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Flattering Myths Revered in Common

There is a point in Gustav Hasford's 'The Short-timers' in which Hasford tries to explain the dominance of the "pogue" - "non-infantry, non-combat soldiers, staff, and other rear-echelon or support units" - by writing, "Pogues survive not by courage or ability but by cultivated inertia, flattering myths revered in common, and an ignorance as hard as iron." But we all have our "flattering myths revered in common." As Mark Twain once said (and as we're reminded Ad nauseam during election cycles), "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Orwell's primary thematic concern in 'Down and Out in Paris and London' would seem to be just that: that the qualities and characterizations we assign to the "down and out," ("we" being anyone not in that condition), indeed, to poverty itself, are, by and large, completely arbitrary and mostly useless. As a matter of craft, we could do worse than to look at how Orwell subverts our ignorance and assumptions, often in the simplest and most unexpected ways.

One of the ways Orwell accomplishes this is to introduce a question with a brief exchange of dialogue. For example, when the narrator is told, while working as a plongeur in Paris, that he must "shave that moustache off at once!" he is, initially, baffled. Writes Orwell: "On the way home I asked Boris what this meant. He shrugged his shoulders. 'You must do what he says, mon ami. No one in the hotel wears a moustache, except the cooks. I should have thought you would have noticed it. Reason? There is no reason. It is the custom.'" Only now, having eased us through the door via dialogue, and fun, jaunty dialogue at that, does Orwell turn to exposition, elaborating that there are indeed "reasons" for the custom - waiters are superior to plongeurs and they do not wear moustaches, why then should plongeurs? Cooks do wear moustaches, how then to appear superior to waiters if waiters wear moustaches as well? In other words, "There is no reason" - not a real one, anyway, beyond trivia and appearances. It's just that, well, it is the custom.

Elsewhere Orwell uses the notion of the "smart hotel" itself to subvert preconceptions - the general preconception being that the smarter the hotel, the more expensive and fashionable, the better its service in terms of hosting, food, decorum, and so forth, and this would seem true at first glance as they only hire the best personnel, and drive

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