Much like Geeta's story, the one of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London also provides some of the most graphic depictions of inner city life at the lowest, poorest levels. The reader is drowned in descriptions of the filth, bugs, disease, and desperation that those below the poverty line contend with on a daily basis. There is an unprecedented amount of desperation and dirt oozing out of these individuals. An important concept to consider is why anyone would remain in the city if the living conditions were as such. The answer to this question lies in what the city has to offer that a rural life does not: opportunity. Just as we see the Puerto Ricans in West Side Story choosing to immigrate to an inner city, we see the narrator of Orwell's writing choose city life for the opportunity it had to offer. In this narrator's case, there lies a heavy focus on finding a job to make ends meet. The city offers a much higher chance of landing a job than if one chose to bumble around the rural country-side instead.
The journey is as important as the destination, and we see the narrator take a few side trips during his life. One particularly graphic side trip involves shelling out precious monies for a guide who leads him to a whorehouse. It is in this establishment that the reader gets his first glimpse at the hell the city has to offer the women. Having paid his fee, the narrator darts into the room and begins forcing himself on the very young woman held there for his use. “She have a whimper of fright. With a bound I was beside the bed . . . I seized her by the throat - tight! She struggled, she began to cry out for mercy, but I held her fast” (13). The passage only continues to the graphic rape of the young woman. Although ultimately the narrator feels regret and revulsion, he allowed the audience to view the true horrors to which women of the inner city life are subject. Even today, fear of rape or attack lies in the hearts of all women who live in the city, especially at the lowest levels where desperation is a disgusting catalyst for despicable and lowly actions.
Seeing as how this account falls so soon into the text, one might feel inclined to feel that all women in the city will eventually be condemned to a powerless fate due to men. However, small and even passing references bring forth a small vindication for some women. After the narrator joins forces with his old friend, Boris, the latter feels that his fate lies in the hands of his former mistresses. His is quite confident that he “will only have to ask, and they will help” (29) him in his destitute. With this statement, Boris quickly and surely hands back some of the power stolen from women in the city. Instead of being at the whims of men, women suddenly become the very thing that Boris feels will pull him out of the trenches of poverty and hunger. Although not vindication for the appalling situations of some of the women, it is still a small victory.
Later in the story, the women once again get the last laugh, this time at the expense of the narrator himself. The chance of starvation looming largely, the narrator's jog down this path is temporarily suspended thanks to the good graces of a woman named Maria. Although poor herself, this woman of the city is still able to score the food that the narrator himself could not. Desperate enough to pray to Sainte Eloise, the narrator is also finally humble enough to want to pay thanks in the form of lighting a candle in her honor. At this point in the tale, the women get the greatest laugh once the true identity of “Sainte Eloise” is revealed. The idea to appeal to the saint was sparked by an old painting on the narrator's current residence. Once he points this out to Maria, she cannot contain her laughter when she informs the narrator that the saint in the picture was really Suzanne May, “the famous prostitute of the Empire” (88). The kudos must go to the deceased prostitute as well as Maria for their ability to accomplish what the narrator and Boris cannot. While this victory is not equal to the horrors situated on the women of the streets of the city, it adds up to something greater.
In conclusion, men and women in the inner cities face danger and despair regularly. Although these are a result of living in the city and are induced because of things like territoriality, the drawbacks are oft offset by advantages, such as a greater opportunity of success. However, it is the women who ultimately face the greatest danger and are subjected to the worst fears and treatment. Seemingly on the surface, men control the lives and futures of the women. However, if one takes the opportunity to look deeper, it becomes apparent that the women have the ability to make their mark, even with the odds stacked against them. In most literature that displays the despair of women in inner cities at the poverty level, there are also displays of the power of these very same women. This leaves the audience to wonder, what would women of a higher social and economic class be able to accomplish in the cities around the world?
