in the Royal Commission, which was set to investigate the operation of the poor law, two central figures “Edwin Chadwick and Nassau Senior” “were strongly influenced by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham” (65). It was effectivity and accountability that Bentham and his followers pursued. In spite of the good intention to pursue the efficiency in the welfare institutions, the process of data-collecting was not prudent enough. Morgan finds that the evidence was barely gathered to prove that the underemployment resulted from welfare system which intended to decrease poverty (65). Adopting the imprecise investigation made by the Royal Commission, the Whig government embarked on making the Victorian New Poor Law (Longmate 107, Morgan 66). Morgan classifies fourfold regulations of the New Poor Law: First, central government became involved in the operation of poor relief for the first time […]. Second, Poor Law Guardians were now to be elected by local ratepayers and property owners; they replaced the previous unelected overseers of the poor. […] Third, parishes were grouped into unions and the Act stipulated that workhouses could be built if the unions wanted them. […] Fourth, the link between central government and the provinces was provided by appointing assistant commissioners to check the operation of the new system. (67).

(32) Nien 25. Morgan remarks that the disciplines in workhouses and the education of the poor children were barely mentioned (67). He also remarks that this was the first time that the government attempted to put the paupers and poor relief under national control (67). Even though an Irish tramp introduces the cocoa spikes, the tea spikes, and the skilly spikes to Orwell, he finds that the spikes in Cromley, Romton, and Edbury are all alike (166, 203). Indeed, some spikes are praised to be comfortable, but Orwell’s tone is ironic. “Chelsea was said to be the most luxurious spike in England; someone, praising it, said that the blankets there were more like prison than the spike,” Orwell writes (169). The readers really do not know whether to laugh or to cry; however, the case is the exemplum that conforms to the nationalization and systemization of the workhouses, equipped with similar filthy bedding and unhealthy nourishment. Along with English government’s capitalistic tendency, the anti-communist trend and even anti-socialist attitude in England can be discovered in Orwell’s work. When Bozo talks about his screeving, or pavement drawing, style, he mentions: […] when the Budget13 was on I had one of Winston trying to push an elephant marked “Debt”, and underneath I wrote, “Will he budge it?” See? You can have cartoons about any of the parties, but you mustn’t put anything in favour of Socialism, because the police won’t stand it. Once I did a cartoon of a boa constrictor marked Capital swallowing a rabbit marked Labour. The copper came along and saw it, and he says, “You rub that out, and look sharp of it,” he says. (182) This passage shows twofold of the powerful English government, the law and the capitalistic tendency. It also reveals how powerful the English police are. They can command the tramps on the roads to leave if they want, and the reason of expelling is entwined with the ideology of. 13. Indicating the “People’s Budge” passed in 1910.

(33) Nien 26. capitalism and utilitarianism. The tramps are thought to be unproductive, so their lives are presumably valueless and their right of staying on the roads can be easily deprived. With regard to the law, Orwell does observe the weird phenomenon in England that begging is not allowed while begging by pretending to sell something is allowed. He explains the reasons of the beggars’ strategy of pretending: The reason why they have to pretend to sell matches and so forth instead of begging outright is that this is demanded by the absurd law about begging. As the law now stands, if you approach a stranger and ask him for twopence, he can call a policeman and get you seven days for begging. But if you make the air hideous by droning ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’, or scrawl some chalk daubs on the pavement, or stand about with a tray of matches—in short, if you make a nuisance of yourself—you are held to be following a legitimate trade and not begging. (190) The phenomenon is obviously caused by the latent ideology of anti-idleness passed down from the end of the Middle Ages, and the result might be the meaningless and futile labor presented in the description above. The legacy of the Act of Settlement and Removal presents itself in the form of workhouses and casual wards in the twentieth century. Near the end of his tramping life, Orwell admits that “[i]t is queer that a tribe of men, tens of thousands in number, should be marching up and down England like so many Wandering Jews” (211). He alleges that it is “because there happens to be a law compelling him [a tramp] to do so” (211-12). Orwell elaborates that “if he [a tramp] is not supported by the parish, can only get relief at the casual wards, and as each casual ward will only admit him for one night, he is automatically kept moving” (212). Historically, this circumstance resulted from the Casual Poor Act of 1882 (Higginbotham). The act might be the heritage of the Act of Settlement and Removal of 1662. In the period of industrialization and the urbanization, the removal from parishes was replaced with the tramping activities among.

(34) Nien 27. different districts within the metropolis. This kind of law was probably enacted to prevent not only idleness but also cozy accommodation, but its outcome was, as Orwell criticizes, inhuman residential environments of the workhouses and demoralizing effects on the homeless.. V. The Operation of the Workhouses The new system of workhouse can be attributed to the New Poor Law (Morgan 68). Irrelevant to the name of the Poor Law itself, however, workhouses were set to take care of the mentally or physically challenged and orphans rather than the poor, and the vagrants were thought to be the responsibility of the police14 instead of the welfare institutions (Morgan 68, Higginbotham). The tramps thus could only claim out-door reliefs or in case of urgency, get accommodation for “a task of work” (Higginbotham).15 The workhouses are mostly prisonlike, with bad ventilation, and separated into several wards in accordance with the physical characteristics, such as age and genders, or diseases of the inmates (Morgan 68, Higginbotham). Orwell also makes it clear that one of the spikes is prison-like “with its row of tiny, barred windows, and a high wall and iron gates separating it from the road” (168). The regulations about the provision of nutrition in the workhouses are also inconceivable. Orwell records that “[t]he wastage was astonishing and, in the circumstances, appalling” (208). At the Lower Binfield spike, he witnesses that “[h]alf-eaten joints of meat, and bucketfuls of broken bread and vegetables, were pitched away like so much rubbish and then defiled with tea-leaves” (208). He hears from the paupers that the wastage comes from the “deliberate policy” (209). Orwell does not further explain the reasons. The law might be enacted to ensure the hygiene, because. 14. David Garland finds that Patrick Colquhoun (1745-1820), a magistrate, is the first person who came up with the idea of “preventive form of regulation” (31). The preventive regulation may have influenced the legislation of the New Poor Law, in which the tramps, vagabonds, and rogues are put in the same category. 15 The place where the tramps went to was called casual wards, a part of workhouses, and some of the tramps accordingly are also called the casuals, different from workhouse “inmates.”.

(35) Nien 28. the secreted food might decay and do harm to the inmates’ health (Archbold 23). However, whether the policy is used to prevent stealing and selling is also suspicious. Other than the filthy spikes, the clean Salvation Army shelters for Orwell are not sufficient, either. The Salvation Army shelters are highly disciplined, in which “cooking, drinking, spitting, swearing, quarrelling and gambling” are prohibited (177). Orwell also thinks of the Salvation Army shelters as clean but “far drearier than the worst of the common lodging-houses” (178). Their dormitory is like “a barrack room, with sixty or seventy beds in it” (179). Orwell even comments: They [the Salvation Army shelters] are certainly cheap, but they are too like workhouses for my taste. In some of them there is even a compulsory religious service once or twice a week, which the lodgers must attend or leave the house. The fact is that the Salvation Army are so in the habit of thinking themselves a charitable body that they cannot even run a lodging-house without making it stink of charity. (179) The workhouse taste might be relevant to the rules “prohibiting cooking, drinking, spitting, swearing, quarrelling and gambling” (177). The Salvation Army shelters are even less energetic than those workhouses. In a nutshell, the charity and workhouses in London are not humane enough for Orwell. He opposes to the dirtiness, because of which he even mentions twice that he leaves “unwashed,” shunning away from the dirty basins and towels (160, 171). 16 Nevertheless, he also opposes to the overly clean Salvation Army shelters without vitality. Orwell does not advocate the tidy street views in London. He criticizes that London after Paris is “cleaner, quieter, and drearier” (162). Even though Paris is “the land of bistro and the sweatshop” (italic in the original), Orwell seems to admire its prosperity. As Benjamin analyzes the porosity of the city, Paris may be a place mixed with urban design from the governments and the natural development of the commercial arcades. Inside the porous arcades, the. 16. The first time in a charged lodging-house. The second time in the Romton spike..