What Has Poverty Done to People?

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In the first chapter of the novel, the unnamed narrator depicts a couple that, to his observation, is “old, ragged and dwarfish” (Orwell 6). The couple sells postcards on the street. These postcards are supposed to be pornographic, but they, in fact, turn out to be just normal photographs of chateaux on the Loire. Nevertheless, the buyers never complain about that. According to the narrator, this is “extraordinary trade” (Orwell 6). Correspondingly, the old couple earns hundreds of francs per week from their blooming business. In brief, in order to survive poverty, the couple has to use their acuity and deceitfulness to make a living. Usually, lying and cheating people are not such decent things to do, but considering how destructive poverty can be, readers can see that this is tolerable. If other people are to be placed in the condition of this couple, “neither of the Rougiers had taken off their clothes for four years” (Orwell 6), do they think that they can survive without scamming other people? Hence, poverty creates distrust and dishonesty among people.

According to “Such, such were the miseries: Down and Out in Paris and London and Istanbul” from Los Angeles review of books, Kaya Genç indicates that poverty is a topic that needs delicate handling. In fact, George Orwell succeeds in subtly describing the detrimental effects that poverty exerts on people from Down and Out in London and Paris. As a whole, there are three main adverse influences that poverty gives people. Firstly, poverty causes people to get sick and become physically ill. Secondly, it leads people to committing crimes and violating the law. Finally, it compels people to cheat and to lie to others. Overall, not only does he paint a truly realistic life of a vagrant in Paris and London, but he also captures the desperation and disappointment that poverty brings to people who hope to have a better life but in vain. Even without any specific statistical data, Orwell has rendered the effects of poverty on people so vividly that the readers can picture them comprehensively.

Works Cited

Genç, Kaya. Los Angeles Review of books. 2 January 2014. 28 September 2014 .

Lieberman, Robert. Orwell's Poor and Ours. 19 November 2001. 28 September 2014 .

Vollmann, William. Poor People. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.