Animal Farm

Animal Farm by George Orwell was first published in 1945. I finished it this morning after two days of excited reading - it's a short book, I just read really slowly. The point is, it's a very exciting book, an easy read, straight-forward, and genius, of course, since it is pretty difficult to write a book about talking animals that is respected enough to be taught in all sadness to students all over the world. This can be greatly attributed to the historical factor of this book and how clearly it etches out the complexities of communism and dictatorship for all ages. So characters and history. Summary first.

So the animals of The Manor Farm rebel against Mr. Jones, their master, in a call to fight human oppression over animals. The rebellion succeeds, the farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the animals set up a communistic society. The pigs, however, begin acting as organizers for the farm, and throughout the rest of the book quickly gain more and more power through a careful regimentation of fear, pride, secrecy, speeches and special terminology. In the end, the farm is renamed the Manor Farm, the animals fail to distinguish the pigs from the humans, and oppression has again become very apparent in the farm.

The characters, of course, are great, especially because of how they represent different contributors to the development and failure of communism in Russia. Here's a list.

Napoleon (pig): Stalin
Snowball (pig): Trotsky/Lenin - scapegoat
Squealer (pig): Molotov
Boxer (horse): peasants
Major (pig): Marx
Nine Dogs: KGB
Mollie (horse): bourgeois
Mr. Jones (human): Tsar Nicholas II
Sheep: propaganda
Mr. Pilkington: The West
Moses: The Church
Other Animals: oppressed workers

So everyone plays a part though some more than others. The same thing about the animals aside from the pigs is that they don't recognize their own strength while the pigs over-exaggerate it. Each animal has it's own characteristic, for example the lazy cat that always turns the other way. Then there is my favorite character Benjamin. Benjamin doesn't specifically represent any one of the real contributors to the rise of Stalin, but he is part of the working class. Benjamin is the cynical character. He is introduced as cynical and sticks with it all the way through. The tragic thing is that Benjamin is probably the wisest character in the book, even more than the pigs. He doesn't act on anything though, and it really comes to bite at him when Boxer gets taken away. Boxer is the only animal that Benjamin is devoted to, and Benjamin cares for him. He alone knows that he is being sent to the knacker's (where they slaughter animals) instead of the doctor's, but only gets everyone's attention when it's too late. Benjamin grows more morose after this, maybe out of guilt. I guess i like Benjamin because he is philosophical. He answers questions in cryptic ways, saying things like "Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey." So he sees the big picture. He sees the long term effects and motivations, though being the cynic, he has no motivations. Everything will always be full of suffering, according to him. He is most like the writer, I think, not Orwell, that is, but all writers. He is distanced, all-knowing and observant. He never acts though. It's all very tragic. He remembers everything. He starts old and ends older.


The book illustrates the rise of the USSR very broadly, bringing philosophy of government into, ironically, more realistic terms - after reading this book, you start seeing clearly the circular effects of government, the dictatorship, oppression, revolution, communism, democracy, corruption, republic, monarchy, dictatorship. Sure it's not a history text book, everything's in code, and you can never know the specificities of what happened in Russia, but you do get a feel for it like you might miss in a text book. It's really most helpful when you know the basics of what happened in real life. History is like the greatest and most complex novel ever written, and if you've read that, Animal Farm is like reading another take on it, so when the milk disappears the first time, the readers ought to think that this is the beginning of the rise of Stalin instead of being oblivious like the animals. Of course if you hadn't heard of Stalin and all of it before, you could read it as a perfectly natural story, and unlike a text book, this story does not speak much in retrospect, so it actually is like it is happening then and there, so though I cannot experience what it is like reading Animal Farm first, I'd imagine it'd seem like more of a surprise and less like a tragedy. It is like being in Clover's (a horse) perspective as opposed to Benjamin's. I was in Benjamin's because Benjamin, arguably, knew what was going to happen, and saw everything that was happening with a broad eye. He saw things coldly, as though they were inevitable. That is the bleakest way to read it; pity is inflicted when events of a tragedy are seen in retrospect. Inevitability is one of the most bleakest of concepts, anyways.

The story does make a point of stressing inevitability. It comes slowly. That's the great thing. There are these Seven Commandments that the animals came up with right after their rebellion. The pigs come up with them and write them on the wall with everyone's agreement, and slowly through the book, these commandments are broken. They are altered too. For example, one of the rules is no drinking alcohol. Then the pigs drink and like it. They actually end up making a brewery; it's a really absurd book. So then the animals notice that the words "in excess" are added to the commandment "No Animal shall drink alcohol." The same sort of thing happens to all the commandments through the book, along with many other shows of the rise of Napoleon, or Stalin. The animals are oblivious to it too. It's really tragic. There's the manipulation of memories going on, there's talk about mysterious documents that prove things and science, there's the poetry and music composed to promote Napoleon, and there's the violence. Orwell writes in a way that is so straight-forward that the things he is saying seem obvious. The obvious quality then contributes to the inevitability of the pattern of the story, of the impossibility of communism and inequality of beings.

The foreshadowing, for example, is really plain and obvious. When Napoleon takes the puppies away, every reader could tell that they're going to come back violent and loyal to Napoleon.The way that the birth and disappearance are described so abruptly makes it clear that they were mentioned for a reason, so they mus come back to make a difference. There's a part where the pigs go out with whips to supervise, near the end. This is after the animals see the pigs walking on their hind legs. The walking on the hind legs really makes you gasp. It's the most shocking part of the book and disgustingly strange. After this, nothing can be shocking, and the animals seem to feel the same way. They are not shocked when the whips come out. It seems inevitable to have the strange occur, the wrong to be said as a right, and for cruelty to be done without opposition.

When the farm is renamed the Manor Farm, Napoleon makes the toast with the men and Clover sees the pigs and men as the same, that is inevitable as well. The toast contradicted absolutely everything that Major had said in the very beginning, as Stalin had contradicted every one of Marx's peaceful teachings. Napoleon speaks of common interests with man, the end of comradeship, prosperity from cooperation with men, and a blatant inequality between animals. Napoleon has to be making a point to use Major's exact words in negation, or else Orwell is just writing so that the irony is neat and clearly tragic. Orwell makes everything very clear. The circle had closed, and there is a very dark feeling that goes around, not so much in sympathy for the animals for there has been the entire book for that, or disgust at the pigs and human for there had been time for that too. The dark feeling is that of how what had been expected actually happened. It's not that either, actually. It's that which we feared would happen, we dreaded, finally came and nobody did anything to avoid it. There's an eeriness when you spend an entire book thinking of the ending which you already know and you finally reach it. Such cannot be felt from reading a history text book. These are not facts, these are philosophies and emotions, such that can be received only broadly, and even better, fictitiously, symbolically. That is the reason for repeating history through a story about barnyard animals. To get a basic idea across.

Finally, you have to question what is to come next. Does Clover see that the pigs are evil? Of course, but will she be able to rouse a rebellion? It cannot be led y the pigs as the last one was, so who next? The dogs? Will they make it worse? Or do we believe Benjamin when he says that no matter what happens, suffering will be present? Even if that is true, is that reason enough to stand aside and watch? Put a peasant in power and see how good the world will be. I think that was from A Farewell To Arms. Or some part of it. The book is not a call against communism, for it was good while it lasted. It is not a call against much at all, for it all seems inevitable, and so cannot be helped. It is a call against cynicism though, I think. So do something. Once you step back a bit, and the story starts clearing up, you start to notice that Benjamin may have been the final antagonist. It seems like the pigs or the humans at first, but when you consider the inevitability of it, it comes down to the one that let it happen. The story is of cycles, of dictatorship, revolution, communism, corruption, dictatorship, and soon enough, revolution will reignite. It leaves you with a cold feeling. The bleakness of inevitability is similar, I think, to the fear of nonexistence. What is so scary about not existing? Nothing but the fact that nothing will ever happen again, you will just be gone, an idea that is impossible to understand. It's terrifying. Inevitability is the same way. When you have no way to change things, no way for things to fail, there is no way to succeed, or even lose. You don't feel happiness, and if you're in sadness, then only you could make yourself snap out of it because nothing is changing. It's very terrible. It is like nothing happening ever again.

This is what makes the chill that covers the ending of this book, so similar to the beginning. When the cycle ends and a new one begins, you realize what routine this world is trapped in, and how every act of rebellion, even at realizing this, could be but another phase in the larger fabric of compliance muffling actual movement. You need absolute awareness to be able to make a difference. You need to know what is to happen and then do something. Benjamin could have done this. He saw more than the rest, and as he began the book old, he ends that way too, more wise than ever. He alone remembers what it was like before the rebellion. He alone knows how things were, are, and will be if they are left to the inevitable. Then why not do something? If he did something, would it make a difference? Is it just another thread for the fabric? Maybe, maybe not, but in terms of dignity, faith, and hope, it does make a difference. Benjamin is old and with guilt. Boxer is dead. Conscience does make cowards of us all, no? Benjamin is a coward, or is evil in his despair. He cannot take blame for the oppression of his comrades, but he was a bystander. Bystanders can change history.This book is a satire on communism, a bite at totalitarianism, but more than anything, a mockery of the inevitability of humanity, (after all, this book is not in the slightest, about animals - it is about us humans and our actions) and a fight against cynicism, the cold and those who live long lives for the act of breathing.

Read folks, read.

"And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect unity , perfect comradeship in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades."

"As soon as they were weened Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would make himself responsible for their education.He took them up into a loft which could only be reached by a ladder from the harness-room, and there kept them in such seclusion that the rest of the farm should forget their existence."

"Only Clover remained, and Benjamin, who lay down at Boxer's side, and, without speaking, kept the flies off him with his long tail."

"There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran: ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS. After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters."