A Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell

This story revolves around the female protagonist, Dorothy Hare, and how she lives under the tyrannical shadow of her father even though she gets the chance to set free from this tedious life. The title itself presents women who lived under the shadows of their partner or father’s image and living according to their rules and regulations. The story takes place in a Suffolk country town called Knype Hill, where the spinster lives and is also believed to be the hometown of Orwell. The story encircles around a typical female character and how her life is mostly engaged in the same repetitive list of chores in the house enslaved to the whims and demands of her misanthropic father, the clergyman of the book’s title, but a sudden turn of events leads her far away from her familiar world.

Dorothy is a hard-working woman who goes up and beyond making sure that everything is running smoothly around the house and even the church which is in dire need of repair. She struggles to raise money, carefully avoiding the growing list of creditors to whom her aloof and pompous priestly father is indebted. Dorothy is an obedient daughter to Rector Hare and tries every means not to upset him. But as you go on reading, you get to know how dictatorial he is to Dorothy and as a whole his attitude is quite snobbish, bullying, cold, and insensitive to the world. He also exerts control on his daughter’s religious ideology which is seen by her deep riveting belief on Christianity to the point where we can witness Dorothy sticking pins in her arms when she senses the slightest hint of doubt in her religious convictions. She also seems to have devout conversations with her Lord, quotes scriptures, and maintains a conscience of the divine God’s will. You can almost feel pity for Dorothy’s dedication as she exhausts herself by tending to her father’s church and holding the entire congregation running.

But all her pious world comes crushing down when she reluctantly accepts the invitation to dinner at Mr. Warburton’s house on the pretext of meeting a great novelist. He was known as Knype Hill’s most dishonorable resident, a middle-aged bachelor who was an unabashed adulterer and atheist. This same man has been trying to seduce Dorothy for a long time as she was a young maiden who also seemed to take pleasure with the attention that Mr. Warburton showered by using suitable words. Her psychological collapse of bearing so much physical and mental pressure results in an episode of amnesia. When Dorothy wakes up nine days later in the middle of the busy streets of London, completely unaware of the scandal regarding her disappearance that was circulating back home in the front pages of a newspaper broadcasting the salacious account of Mrs. Semprill that Dorothy has eloped with Mr. Warburton.

In the following next chapters, we get to face Dorothy’s degrading journey that she undergoes in London comprising homelessness, famishment, landing in a prostitution home, close encounter with deathly situations, and drudgery. While she takes up different jobs with scanty income to live in this unknown city, Dorothy comes across different characters that make her aware of how the world is and how some people take advantage of a lone woman. Like the character of Nobby the lovable rogue, a crew of homeless people, and the grumpy owner of the private school. All these figures are pointed out by the author to bring forth the contemporary issues of education and economy.

Her journey ends where the story began, in the kitchen of the Suffolk rectory, making costumes for the next school play with a pot of glue melting on the stove. The only thing that changes is her loss in faith. She starts to pray for help, for guidance in her Unbelief that has developed, although its presence was from the beginning. Her loss of faith made her think the whole concept of God which we can feel from the very first of the story itself when she punishes herself for having second thoughts on her beliefs. As you can feel her dwindling belief, she makes herself come clean to the fact that life must go on. This inner turmoil doesn’t stop her from going back to the same life and living under the same domineering father.

Though the story has a good start, it ends abruptly without giving much to ponder. But there are various themes that come at play in the book, the most dominant ones that Orwell very craftily presents are economic hardships, women subjugation, and the education system which are mostly prevalent to date. Money is an important factor in the story as we get to see Dorothy doing every kind of meager jobs at home and surviving on whatever money her father gave her, while also taking up odd jobs in London to get through unemployment, poverty, and hunger. Women being subjected to oppression can be discerned by the protagonist who as a single woman had to face various hurdles which ranged from being manoeuvred by Mr. Warburton to facing discrimination when she was not allowed to stay alone in the luxurious hotel that compelled her to get access to a cheap one, later on ultimately leaving her sleeping on the streets. As for the education structure, the capitalistic benefits are seen as a matter of more concern for the administrators than the progress of the children. All these aspects are seen to be pervasive in modern society and seem like they will be the source of writing for many more authors in the coming generations. Orwell made sure whatever he had to say about the various human conditions in his writing put some radiance on the readers, so I would recommend the book as worth reading.