The Road to Wigan Pier

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.