Article by Reece David Merrifield; Photograph by the Salvation Army – ‘Coffin Beds’ at a Salvation Army Shelter in London
In Science Fiction novels and films, there always contains an element of society that is fictionalised and brought into a ‘safe space’; e.g. the fear of technological advancement in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or media monopolisation in Fahrenheit 451. We may come away from these SF’s with an initial attitude to challenge these aspects in our reality. Nevertheless, this rarely lasts for a period long enough to make a real impact and, because they are in said ‘safe space’, these fears seem too far away to be worried about them in the first place. Interestingly, when faced with realist texts that talk about the absolute poverty rife in our lives, even today, it seems we react in the exact same way.
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell is a perfect example of this. I recently read this novel and was simultaneously appalled yet intrigued by its content. Bearing in mind he was writing about his experiences in the late twenties/early thirties, the sort of poverty he lived through is still experienced by millions around the world at this present moment. In-fact, you could go as far as to say Orwell’s ‘poverty’ was almost luxurious: he always managed to have money in his pocket and worked most of the time as well. Barring this, a quite harrowing aspect is his analysis ‘of intelligent, cultivated people’. He makes the valid point that these people can go as far as understanding a poor man’s situation through ‘ a hundred essays’, but they never mix with such people and, in doing so, can ‘enjoy harrowing [themselves] with the thought of its unpleasantness’ and not go to the lengths to change things because it is comfortable for them. It becomes a borderline fiction, a dystopia on the doorstep, but never really crosses the line into reality.
Bringing it back into conventional terms, consider this essay: it would be read (I presume) by liberal people far from the poverty line assuming they have in possession a means to access the internet and, from there, the ability to read, a place of shelter, and a way of feeding their bellies. I will admit, I am one of these people and have never been close to experiencing any kind of poverty. Orwell sums this up when he states: ‘For what do the majority of educated people know about poverty?’. I knew very little up till now, and still have a long way to go.
Another reference which inspired this mini-essay is an article titled ‘The Literature of Poverty, The Poverty of Literature Classes’ by John Marsh. Although I find the essay can be slightly pessimistic, he brings up the flaws of an educational system (both British and American) which teaches children how to critically evaluate a text without considering what they are being critical about. Do most of them really care whether they are learning about the Brave New World from Huxley’s imagination or Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, a tale rooted in the dust-bowl reality of the Great Depression, as long as they are able to make the grade? The words are there, so why should it matter what they talk about, poverty or not, as long as they can be analysed sufficiently? The two texts lie on opposite ends of the spectrum in relation to genre, yet in the middle of the spectrum lies those ‘intelligent’ people who are so distant from both that they become, in effect, dystopian fantasies. The ability to understand the themes may be there, but in practical terms those themes are alien and difficult to empathise with. I may be stretching the point to its limit, but it is certainly plausible.
Poverty is certainly out there, yet we treat it like a science fiction for a number of reasons: greed, ignorance, a lack of understanding and a feeling of inevitability, amongst many others. To end, I leave you with a poem in Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant, titled ‘The Realities’, as a reminder of the blur between fantasy and reality:
Once upon a time there was a reality
With her own flock of sheep in real wool
And as the king’s son came passing by
The sheep bleated Baaah! how pretty she is
The re the re the reality
Once upon a time there was a reality
Who never could get to sleep at night
And so her fairy godmother
Really took her by the hand
The re the re the reality
Once upon a time there was an old king
Who got very bored as he sat on his throne
His cloak slipped off into the evening
So then they gave him for a queen
The re the re the reality
Coda: ity ity the rea
Ity ity the reality
The rea the rea
Ty ty The rea
Li
Ty The reality
Once upon a time there was the reality
References:
George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London (Penguin Classics, 2001)
Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant (Picador Classics, 1987)
John Marsh’s ‘The Literature of Poverty, The Poverty of Literature Classes’ (College English Online, 2011)
