54

CHAPTER-111

A CLERGYMAN’S DAUGHTER

“I wanted to submerge myself, to get right down among the oppressed, to be one of them and on their side against their tyrants .... Therefore my mind turned immediately towards the extreme cases, the social outcasts: trumps, beggars, criminals, prostitutes. These were the lowest of the low 9 and these were the people with whom I wanted to get in contact.... I could go among these people, see what their were like and feel myself temporarily part of their world. Once I had been among them and accepted by them,...” 1

This was what thought of the oppressed people.

He wanted to experience the life of the downtrodden. Orwell was keen in studying the lives of the social outcasts like tramps, beggars, criminals and prostitutes. He was a humanist and had a sympathy for the social outcasts and he was on the side of the working class.

After returning from Burma Orwell had decided to taste the uncertain career of a writer. So he went into the slums of London and Paris and studied keenly the poor and the unemployed. Thus he had a first-hand experience of poverty. Poverty, he thought, is an inseparable part of society and civilization. In Burma also he found poverty. In London and Paris he disguised himself as a tramp and went into the streets of London and Paris to 55 mix up with their world. His tramping expeditions helped him a lot for his understanding the downcasts in the society. His first book Down and Out in

Paris and London (1933) contains his experiences among the world of the tramps, beggars, criminals, hop-pickers, and prostitutes.

Orwell, after the success of his realistic writing like Burmese

Davs (1934) and Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) attempted to create a ficitional character whose basic position in society and life is quite different. He attaches all his own experiences to Dorothy Hare, the protagonist of die novel, A Cleevaman’s Daughter. Dorothy is the only daughter to a country-town Rector. She becomes an outcast who loses her memory and enters the sub world of tramps, beggars, hop-pickers and prostitutes.

Dorothy Hare is the only daughter of Reverend Charles Hare who is the Rector of St. Athelsten’s in a country town, Knype Hill, Suffolk.

She is twenty seven and a spinster. The clergyman is a miser and poor.

Unfortunately he has developed no affection for Dorothy. He never cares for the bills of debts. The grocer, the butcher, always send their reminders.

Dorothy is a person who always tries to manage these bills. Her father, on die contrary, is interested in investing his money in the shares. Frequent 56 clashes occur betwen Dorothy and her father ; and always the father thinks it is wiser to reinvest his money.

Everyday remains hectic for Dorothy. She gets up early in the morning, bathes in cold water and prepares breakfast for her father. She has prepared her memo-list of the works to be done on the day. She prepares the breakfast for her father with bacons which are the cheapest in the market. She discusses with her father about the bills to be paid to the grocer and butcher.

She goes into the town on her bicycle for distributing the magazines. Also, she visits the people in the town and tries to convince them for visiting the church atleast for Christening the new bom babies. She also visits people for raising funds for the church. She is also busy in preparing constumes for the children for a chronicle play. This is Dorothy’s busy schedule of every day.

It is due her efforts people visit the church. Once she is invited by Mr.

Warburton with the intention of introducing her to his friend. Dorothy visits him but no guest friend arrives at Mr. Warburton. It is a wicked plan of Mr.

Warburton to seduce Dorothy. Dorothy is shocked. In a disturbed state of mind she returns to Knype Hill. She goes on working for the preparation of the costumes for the children for the play to be enacted on the stage to raise funds for the church. 57

All of a sudden, now she is found on the streets in Kent, London.

Due to amnesia she loses her memory; and she does not know where she is and what she is doing in Kent. On the way she is robbed. Meanwhile Mr.

Warburton also has left Knype Hill on the same night. Mrs. Semprill, a wicked woman, spreads rumours about the elopment of Dorothy and Mr.

Warburton. Within week the rumours spread in daily newspapers and magazines with her photograph.

As she is standing in the New Kent Road, London, she meets three young tramps, who take her for hop-picking. They are socially outcasts, who live on anything like hop-picking and sometimes stealing and begging.

Nobby, a young man, is their leader who is braver than Flo and Charlie, the other two tramps. People around her are discussing about the rumours of

Dorothy’s relation with the aged Mr. Warburton. She is not at all aware of the news being read about her. She has told her name as Ellen Millborrugh which comes to her memory first when it is asked by Nobby and his group.

Throughout the day Nobby and Dorothy, Charlie and Flo pick the hops and in the evening they stay in the camp meant for the hop-pickets.

Charlie and Flo leave the camp as they cannot bear die pangs of hop-picking.

Dorothy starts preparing food for both Nobby and herself. Nobby steals 58 apples, hens from the neighbourhood daily. Once he is arrested by the police and Dorothy is left alone.

After regaining memory the society around her becomes unbearable for her. She writes a letter to her father explaining the reality which her father doesn’t realize initially. The season of hop-picking is coming to an end and Dorothy is not getting sufficient food to eat. She writes to her father requesting him to send her some money in order to purchase some clothes for her and return to Knype Hill. As the season of hop-picking is over she has to leave the camp. Then she enters a very cheap lodge which is a brothel. It is notoriously known for a shelter for prostitution. She is tortured by prostitutes. After all her money is spent she once again comes into the streets. She spends ten days in Trafalgar Square along with many tramps who try to save themselves from the bitter cold. They cover themselves with papers to save themselves from the cold. Early in the morning these tramps rush into a cheap hotel to share a cup of tea among two or three, and to get the warmth of the hotel. As the library opens these tramps rush into the library, acquire their chairs, open a magazine lying before them and fall asleep within a moment.

The unemployed rush to the library to see the advertisements pinned on the notice-board. Dorothy, too, gets some of the advertisements 59 and visits the places in search of a job, but she is rejected due to her lack of references, having no luggage and sometimes due to her educated accent.

She has no alternative than to beg. In the crucial phase of life she has lost her faith in god and religion. Being penniless and homeless, she is leading her life with the tramps in the square with sleepless nights. She has no hopes that her father will help her. The Rector writes a letter to Sir Thomas Hare, cousin of Dorothy, requesting him to find a suitable job for her in London.

He sends ten pounds alongwith the letter to Sir Thomas to help Dorothy.

Finally after spending about six weeks in the company of social outcasts in a sub-world, Dorothy returns to a respectable society.

It is the solicitor of Sir Thomas Hare who suggests Sir Thomas that Dorothy should enter teaching profession. Accordingly she becomes a school mistress in a girls’ school in the suburb of South bridge . This private school is run by Mrs. Creevy who has mercenary attitude. She has classified the students according to their economic status. Mrs. Creevy never bothers for academic developments. She is so crooked that she gives Dorothy neither sufficient food nor leisure. Though Dorothy starves, she spends her salary on purchasing new books for the students. She desires to experiment with the conventional teaching techniques of the school. No doubt, Mrs. Creevy, is jealous of Dorothy. But, later on, an incident in the classroom makes 60

Dorothy change her new teaching techniques and readapting the previous ones. Eventually she loses her job and returns her home at Knype Hill. On their way to Knype Hill, Mr. Warburton askes Dorothy about her future and explains to her the type of life she has to lead in future. Dorothy is totally confused. At the same time he proposes her but she declines. In her conversation with Mr. Warburton she makes it clear that she has lost her faith in religion and church. At Knype Hill Dorothy continues to live her life as hecticly as she used to do previously. She desires to forget the past; hence , she gets involved in multiple activities. Thus die circle completes.

As eveiy writing of Orwell comes through his experiences, A

Clergyman’s Daughter projects the experiences and opinions of Orwell applied to the protogonist Dorothy. Though the central character is a woman, her sex becomes quite insignificant in the whole course of the narration.

Orwell’s observations, awareness and opinions regarding the social, political and religious happenings become the experiences of Dorothy,

“In A Clergyman’s Daughter, he makes his central character, a woman, but her sex is quiet unimportant for the greater part of the novel and many of her opinions and experiences are an obvious reflection of Orwell’s own.” 2.

The whole novel is based upon the loss of religious faith of

Dorothy who was a thorough religious person previously. Sant Sing Bal 61 rightly remarks : “The basic issues that Orwell takes up in A Clergyman’s

Daughter are two : loss of religious faith and the psychological repercussions of this loss ; and the problem of poverty and its debasing effects.” 3

Dorothy is the only spinster daughter of a clergyman, Reverend Charles Hare, who is a miser and like a businessman always thinking of his investments. He is a less clergyman and a more businessman. Due to his mercenary view people have stopped visiting the church. It is Dorothy who tries to manage everything properly. She tries to convince people to visit the chapel. The novel opens with Dorothy working hard, mid tends with her working and again in the Rectory. She is shown carrying out all her religious duties. She has accepted the world of her poor, heartless father. The incidents like her bathing in cold water and preparing always the cheap bacons for the breakfast indicate their poverty. She has accepted the class of her father - the class of poors along with the religion.

“Dorothy’s world, like Flory’s is also divided as is her own subconscious mind. As a daughter of a village clergyman she tries to accept the faith (and the pretence) handed down to her. She belongs very much, by now, to the shabby-genteel class, and unlike her father she is unable to ignore the butcher’s bills. Hers is a family of pseudo­ respectability and consequently her life becomes one of daily drudgery and economy, of making both ends meet, of warding off claims and debts, and of trying to live a truly Christian life in a world devoid 62

of religious faith. Those who believe in religion do it for purposes other than faith.” 4

Since getting up from the bed early in the morning to return to it late in the night she is always talking and thinking of religion and working for it. She is so much religious-minded that she pricks herself with a pin whenever her mind weaver from her religious duties. It is a form of discipline she has selected for herself:

“Dorothy drew a long glass-headed pin from the lapel of her coat, and furtively, under cover of Miss Mayfill’s back, pressed the point against her forearm. Her flesh tingled apprehensively. She made it a rule, whenever she caught herself not attending to her pmyers, to prick her arm hard enough to make blood come. It was her chosen form of self-discipline, her guard against irreverence and sacrilegious thoughs.” 5

This method of self-punishment shows Dorothy’s child-like simplicity and / plainness in her character. Being a clergyman’s daughter she is religious, and tries to fetch the people to church for prayers. She is guiding the boys for die play and preparing die costumes for the historical play to be enacted in the church. By this she wants to raise funds for the church. She also requests people to come to the church, Valerie Meyers rightly evaluates the character of Dorothy:

“ Dorothy is a type of Victorian heroine, sexless, anxious and victimised. She carries an enormous practical and social burden : the house-keeping, 63

cleaning the church, visiting the sick, organising women’s groups, children’s plays and jumble sales; yet she receives nothing in return. Dorothy acts as a surrogate for her father in the parish, and on her travels, explores die ugly realities that he and his class deny.”6

For the people in Knype Hill, church has lost its significance. Even the existence of the church is forgotten by them. Church is remembered by them only for marriage and burial. Church has lost its hold on people which clearly shows that the religion has lost its place in the life of people.

“ ‘I know. It’s dreadful’, admitted Dorothy, sewing on her button. It doesn’t seem to make any difference what we do - we simply can’t get the people to come to church. Still’, she added, they do come to us to be married and buried. And I dont think the congregation’s actually gone down this year. There were nearly two hundred people at Easter Communion.’

Two hundred ! It ought to be two thousand. That’s the population of this town. The fact is that three quarters of the people in this place never go near a church in their fives. The church has absolutely lost its hold over them. They don’t know that it exists. And why ?’ ” 7

After the loss of her memory Dorothy does not even recognize herself. She goes alongwith the hop-picker in London. Nobby and his friends lead her upto the hop-picking camp. She works there not as Dorothy but as

Ellen. When Nobby is arrested by the police for stealing apples and hens, 64

Dorothy recollects her memoiy by reading the scandal news in the newspaper. She has not prayed even for once during the state of her amnesia.

After her recovery she starts praying for the first time, and realizes that she has lost her faith in religion :

“Moreover, she was aware that she had no longer the smallest impulse to pray. Mechanically, she began a whispered prayer, and stopped almost instantly ; the words were empty and futile. Prayer which had been the mainstay of her life, had no meaning in her any longer.” 8

When Dorothy has no money at all, and when she is waiting for her father's reply and help, she stays for ten days with the social-outcasts in

Trafalgar Square. These are tamps, homeless, penniless and friendless people. They are trying to save themselves from the freezing cold by wrapping papers to their bodies. Among the tramps, there is one Mr.

Tallboys who had been a clergyman once upon a time. Being in the service of God and church for a period in the past, he should have faith in God but, on the contrary, he is cursing Him. Both Dorothy and Mr. Tallboys have lost their faith in religion. This is the result of starvation and also of the harsh reality produced by the effects of science and industrialization.

The faith in religion is totally vanished in Dorothy when she is working as a teacher in the private girls’ school at Mrs. Creevyjr; 65

“There was never a moment when the power of worship returned to her. Indeed, the whole concept of worship was meaningless to her now; her faith had vanished, utterly and irrevocably. It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faith-as mysterious as faith itself. Like faith, it is ultimately not rooted in logic, it is a change in die climate of the mind. But however little die church services might mean to her, she -did not regret the hours she spent in church.” 9

Dorothy, previously used to control her mind by {nicking a pin or a thorn in her arm as a part of self-discipline. Now she has seen a sub-world of the downtrodden and has totally lost her faith. It is the sub-world, sub-society which had made her feel the emptiness of the world. Religion has become only a hypocrisy for the clergymen of England. It is through Mr. Warburton and Dorothy Hare, Orwell gives his views regarding religion and society.

Keith Alldritt remarks, “Loss of faith is the chief theme of the novel.” 10.

Though Dorothy has lost her faith, she returns to her father by witnessing and experiencing the highly crucial movements of social emptiness, and harsh realities of the social outcasts and the downtrodden people. She accepts her lack of faith with hill awareness of it. Dorothy also decides to keep the appearance of faith. The novel ends with the dilemma totally vanished from

Dorothy’s mind. She is now doing her routine activities without any strain. 66

Orwell observes that religious faith is declining in the modem civilization.

Dorothy is a representative of this civilization. With the religion, the church also is decaying. It is not clean. The bells are not used. And the church­ goers eat biscuits at the time of reading sermons. All these activities indicate a decay in ecclesiastic system.

“The church itself is similarly in decay : the belfry floor splintering under the weight of the disused bells which one day must fall through into the porch beneath, the broken pei*>s, the choked stove-flue, the choir-boys’ ragged cassock.’ 11

Orwell satirises clergymen and their clergymanship. A clergyman is supposed to be the messenger of God and a holy man who is full of mercy, pity and love. But the clerlgymen, Orwell presents in A Clergyman’s

Daughter are totally corrupt.Dorothy’s father is a miser and bad invester, who neglects his own daughter and who believes the scandals about her as the other people do in Knype Hill. He abandons her and does not answer her letters instantly:

“Through her he (Orwell) directly associated abandonment by a cold, selfish, remote parent, the Rector himself - who never bothers to find out what has happened to her and never answers her letters - and the institutional religion of the decaying church, of no help whatsoever; father at 67 home in Knype Hill and father in heaven are equally distant and unresponsive.” 12

Religion, one of the basic institutes of society, is reduced to a set of prohibitions by the people in the service of religion. Mrs. Creevy’s love for money makes her change prayers. She is a hypocrite who has prepared her own prayer for the students. Mr. Tallboys, too, abandons religion and curses

God.

Poverty is a theme discussed by Orwell frequently. Shankar

Narayan Prasad rightly remarks :

“The central theme of die first nove, A Clergyman’s Daughter is the story of a young girl’s life, first lived in the presence of faith, and later in the absence of it, although in the latter case also she struggles hard to cling to a world-view, planted in her at a very early age. Thus, while the story remains, in the main, related to the problem of faith, it gets, in the very process of its evolution.\, interlinked with the theme poverty.” 13

Orwell, who has seen the emptiness and decline of the British

Imperialism in Burma returns to England for mental solace. Dorothy, too, has seen the futility of English society and she is caught in die dilemma like that of Orwell. Orwell is uneasy, disturbed by the working of British Empire in the

East which is effectively reflected in Burmese Davs. In A Clergyman’s

Daughter he is upset by experiencing the life of the outcasts. He observes 68 poverty in London and France in the early nineteen thirties. London then had experienced industrialisation , poverty and unemployment were the results of it. Orwell consciously observes the social-out casts, tramps, beggars, prostitutes, hop-pickers.

“Orwell deals with the problem of poverty, its causes and its effects on human consciousness in the following works : Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935), Keep the Aspidistra Flving (1936), The Road Wigan Pier (1937), “ The Spike”(1931), “Hop- Picking”(1931), “Common Lodging Houses”(1932), “Clink”(1932), “”(1946), and “The Politics of Starvationh”(1946) etc.” 14

Poverty, for Orwell is the experience forced upon him both partly by situation of the age in which he lived and partly by himself. Being a victim of poverty himself he experienced the life of the downtrodden people, and their physical hardships. He becomes an objective observer of poverty, who has experienced it for years. As a result his writing is considered as documentaries. Sant Singh Bal remarks :

“ When he saw the England of the unemployment living on the dole, his whole view of the politics of poverty assumed new dimensions. While on the one hand, he felt morally inclined to identify himself with the poor, to take upon himself a share of the burden of the sins of the world, on the other hand, he provided a good example of the committed writer. Orwell writes about poverty not merely as an objective observer, but as an consider, ”... is 69

Down and Out in Paris and London. The Road to Wigan Pier. A Clergyman’s

Daughter cover many of Orwell’s experiences from his expeditions in the sub-world of the society. His experiences of hop-picking and sleeping in the streets with the tramps, are discussed in the novel A Clergyman’s Daughter.

Michael Shelden states,

“His adventure began in London where he stayed for two nights in cheap lodging houses, with a third night spent roughing it at Trafalgar Square, keeping out the cold by using newspaper posters for blankets. The next morning he shaved in die fountains, and then spent the rest of the day sitting with the tramps reading a Balzac novel in a French edition.” 16

All these adventures of Orwell become the experiences of Dorothy, too. In this way Dorothy becomes the mouth-piece of Orwell. He sends Dorothy into the world of the poor. Dorothy belongs to die class of the poor and always thinks of earning money to set die economic conditionof house properly. The regular menu at the breakfast is the cheap bacon for almost all the times. Her father never pays any attention to the church or never thinks even to raise funds for repairing it.

Reverend Charles Hase, the widower does not like his daughter.

He never loves her. He has developed only dislike for others. Though he belongs to a lower-middle-class family, he thinks himself very rich, and he 70 goes on speaking pompously. He reinvests his money in the shares and never pays the bills of butcher or grocer. He dislikes the life of a clergyman. The profession which he dislikes is compelled upon him by his family and society.

He is frustrated and never likes his own class. He never likes the lower class people and they too hate him for his pomp and hypocrasy. He gives Dorothy only eighteen pounds a month for all the household expenses. They owe money to nearly every tradesman in the town. Her father is only the poverty- stricken country Rector. She escapes the world of her poor father and comes into the sub-world of the people like hop-pickers and rogues like Nobby, Flo and Charlie. She joins the gang of Nobby, the hop-pickers and undergoes die physical hardships like cold, hunger, starvation and struggle for bread. For many times Dorothy and her gang beg in the streets. Sometimes they beg since morning to the night. And for many times they wander a very long distance for a piece of bread. Eveiybody in the gang beg daily. Stealing, too, becomes common for them. At the time of evening and in the early morning they start stealing apples, damsons, pears, potatoes, cobnuts from the orchards and fields on their way. They spend their nights on the roads stumbling to and fro in the darkness, and finding shelter in hay-stack to save themselves from the rain. Dorothy even sleeps into a sack by somehow inserting herself into it. On the hop-pickers’ camp there are many people who 71 have come from London for hop-picking. Many of them are so ignorant that they even don’t know what hops are like. The women hop-pickers sleep in the straw. Hop-picking brings them very little earning ; naturally it leads to stealing and burgling. Nobby steals apples and even hens of the neighbouring fanners. Due to her state of amnesia stealing, dirt, rage, vagabondage, begging - all seems natural to Dorothy. The hop-pickers are paid very less.

They are exploited by the hop-farm owners. The masters and owners of the orchards oppress and exploit the hop-pickers. Orwell himself has experienced this on his tramping expeditions.

The real crisis starts on the hop-pickers’ camp when Dorothy regains her memory after Nobby is arrested. She is shocked to see her beggarly appearance with her ragged and stained clothes. Immediately she writes a letter to her father which he delays in answering. She leaves the hop- pickers’ camp as the season is over. Due to the scandals in the newspapers she could neither reveal her real identity or she could go to her father. Here is the problem of identity crisis. As a hop-picker she stands out from the rest of the pickers not only by her education, but also by her awareness of the existence of her life as a social outcast. She wanders to many places to get die job of a house-keeper but due to her educated accent and lack of luggage and references she fails to get it. Valerie Meyers remarks : 72

“...but even after she regains her memory she wanders between the worlds of the haves and have- nots, and belongs to neither. She learns from her fruitless search for a house-keeping job that, when you are homeless and jobless, your previous social position counts for nothing. Orwell uses Dorothy’s rapid descent into destitution to emphasise a key idea in the novel : the precariousness of security, the nearness of poverty, for many people in England during the 1930s.” n

Dorothy stays in the cheapest lodge called Mary’s’ which she late on comes to know as a well-known refuge of prostitutes. Orwell shows another layer of the underworld - the world of prostitutes. As all her money is spent she is thrown out for not paying her rent from the Mary’s’. Her physical hardships grow. She always remains hungry and also loses her hope that her father would help her. Life becomes intolerable for her. She goes in remote areas in search of a job. Now she is jobless, moneyless, am! homeless.

Unemployment is another feature of the sub-world. England in the nineteen thirties was facing the great problem of unemployment. Persons like Orwell could not get any jobs. He worked as a book-seller, dish-washer, hop-picker, and as a teacher in a cheap private school.

Dorothy, too, stays with the tramps in Trafalgar Square, who are penniless, hungry and are struggling to protect themselves from the freezing night air.

The tramps pile upon one another so as to keep themselves warm. They wrap 73 themselves in the perishing newspaper and posters. After an hour or two the paper is all crumpled and tom to nothing. At the same time they are counting the hours and are singing the songs while suffering. The poem composed by

Orwell can best sum up the life of the tramps and beggars :

“And I see the people thronging the street, The death-marked people, they and 1 Goalless, rootless, like leaves drifting, Blind to the earth and to the sky;

Nothing believing, nothing loving. Not in joy nor in pain, not heeding the of precious life that flows within stream us, But fighting, toiling as in a dream.” is

Dorothy begs in the streets, and while begging she is arrested by the police and put in to the custody. Orwell also was arrested for drinking. He gives his own experiences of begging and of being in custody. Through the begging of

Dorothy, Orwell takes his readers to the world of beggars and criminals.

Orwell introduces his experience as a teacher in a cheap private school through Dorothy - who works in Ringwood House Academy, Brough

Road, Southbnridge. It is a private school for girls run by Mrs. Creevy, principal of the school. She is a non-academician and has turned education into a business. She has never read a book. She dislikes teaching as well as reading. The only thing worries her is fees’ of the students. She very plainly 74 makes clear her approach to Dorothy. “It’s the fees I’m after, and not developing the children’s minds.... The fees come first, and everything else comes afterwards.” 19 Orwell severely attacks the private schools by making his protagonist the school teacher. Mrs. Creevy categorised students according to their economic status in the society. She 1ms categorised them as good payers, medium payers and bad payers. Similar classification of students, Orwell had experienced in prep-school at St. Cyprian’s. Mrs.

Creevy says:

“Different girls, different treatment - that’s my system’ ....’Well, the parents of the lot are what I call the good payers. You know what I mean by that ? They’re the ones that pay cash on the nail and no jibbing at an extra half-guinea or so now and again. You’re not to smack any of that lot, not on any account. This lot over here are medium payers. Their parents do pay up sooner or later, but you don’t get the money out of them without you worry them for it night and day. You can smack that lot if they get saucy, but don’t go and leave a mark their parents can see. If you’ll take my advice, the best thing with children is to twist their ears. Have you ever tried that ?’ No’, said Dorothy. 'Well, I find it answers better than anything. It doesn’t leave a mark, and the children can’t bear it. Now these three over here are the bad payers. Their fathers are two terms behind already and I’m thinking of a solicitor’s letter. I don’t care what you do to that lot well, short of a police-court case, naturally.” 20 75

Through Mrs. Creevy Orwell is exposing the corrupt educational system in

England during nineteen thirties. The private schools were dealing with one

and the same syllabi since many years. In fact the private schools were

lagging at least two decades behind the public schools.

Dorothy tries to bring change into the system but the parents of

the students do not like it. They like the same pattern as before. The problem

is created by the word womb’ which Dorothy fails to explain and the

students inquire about the meaning of the womb’ at their homes ; on which

tihe parents get angry and by coming to the school they argue:

“We don’t want them to understand. Do you think we want them to go picking up dirty ideas out of books ?...We don’t send our children to school to have ideas put into their heads’.... 'We’re all of decent God-fearing folk-some of us are Baptists and some of us are Methodists, and there’s even one or two church of England among us ; but we can sink our differences when it comes to a case like this - and we try to bring our children up decent and save them from knowing anything about the facts of Life. If I had my way, no child- at any rate, no girl - would know anything about the Facts of Life till she was twenty-one.” 21

This is how Dorothy is not allowed to deal with changes in educational techniques. Mrs. Creevy who is jealous of Dorothy for her new teaching methods and the parents of the students never allow her to have new

techniques for students. Valerie remarks ,”Like Dickens and Wells, Orwell 76 attacks the stultifying effects of this kind of education and argues that teachers have a moral obligation to teach children to think.” 22

As Flory is the victim of British Empire in Burmese Davs.

Dorothy, too, is a victim of the amnesia and the social structure in Britain.

Orwell shows two types of victims in the academic system- the first are die students who are tortured by a drunkard teacher like Miss Strong ; the second is a teacher like Dorothy (Miss Millborough) who is exploited by money-minded Mrs. Creevy. Dorothy never gets full meals and is starved by

Mrs. Creevy. The parents can also be termed as victims who are orthodox and who do not realize the significance of education.

Exploitation and starvation are again some of the major aspects of a capitalist society which Orwell depicts in his writings. Dorothy is a victim throughout. She is bullied with work of Rectory and of her father . Her lather never loves her and she has to adjust every activity within eighteen pounds. He never listens to her attentively. Thus her father is the first exploiter. Mr. Warburton, another exploiter, tries to seduce Dorothy by force.

And it is due to him she Ms a prey to the scandals spread about her and Mr.

Warburton. She is a victim of over work and mental tortures. Eventually she

Ms an easy prey to amnesia. 77

Poverty and hunger again work as exploiting factors on

Dorothy. Moneyless, she suffers a lot and undergoes a variety of torments

like wandering like tramp, stealing like a rogue, sleeping in the streets and

begging. Mire. Creevy, evil and schemy, always wants that Dorothy should

never be free from her work. She never gives Dorothy sufficient food to eat.

Dorothy is always starved by her. Through Mrs. Creevy and Mrs, Semprill,

the scandal-monger, Orwell displays evil characters in the society. These two

women exploit Dorothy too much.

“Orwell seems particularly hostile to the widowed Mrs. Semprill and Mrs. Creevy, who are stereotyped witches rather than characters in a modem novel.’ 23

Orwell shows the mass media used for propoganda of the scandals. Pippin’s

Weekly’ publishes the rumours or scandals about the elopment of Dorothy and the aged. Mr. Warburton. The titles such as - “PASSION

DRAMA IN COUNTRY RECTORY’-'PARSON’S DAUGHTER AND

ELDERLY SEDUCER’- WHITE - HAIRED FATHER PROSTRATE

WITH GRIEF.”24 are flashed as headlines with the photograph of Dorothy.

The subject like a suspected-elopment, becomes the main news of the daily newspaper. Due to these scandals Dorothy’s father stops his search for

Dorothy. Dorothy falls a prey to journalism. It is journalism which spreads 78 rumours in the society. Orwell, condemns the newspaper and attacks it with a mild satire.

Prostitution is one more subject Orwell discusses in this novel.

When Dorothy stays at Old Mary’s cheap lodging, she finds that there are many women with made-up faces in every room. In the night, men start crowding to the lodge and die death-like groaning increases in the midnight.

Prostitutes are social outcasts and Dorothy stays in their world and watches the world quite closely.

Like John Flory in Burmese Davs. Dorothy is a lonely and isolated character. Isolation is a central feature of Orwell’s characters.

Orwell himself was lonely and isolated. “Loneliness and isolation from others were Flory’s fate in Burmese Davs ; loneliness, from the beginning to her story, is Dorothy Hare’s lot;...” 25

Orwell’s social awareness again can be seen in selecting a spinster as the protagonist of his novel. Orwell gets a chance to show how the spinsters are not treated properly by society. The civilization is decaying due to the carnal immoral views of elderly persons like Mr. Warburton who try to seduce Dorothy for more than three times.Finally he proposes her but she refuses . Dorothy is a spinster belonging to middle-class society. She 79 represents the middle-class-spinsters. Orwell has a sympathetic approach to

Dorothy.

Alienation, loneliness, exploitation, isolation, suspicion on both personal and social level are shown through Dorothy’s personal life histoiy.

At the surface level A Clergyman’s Daughter presents the reader with a fragmented society. The civilization is suffering from mistrust, immorality

and alienation. Dorothy, the protagonist, moves from one place to another -

one social institute to the other either consciously or unconsciously. The novel can be considered as a truthful document which gives realistic picture

of English society of the 1930s.

A Clergyman’s Daughter may be regarded as a novel about religion, church and the loss of faith. But it seems that Orwell is writing less

about die church because religion is not his main concern. He is concerned

mainly with social issues. Therefore, A Clergyman’s Daughter is not a

religious novel but a social one which opens with religion and Church and

ends in the Church. It is a novel dealing with society, and with various social problems Orwell discusses the problems of various social institutes such as

Church (religion), school (teaching), tramps, beggars, hop-pickers, prostitutes. 80

The novel can also be considered as a journey of the protagonist,

Dorothy, through various social layers and her returning to the initial stage.

In the opening part of the novel Dorothy is shown working hard in the

Rectory of her father. She is always over working under the strain of

economical adjustments. Secondly, in this strenuous situation she is shocked by Mr. Warburton’s attempt of seducing her. As a result she loses her

memory and comes into the sub-world of the downtrodden people of the

society. The novel depicts the life of the poor, hop-pickers, rogues, tramps,

street-sleepers, prostitutes, beggars, policemen, clergymen, spinsters,

scandal-mongers, unemployed, employers and finally the schooling in which

teachers, parents and students suffer. Her journey through these levels of

society teaches her a lot and makes her tougher. She returns to her father’s

Rectory, which she had rejected and escaped into the sub-world. She finds

that now life is meaningless. The emptiness of this world comes to her from

her London experiences. Dorothy engages herself with the same work and duty which she used to perform before her amnesia. Patrick Reilly remarks :

“Nostalgic alarmists such as Renan, the old faith dead and the new one puny, may speak of living on the perfume of an empty vase and dread the godless future we live by the shadow of a shadow, how will they live who come after us ? : this is, after all, the standard strategy of all those who fear that the Christian’ virtues will wither when their dogmatic roots are gone - but Dorothy at the end is still the 81

same devoted, industrious, self-sacrificing girl of the opening pages, even if she now lives by gule rather than incense. She works in the same way, though not for the same motive : not for the glory of God or her own immortal santification, but simply for the sake of the work itself work for work’s sake is her puritan response to Bloomsbury and Warburton, art and hedonism..” 26

In almost every novel of Orwell the protagonist of the novels escapes or tries to escape the oppressive reality. He/she escapes into a utopia for a certain period but fails to maintain it and returns to the earlier position. They have to accept the oppressive reality finally. Hammond writes : “ It can be argued that each of Orwell’s novels depicts a situation in which the central character attempts to escape from an oppressive normality but Ms to do so.” 27.

Dorothy submits to her fete and accepts the things as they come to her. Flory, on the other hand, submits to the reality but commits suicide. Even Gordon

Comstock and George Bowling do not meekly submit to their environment.

No doubt, Dorothy rejects her society and its values in the beginning but her wandering flight has taught her a lot and her perspective is renewed. Richard

Johnston remarks : “Dorothy Hare initially rejects her society and its values, but she returns to that society in the end, with a renewed if vaguely defined purpose.” 28 82

Various scenes in the novel command on various social issues. Of course all these scenes are already witnessed by Orwell. Christopher Small remarks .

“Dorothy, we may say, is Orwell : almost everything that happens to her happened to Eric Blair and was recorded by him under his pseudonym in other places as factual reminiscence ; but, crucially, she is, as a woman, just that aspect of Orwell-Blair as a feeling and suffering being that was most difficult for him to acknowledge ... Dorothy apparently the most complete disguise Orwell adopted in fiction - as female impersonation is generally assumed to be the most effective of all incognitos - in fact allowed him to display at least in part, those very feelings that were altogether disowned.” 29

Through this novel Orwell had a splendid plan to show many things - corruption in the society, in religion, the exploitation of the working class, the loss of faith in the modem world, the life of the social outcasts, the tramping expeditions, the lfie of beggars, criminals, prostitutes, and finally the teaching system in the private schools in London during 1930’s through a female protagonist’s flight. 83

REFERENCES

1. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier. London: Penguin, 1976, pp.

130-131.

2. Donald Crompton,. “False maps of the World - George Orwell’s

Autobiographical Writings and the Early Novels” in Critical

Quarterly. Vol.16, No.2, Summer 1974,p.l52

3. Sant Singh Bal. George Orwell: The Ethical Imagination. New Delhi:

Arnold Heinemann Publishers, 1981, p.86.

4. Jasbir Jain, George Orwell: Witness of an Age. Jaipur: Printwell

Publishers, 1986, pp.82-83

5. George Orwell, A Clergyman’s Daughter, in George Orwell :

Complete & Unabridged Works. London: Seeker & Warburg, 1976, p.259

6. Valerie Meyers, Modem Novelists : George Orwell. London :

Macmillan 1991, pp.64-65

7. A Clergyman’s Daughter, p.293

8. A Clergyman’s Daughter, p.335

9. A Clergyman’s Daughter, p.398

10. Keith Alldritt, The Making of George Orwell: an Essay in Literary

History. London: Edward Arnold,1969, p.28 84

11. B.T. Oxley, George Orwell. London: Evans Brothers Limited, 1967,

p.92

12. Christopher Small, The Road to Minilnv: George Orwell. The State

and God. London: Victor Gollancz, 1975,p.55

13. Shankar Narayan Prasad, The Crystal Spirit: The Mind and Art of

George Orwell. New Delhi: Classical Publications, 1979, p.142.

14. Sant Singh Bal. pp.80-81

15. Sant Singh Bal, p.80

16. Michael Shelden, Orwell: An Authorised Biography. London:

Heinemann, 1991,p.l61

17. Valerie Meyers, kp.66

18. and I an Angus, eds. The Collected Essays. Journalism

and Letters of George Orwell Vol. I, London: Penguin, 1945,

p.142

19. A Clergyman’s Daughter, p.390

20. A Clergyman’s Daughter, p.372

21. A Clergyman’s Daughter, n.388

22. Valerie Meyers, p.70

23. Valerie Meyers, p.72

24. A Clergyman’s Daughter, p.329 85

25. Christopher Small, p.40

26. Patrick Reilly, George Orwell: The Age’s Adversary. London :

Macmillan, 1986, p.126

27. J.R. Hammond, A George Orwell Companion : A Guide to the Novels.

Dacumentaries and Essays. London: Macmillan, 1982, p.104

28. Richard Johnstone, George Orwell. U.K. OUP, 1982, p.126

29. Christopher Small, p.41