Orwell speaks of “all men and boys, no women” when describing the crowd of mourners. This shows a very patriarchal society, one in which such a grave event does not allow women to participate. The group described as a “little crowd” conveys the idea that a funeral, during that time, was not at all an event that held great importance and significance. As the early 1900’s were plagued with various incurable diseases and a lack of hygiene, it seems to be almost expected that a person did not live long. People “rise out of the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years”, living what seems a very pointless life. People have become immune to emotions felt when a friend dies, nobody “[noticing] that they are gone”.
From the beginning of the text, we are introduced to corpses, flies and mourners mentioned in very unsubtle ways. Immediately, we get a strong sense of negativity and sadness amongst the people. The sentences are long and droning, emphasizing the sorrow and misery. The constant reference to the earth and soil implies an unattractive dirtiness about the people, that they are relatively uncivilized. Similarly, the presence of flies evokes a dirty feel; that cleanliness is poor and people do not practice good hygiene. We get the same idea when Orwell mentions “flies [leaving] the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after” a corpse which had passed. The funeral procession being in such close proximity to a restaurant effectively creates a negative attitude towards the way which these people live.
The adjectives and metaphors that Orwell uses in the text create a strong image of the situation mentioned. Personification is also used on the flies to imply a greedy and selfish character, who leave what they were doing to follow something else that they want. By describing the burial ground as “a huge waste of hummocky earth” implies that the area in which these people bury their dead is a piece of land that can not be used for anything useful. By mentioning that there is “no gravestone, no name” where people are buried show a lack of identity, importance and status in society. They seem like a forgotten group of people. Due to the lack of identification, “no one can be certain where his own relatives are buried. By not having a coffin in which to bury their dead, is also a sign of the lack of identity. As earth is randomly dug up to bury someone, it is likely that a person’s bones may eventually be mixed up with someone else’s.
The way that Orwell structured this piece is very systematic. It describes logically the process of funerals and what the events that occur are. This allows readers to follow the story easily and to compare it with what they are more familiar with. The choice of words that the author uses also flows in a monotonous way throughout the piece as are no words which upset the tone. The text is thus able to retain the same melancholic atmosphere, without the expectancy of a climax any time soon. Orwell also questions if the people in the story are indeed human beings, implying a somewhat monstrous characteristic. They are so poor as to “own literally nothing except the rags they stand up in”. This adds to the monstrous effect, portraying them as some sort of animal.
This excerpt of Marrakech by George Orwell outlines what times were like in the early half of the 1900’s. Funerals at the time were unimportant events that were not worth remembering. Relatives and friends were lost but they were soon forgotten, giving an idea that it happened so often that people have become unaware of feelings associated with it. Comparing current times to that which Orwell describes, the difference is vast. Funerals are ceremonies now, events which everyone participates in, pledging to remember memories of the deceased. With society improving in all aspects, we do not expect to be as common as back then, thus making each death a tragic experience. Orwell’s piece has allowed people to take an insight into life less than a hundred years ago, a time period that is still recent.
