A Clergyman's Daughter

Summary

A Clergyman's Daughter is George Orwell's second novel, the story of Dorothy Hare, the devout, overworked daughter of a selfish, impoverished Anglican rector in the Suffolk town of Knype Hill. Dorothy runs the household, struggles with debts to tradesmen, visits the poor, makes costumes for church pageants, and disciplines herself with pins pressed into her arm when her mind wanders in prayer. Her only friend is Mr. Warburton, a middle-aged, unbelieving bachelor who tries to seduce her. One night, exhausted, she suffers a sudden loss of memory and finds herself in London with no idea who she is. She falls in with a group of young tramps and goes with them to the hop fields of Kent, where she works as a hop-picker, a vivid section drawn from Orwell's own experience. Meanwhile a scandal-mongering local gossip spreads the rumor that she has eloped with Warburton, and the newspapers take it up. When her memory returns, her father, ashamed, does not help her; she sleeps rough in Trafalgar Square in a chapter written as a play, then becomes a teacher at a squalid private school run by the money-grubbing Mrs. Creevy, where she tries to teach real learning to girls whose parents want only good handwriting and respectability, and is dismissed. Finally her cousin arranges her return home. Warburton proposes marriage on the train, warning her of a lonely life, but she refuses. Dorothy has lost her faith during her ordeal, but she returns to her duties, making costumes for the church play, and the novel ends with her concluding that faith and its absence matter less than doing the work at hand, though the book leaves the reader with a sense of loss. Orwell later disliked the novel. For Christian readers it raises honest questions about faith, duty and the meaning of a life of service when belief seems to disappear. As the 1935 novel stays in US copyright through 2030, Dorothy's story is told here in summary only.

Top Lessons

• Faith and duty

  Dorothy loses her faith but keeps serving.

• Education

  Mrs. Creevy cares only for appearances and fees, never for what the children actually learn.

• Gossip

  Mrs. Semprill's lies ruin Dorothy's reputation.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Dorothy suffers sudden amnesia, and later hunger and exposure.

• Chapter 2

  Dorothy's sudden amnesia and its aftermath.