Literature Review: Animal Farm
Date: 2.3.04
Title and year of publication: Animal Farm, published in 1945
Author: George Orwell. His other works include Burmese Days (1934), Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
Genre(s) & Theme: Fantasy fiction, a satire of political environment about communism and heroism leading the society to a so-called better world in the 1940’s. It’s about a group of pigs and animals leading the farm after expelling the human beings out of the farm, but finally it turned to a mess.
Main Characters: Napoleon, the leading pig in Animal Farm, played an authoritative and heroic role to bring the society into a ‘better’ world. Mr. and Mrs. Jones, the couple who own the Animal Farm and later they were expelled by the animals. Boxer is a powerful horse that is obedient to Napoleon because of his authority and wisdom. Snowball is another pig who was regarded to be leaguing with Mr. Jones and to ruin the farm by doing all kinds of nasty things, for example, pulling down the newly build windmill, stealing milk and eggs and so on. Other main characters include Clover, Major, Benjamin, Muriel, the cows, hens, cats and dogs.
Plot summary: The animal farm was once run by Mr. and Mrs. Jones, a couple running a farm in England, but later on they were expelled by the animals because the animals wanted to get rid of the slaughter from human beings, and they looked for freedom, communism of the society and the utopia where peace is their ultimate goal of developing their own farm and setting all kinds of rules among themselves. However, the running of farm was finally a failure.
Narrative style: Classical style – beginning-middle-end structure
Opening few pages / first chapter: “Man is the only real enemy we have” — a claim made by a mature pig, Major, in his speech to the animals in the first chapter of the book. Are human beings really the enemy of the animals because they slaughter them for food and clothes, or the animals are just imagining that human beings are their potential enemy, that they actually don’t exist? We may not be able to find the answer in this chapter, and that gives us reasons to continue reading the book and finding our own answer to this sentence. The use of ‘pigs’ as an intelligent creature to run the farm draws much of our attention — from the human beings’ perspective, pigs are stupid creatures ever in the world, but in the eyes of pigs, human beings are as stupid as other illiterate animals and nothing good for them because they are unproductive (in the sense that they don’t know producing milk, laying eggs and so on). Such conflict set up in the first chapter of this book and other lines of conflicts that come later have aroused readers’ interest to continue reading the story.
Setting: The scene of the story is set in the farm, a well-managed farm run by Mr. and Mrs. Jones. But once the animals have taken up the job after the rebellion, the farm was being ruined because they know little about how to manage the farm and produce goods efficiently and effectively by using machine and making good use of their different capabilities and ‘intelligence’ for farming. Such contrast or change in the first few chapters of the book laid good reasons for readers to believe why the farm was to be run by the human beings again.
Style: The author uses a lot of descriptions to tell the story rather than using a lot of dialogues to illustrate how the characters in the story react with each other and what the messages that this story conveys. The language of this story is easy, but the messages conveyed are complicated and heavily loaded on every sentence or description because the story involves lots of complicated humanity, ethnic and moral issues for us to think about. The descriptions of the story may have sometimes made the message complicated to some extent, yet it should be manageable for upper-intermediate readers.
Symbols: As fantasy fiction as it seems, the author uses a lot of figures to symbolize every little thing, from characters to the way that the characters are dressing, to reflect on the satire of the political environment in the 1940’s. Napoleon, an outstanding character in the story, symbolizes a heroic, authoritative leader who knows making use of knowledge to manipulate his comrades’ mind. To my interpretation, he symbolizes the role of today’s political man, like Saddam Hussein, who is a model for being worshipped as the God / Father of the country. The Animal Farm, on the other hand, symbolizes a newly developed society and a product of the revolution. It also symbolizes that this is their victory after their rebellion, but their inability to manage the farm and the conflict between the strong power (as what Napoleon and Squealer have) and other animals has told us that this would be a total failure in the end. The animals, on the other hand, symbolize people with different aptitudes, while the fierce dogs growling all the time to the animals symbolize the solders holding guns on their arms and shoulders, forcing people to listen to the leader. Windmill symbolizes new development in the modern world, but in fact the process of making such new development reflects on their stupidity and inability to develop their own society because it has been ruined for a few times with ease by the human’s bombs or weapons. Such windmill also reflects on how fragile and weak the animals can be – they can be defeated by human beings easily. The animals’ hardworking characteristics symbolize their expectation to the new society and future prospectus, their hope of freedom, dreams, their achievement and contribution to the society. That is why they work very hard every day and enjoy their hard work although they are going to suffer from starvation. The bed sheets symbolize human invention and their wisdom, or this can be a symbol of comfort in the human world. That the animals imitate the way people live is also a symbol implying that animals are the slaves of human beings – they don’t know how to invent something new on their own because they are illiterate. They have to rely on human beings to bring them good things, as what the ending of the story tells us.
Point of view: Third-person narrator. The narrator tells the whole story from an objective point of view.
Most impressive character: Napoleon. As Napoleon is playing an important role in generating such a big conflict between human beings and animals, the story won’t be an impressive one without his ‘leadership’, and the sarcasm of this story would not have been brought out without his presence.
Most impressive feature: The author tries to use ‘Animal Farm’ as the miniature of the real society in the 1940’s to reflect on how ridiculous the leaders were in that century, and by describing how the animals expel the human beings out of the farm and develop their own farm or utopia. The idea of using animals as characters to run the farm is an irony itself, and this has exactly expressed the essence of the story — Who is the ultimate leader in the world? Who is the most stupid creature? Who is governing who?
Least impressive aspect: Too many descriptions. Sometimes reading such long descriptions can be boring when the climax has not come yet, and descriptions may not get readers involved in the story very effectively, and they may lose track of what comes after when they have to do something else after reading just a few pages (just like what I have been doing – I tried hard to keep myself reading the story, but I usually did my reading on the train, and I found it a bit difficult to get involved in the story again).
The message the book conveys: This book is not just a fantasy fiction which is only the children’s cup of tea, but many issues brought up in the story are worthwhile for our thinking. The first chapter of the book has set the scene of a farm run by human beings, but the hard work of the farmers, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, is not satisfying to the animals. Their ‘usual’ way of running the farm has actually provoked a lot of disagreement and even rebellion from the animals. Are the animals strong? Maybe. Are they weak and fragile? Indeed. Throughout the years and decades of hard work developing the farm, sacrifice of animals’ lives is unavoidable to Napoleon and some other comrades, but their ignorance to their own weakness has blinded them to think that human beings have not contributed anything to the development of the society but consumption of their products. Their naïve way of thinking leads them to dream of fighting for individualism and communism — all animals are equal. But are they actually equal in having the same rights, sharing the same benefits that some animals have contributed? Some animals in the farm know a little English language, while some are just illiterate. Napoleon is so far the best language learner in the farm because he knows how to play tricks on the use of language especially when writing the seven commandments at a later stage to well fit in his will and so as not to violate any of these commandments to lose his authoritativeness among his comrades. But has he succeeded? The animals have to rely on the human beings to run the farm again and to avoid starvation finally.
Napoleon, when leading his comrades to run the farm, is successful in a sense to lead the animals to think the way he thinks. His wisdom by writing those seven commandments with his limited knowledge about English has already proved to his society that he is the best leader ever in the farm and nobody can replace his authoritativeness. His use of fierce dogs at the later stage of the story is a symbol that he needs some powerful things to control what the crowds think — they have to be obedient to him, otherwise they will suffer from the attack of those fierce dogs growling at them. Yet, what is interesting is all the animals are listening to him, and even worship him as the God, Father, or Master of the Comrades. Such a heroic character is always popular among the public, and we can still find such kind of characters in nowadays’ society or in our history — Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler. Napoleon’s mastery of language is a tool to manipulate the animals’ mind and thoughts to work as slaves, as if what nowadays’ political leaders to use their political status or authority to control the public’s mind. It might be commented as a way to develop a society, but it can also be a tragedy if it goes to the extreme.
There is really so much to say if I continue. But to sum up, it is a very nice fantasy fiction with heavy load of ethnical and moral messages bringing up to ‘force’ us to think deeply who we are, what we are doing and what our dreams are.
My rating of the book: 4. The plot is fantastic, and it has brought up a lot of issues for us to think deeply about. Issues such as animalism, rebellion, communism, terrorism by using violence, such as guns and fierce dogs, slavery of labour, making use of the language, a symbol of knowledge, as the tool to play tricks on the commandments to well fit in the leader’s needs while sacrificing the public for his own good are all worthwhile for our discussions. The mark deducted is the dominance of using a lot of long descriptions to tell the story, making it a bit dull and boring when the climax has not come yet. More dialogues are recommended to use if this story has to be edited again. But generally speaking, it is a wonderful fiction for adolescents to read to explore different issues about human beings.
Title and year of publication: Animal Farm, published in 1945
Author: George Orwell. His other works include Burmese Days (1934), Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
Genre(s) & Theme: Fantasy fiction, a satire of political environment about communism and heroism leading the society to a so-called better world in the 1940’s. It’s about a group of pigs and animals leading the farm after expelling the human beings out of the farm, but finally it turned to a mess.
Main Characters: Napoleon, the leading pig in Animal Farm, played an authoritative and heroic role to bring the society into a ‘better’ world. Mr. and Mrs. Jones, the couple who own the Animal Farm and later they were expelled by the animals. Boxer is a powerful horse that is obedient to Napoleon because of his authority and wisdom. Snowball is another pig who was regarded to be leaguing with Mr. Jones and to ruin the farm by doing all kinds of nasty things, for example, pulling down the newly build windmill, stealing milk and eggs and so on. Other main characters include Clover, Major, Benjamin, Muriel, the cows, hens, cats and dogs.
Plot summary: The animal farm was once run by Mr. and Mrs. Jones, a couple running a farm in England, but later on they were expelled by the animals because the animals wanted to get rid of the slaughter from human beings, and they looked for freedom, communism of the society and the utopia where peace is their ultimate goal of developing their own farm and setting all kinds of rules among themselves. However, the running of farm was finally a failure.
Narrative style: Classical style – beginning-middle-end structure
Opening few pages / first chapter: “Man is the only real enemy we have” — a claim made by a mature pig, Major, in his speech to the animals in the first chapter of the book. Are human beings really the enemy of the animals because they slaughter them for food and clothes, or the animals are just imagining that human beings are their potential enemy, that they actually don’t exist? We may not be able to find the answer in this chapter, and that gives us reasons to continue reading the book and finding our own answer to this sentence. The use of ‘pigs’ as an intelligent creature to run the farm draws much of our attention — from the human beings’ perspective, pigs are stupid creatures ever in the world, but in the eyes of pigs, human beings are as stupid as other illiterate animals and nothing good for them because they are unproductive (in the sense that they don’t know producing milk, laying eggs and so on). Such conflict set up in the first chapter of this book and other lines of conflicts that come later have aroused readers’ interest to continue reading the story.
Setting: The scene of the story is set in the farm, a well-managed farm run by Mr. and Mrs. Jones. But once the animals have taken up the job after the rebellion, the farm was being ruined because they know little about how to manage the farm and produce goods efficiently and effectively by using machine and making good use of their different capabilities and ‘intelligence’ for farming. Such contrast or change in the first few chapters of the book laid good reasons for readers to believe why the farm was to be run by the human beings again.
Style: The author uses a lot of descriptions to tell the story rather than using a lot of dialogues to illustrate how the characters in the story react with each other and what the messages that this story conveys. The language of this story is easy, but the messages conveyed are complicated and heavily loaded on every sentence or description because the story involves lots of complicated humanity, ethnic and moral issues for us to think about. The descriptions of the story may have sometimes made the message complicated to some extent, yet it should be manageable for upper-intermediate readers.
Symbols: As fantasy fiction as it seems, the author uses a lot of figures to symbolize every little thing, from characters to the way that the characters are dressing, to reflect on the satire of the political environment in the 1940’s. Napoleon, an outstanding character in the story, symbolizes a heroic, authoritative leader who knows making use of knowledge to manipulate his comrades’ mind. To my interpretation, he symbolizes the role of today’s political man, like Saddam Hussein, who is a model for being worshipped as the God / Father of the country. The Animal Farm, on the other hand, symbolizes a newly developed society and a product of the revolution. It also symbolizes that this is their victory after their rebellion, but their inability to manage the farm and the conflict between the strong power (as what Napoleon and Squealer have) and other animals has told us that this would be a total failure in the end. The animals, on the other hand, symbolize people with different aptitudes, while the fierce dogs growling all the time to the animals symbolize the solders holding guns on their arms and shoulders, forcing people to listen to the leader. Windmill symbolizes new development in the modern world, but in fact the process of making such new development reflects on their stupidity and inability to develop their own society because it has been ruined for a few times with ease by the human’s bombs or weapons. Such windmill also reflects on how fragile and weak the animals can be – they can be defeated by human beings easily. The animals’ hardworking characteristics symbolize their expectation to the new society and future prospectus, their hope of freedom, dreams, their achievement and contribution to the society. That is why they work very hard every day and enjoy their hard work although they are going to suffer from starvation. The bed sheets symbolize human invention and their wisdom, or this can be a symbol of comfort in the human world. That the animals imitate the way people live is also a symbol implying that animals are the slaves of human beings – they don’t know how to invent something new on their own because they are illiterate. They have to rely on human beings to bring them good things, as what the ending of the story tells us.
Point of view: Third-person narrator. The narrator tells the whole story from an objective point of view.
Most impressive character: Napoleon. As Napoleon is playing an important role in generating such a big conflict between human beings and animals, the story won’t be an impressive one without his ‘leadership’, and the sarcasm of this story would not have been brought out without his presence.
Most impressive feature: The author tries to use ‘Animal Farm’ as the miniature of the real society in the 1940’s to reflect on how ridiculous the leaders were in that century, and by describing how the animals expel the human beings out of the farm and develop their own farm or utopia. The idea of using animals as characters to run the farm is an irony itself, and this has exactly expressed the essence of the story — Who is the ultimate leader in the world? Who is the most stupid creature? Who is governing who?
Least impressive aspect: Too many descriptions. Sometimes reading such long descriptions can be boring when the climax has not come yet, and descriptions may not get readers involved in the story very effectively, and they may lose track of what comes after when they have to do something else after reading just a few pages (just like what I have been doing – I tried hard to keep myself reading the story, but I usually did my reading on the train, and I found it a bit difficult to get involved in the story again).
The message the book conveys: This book is not just a fantasy fiction which is only the children’s cup of tea, but many issues brought up in the story are worthwhile for our thinking. The first chapter of the book has set the scene of a farm run by human beings, but the hard work of the farmers, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, is not satisfying to the animals. Their ‘usual’ way of running the farm has actually provoked a lot of disagreement and even rebellion from the animals. Are the animals strong? Maybe. Are they weak and fragile? Indeed. Throughout the years and decades of hard work developing the farm, sacrifice of animals’ lives is unavoidable to Napoleon and some other comrades, but their ignorance to their own weakness has blinded them to think that human beings have not contributed anything to the development of the society but consumption of their products. Their naïve way of thinking leads them to dream of fighting for individualism and communism — all animals are equal. But are they actually equal in having the same rights, sharing the same benefits that some animals have contributed? Some animals in the farm know a little English language, while some are just illiterate. Napoleon is so far the best language learner in the farm because he knows how to play tricks on the use of language especially when writing the seven commandments at a later stage to well fit in his will and so as not to violate any of these commandments to lose his authoritativeness among his comrades. But has he succeeded? The animals have to rely on the human beings to run the farm again and to avoid starvation finally.
Napoleon, when leading his comrades to run the farm, is successful in a sense to lead the animals to think the way he thinks. His wisdom by writing those seven commandments with his limited knowledge about English has already proved to his society that he is the best leader ever in the farm and nobody can replace his authoritativeness. His use of fierce dogs at the later stage of the story is a symbol that he needs some powerful things to control what the crowds think — they have to be obedient to him, otherwise they will suffer from the attack of those fierce dogs growling at them. Yet, what is interesting is all the animals are listening to him, and even worship him as the God, Father, or Master of the Comrades. Such a heroic character is always popular among the public, and we can still find such kind of characters in nowadays’ society or in our history — Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler. Napoleon’s mastery of language is a tool to manipulate the animals’ mind and thoughts to work as slaves, as if what nowadays’ political leaders to use their political status or authority to control the public’s mind. It might be commented as a way to develop a society, but it can also be a tragedy if it goes to the extreme.
There is really so much to say if I continue. But to sum up, it is a very nice fantasy fiction with heavy load of ethnical and moral messages bringing up to ‘force’ us to think deeply who we are, what we are doing and what our dreams are.
My rating of the book: 4. The plot is fantastic, and it has brought up a lot of issues for us to think deeply about. Issues such as animalism, rebellion, communism, terrorism by using violence, such as guns and fierce dogs, slavery of labour, making use of the language, a symbol of knowledge, as the tool to play tricks on the commandments to well fit in the leader’s needs while sacrificing the public for his own good are all worthwhile for our discussions. The mark deducted is the dominance of using a lot of long descriptions to tell the story, making it a bit dull and boring when the climax has not come yet. More dialogues are recommended to use if this story has to be edited again. But generally speaking, it is a wonderful fiction for adolescents to read to explore different issues about human beings.
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