Why George Orwell Lived On The Streets

You can’t beat first-hand experience

Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash

George Orwell lived on the streets in London and Paris because he wanted to experience poverty and homelessness for himself, so that he could write about poverty from his first-hand experiences.

He resigned from his job as a colonial police officer in northern Burma in the 1920s, and took up residence in Portobello Road, London, at the age of 24. He wrote for magazines and journals before deciding to spend periods living as a tramp — ‘tramping’ — to explore what life was like for the poorest in society.

He started living as a pauper in London, and later in Paris, living hand-to-mouth, working in low-paying jobs, experiencing unemployment and hunger.

His decision to live this way was mainly driven by his desire to understand and document the lives of the poor and homeless. His experiences were explored in “The Spike”, his first published essay, which later was integrated into his well-known book, “Down and Out in Paris and London”.

Orwell wanted to expose the social and political inequalities of the time, which particularly affected the working class, and to bring attention to the plight of the poor and homeless.

He wrote about life on the streets, his experience of destitution, the people he…