Reference no: EM133206396 , Length: 6 Pages

The Industrial Revolution is thought to have improved the material standard of living for most people in Britain (by lowering the cost of basic staples like food and clothing) when compared to pre-industrial Britain when most people worked in agriculture and made the majority of the products they used themselves often at great cost in terms of time and labor.

In lowering the cost of basic products through more efficient mass production, the Industrial Revolution also created a life for workers both inside and outside the mills and factories that Orwell describes in his book as miserable.

1. Given the tradeoffs inherent in industrial production, take a position where you argue either for or against (or for a some balance between the two) economic development that raises material standard of living (by lowering cost of living) but does so through work that some find dehumanizing.

2. In the first chapter, Orwell described the meals provided by the Brookers to their lodgers. These meals were non-nutritious and in no way sated a man's hunger. How is this nutritional issue and the role of the Brookers as caregivers to their renters symbolic of other themes in his book, such as how the intellectual class see the country's need for Socialism to improve the life of the poor?