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Animal Farm, published in 1945, is widely considered to be one of
the cornerstones of George Orwell's literary legacy. Though it is a
much shorter and somewhat less developed account of totalitarianism
than his later work 1984, muted only by its fairy-tale qualities, it is
no less frightening in presenting the dangers of blindly following a
leader in a political climate of absolute power.
Orwell presents to us the story of Manor Farm, run by the drunk,
laggard farmer, Mr. Jones. The animals of this farm are under the
poorly organized rule of their proprietor, mistreated and underfed. One
night, the animals, rallied by a speech from one of the senior animals
of the farm, the pig, Old Major, decide that the only way to lead a
better existence is to rebel - more precisely, revolt - against Jones,
thereby pulling themselves from the yoke of human rule and enjoying for
themselves the fruits of their own labor. Old Major dies shortly after
his portentous speech and two pigs - Napoleon and Snowball - arise from
the vacuum to successfully lead the animals in triumph over Jones
chasing him and all other humans off the farm. With the renamed Animal
Farm under new leadership, committees are formed along with a party
flag, party slogans and songs. The pigs assume the top of the political
hierarchy and set up rule over the other "lower" animals convincing
them of the porcine superiority for planning, oversight of the farm and
their new government. Both Napoleon and Snowball are young and
intelligent, possessing a lust more for individual power than true
equanimity among the other animals. However, it is shown that Napoleon
maintains the greater cunning of the two. In the midst of the senior
pigs' personal rivalries, political cohesion among the farm's animal
populous also splinters. Napoleon ousts Snowball in the midst of this
division forever using political machinations to denounce him as a type
of "Emmanuel Goldstein" figure, later used by Orwell as the agent
provocateur of Big Brother in 1984.
Orwell's use of names in this story serves as a form of irony to
guide the narrative in such a way as to present a foreshadowing of the
totalitarianism that is to come to Animal Farm. One can see that
Napoleon will surely be the despotic lead pig when all is said and
done. True to form, Napoleon assassinates all political rivals and
manages to break every covenant of the animal community protected by a
pack of dogs he has raised and indoctrinated with his own political
world-view. Squealer, the silver-tongued pig spokesperson for
Napoleon's camp, evokes the popular connotation of a conniving liar,
pushing Napoleon's agenda with poems created by the party's propaganda
minister, Minimus. The main worker horse, Boxer, is a symbol of the
everyman worker on the farm and promotes an image of someone willing to
fight. In fact, Boxer does fight but selflessly for the party of the
pigs and what he believes to be the good of the community of animals,
forever chanting the mantras, "I will work harder" and "Napoleon is
always right." In Boxer, Orwell's irony is most biting. When Boxer lays
mortally injured from overwork just before his retirement, Napoleon
tells the other animals that he will be taken to town for medical
treatment and is instead picked up by a horse slaughterer. This event
summarizes the moral lesson Orwell wants his readers to understand in
Animal Farm, that is, never to sacrifice a life of individual liberty
unto a centralized power for when replicated in like forfeiture, it is
likely to be perverted into a form of control over the masses. Tied to
the lesson of Boxer, the ultimate irony is perhaps found in the donkey
Benjamin, who surely is the only one with any horse-sense (if the pun
can be pardoned) in the whole affair. How fitting that the ass should
reign as the supreme intellect in Orwell's world. Be that as it may,
Orwell's symbol for the intellectual in society remains taciturn in
those times of the most dire distress, perhaps the author's way of
telling the reader of the dangers of waiting for death to come into
one's own backyard before reacting to it; a condition exemplified all
too well in the political climate of World War II when the work was
written.
In the spirit of true repression, Orwell has Napoleon keeping the
tools of education from the masses he rules over. Only a select few of
the animals are educated enough to read their own laws in the form of
Seven Commandments printed on the side of the barn, which are artfully
modified in instances when it is most convenient for Napoleon to adapt
them to his personal lusts and political indiscretions. Ultimately,
when Napoleon and his cronies have become utterly scrofulous and
achieved unchallenged control, the commandments are done away with
entirely and replaced by the slogan, "All animals are created equal but
some animals are created more equal than others."
By the time the worker animals realize their economy has been one of
more guns and less butter, it is too late for them to consider taking
back any semblance of equality. Most animals on the farm were content
to be in the role of coolie; to let the pigs rule and gain more power
over their lives until the community fell into the iron grip of
Napoleon and his cabinet. By the time the animals are alerted to the
incongruity of the poor quality of their lives and the gluttony of the
pigs, we find Napoleon and the other pigs going against all of the
communal tenets of the Animal Farm as originally conceived by Old
Major. Instead of denouncing the vile life of man and exalting the
animal with "Four legs good, two legs bad", the pigs emulate man's
existence to the point they finally choose to walk on their hind legs
in physical imitation; the new party slogan, replete with whip in hand,
is now "Four legs good, two legs better!" Their physiognomy even more
closely resembles power-thirsty men who have fattened in such a way as
to emulate the gluttony of despots of the time. When Orwell speaks of
the many chins of the pigs as they sit around the table playing cards
in Jones' old farmhouse with the very men they professed to hate, there
is more than a tongue-in-cheek resemblance to men like Göring and
Mussolini.
Even though many have previously read Animal Farm as part of a core
requirement for a high school or college curriculum, a book such as
this is always worth rereading at a later point in life as a reminder
on how historical events shape an understanding of any lived-in
political climate. It was Orwell's hope that such foresight could be
utilized as an aid for future citizens of the world to pinpoint
potential sources of governmental malignancy. Animal Farm can be read
independent of other sources to glean Orwell's message, for certain,
but is better employed to supplement 1984, which, as an augmented
exposition of his theme, paints a more realistic depiction of the
social philosophy and political dangers he attempted to portray.
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