Throughout all of Orwell’s essays, imagery is found as it plays a significant role in evoking feelings in the readers and creating visual representations in their minds. In ‘The Spike,’ the diction used portrays the imagery of the dehumanization of the less fortunate, which is a common topic in most of Orwell’s essays.
The Spike is a homeless shelter, where Orwell stayed in for a couple of days. At a spike, the homeless or ‘tramps,’ were provided with a place to sleep, food and water to wash themselves. Even though these necessities were provided for them, the Spike wasn’t a benign place to stay with, since the treatment was bitter and it was lead by the ‘Tramp Major’. “He was a devil, everyone agreed, a tartar, a tyrant, a bawling, blasphemous, uncharitable dog.” The strong word choice used, “devil,” “a tartar,” “a tyrant,” “blasphemous, uncharitable dog,”…show more content… The Spike provided them water to wash themselves, but it was first come first serve. “I gave one glance at the black scum on top of the water, and decided to go dirty for the day.” The imagery used here is of how not only the water is dirty, but filthy. The diction, “black scum,” creates the imagery, because it emphasizes that even though the water is unclean, it is disgustingly dirty, that Orwell would prefer to stay how he is, then ‘washing’ himself and becoming sick and dirtier. At a homeless shelter, one would think that the poor people are being well taken cared of and that they are not suffering as much as they would from staying in the streets, but at The Spike, there is no difference. The use of the word choice “black scum,” suggests that in the Spike or at the streets, the living is the same, because when the tramps where in the streets, the only water accessible to them was the sewage water or the water from the rain that had collected all kind of wastes from the roads and