The Beastly Truth of Society
Thursday, January 21, 2016
In life, people blame society for the mistakes and consequences made in the world. In other words, they blame society for being judgmental, for being to critical towards them and forcing them to abide to laws that are hypocritical in itself. However, what they fail to realize is that when they blame society, they're blaming themselves. In the work of literature, Animal Farm by George Orwell, the author uses satire to breakdown the political ideology of Communism and misuse of power by Stalin during the Russian Revolution.
In the work, a group of farm animals stage a rebellion against the often drunk farm owner, Mr. Jones, and work to establish their own sort of 'government' and laws on the Manor Farm. As a result, the three pigs known as Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer are justified as the most intelligent animals on the farm and become the head leaders. Consequently enough, they create their own laws, also known as the 'Seven Commandments,' which the other animals are told to follow:
I. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
II. Whatever foes upon four legs, or has wing, is a friend.
III. No animal shall wear clothes.
IV. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
V. No animal shall drink alcohol.
VI. No animal shall kill any other animal.
VII. All animals are equal.
Trusting the pigs that this is the best for them, the animals follow their laws. However as the novel goes on. it is noticeable that some of these laws are easily being broken, especially by three pigs. Napoleon who represents Stalin, is becoming tyrannical and starts to consolidate his power through the use of military force or his nine dogs to instill fear amongst the other animals. His ultimate goal, much like Stalin during the Russian Revolution is to obtain complete dictatorship while also bringing down his opponent Trotsky, but in this case Snowball. His counterpart is well liked, intelligent and passionate in what he does and knows, trying to instill a imperialistic rule or equal rule to the other animals.
Animal Farm as it goes on sees changes within the characters and the realistic truth that society is beastly. In other words, society tends to mislead others through the use of misconceptions and greed just of obtain what they find is favorable to their understandings and knowledge. Napoleon, representing Stalin, tries to instill a 'fair' and 'equal' rule over the animals after kicking out Snowball within the novel, but fails to do so when he discovers that they're starting to question his rule. He becomes hypocritical too as he breaks a few of the Seven Commandments such as having Mr. Whymper represent the Manor Farm for instance.
Nothing much is known after since I've only read half the book, but I hope you understand how this story is going to play out. Until next time!
3 comments
I immensely enjoyed reading your blog yet again. You always start off with something creative and different which causes someone to keep reading! The intro and the fact that you listed the animals Seven Commandments gave me an understanding of what the book is about , even though I have already read it ! However , i wanted to know more about what you thought about the book. In addition in your next few posts consider adding more analysis and being more creative all the way throughout your blog post to keep the reader interested. Great job and make sure you keep writing!
ReplyDeleteI just love how detailed you were, which allowed the ones who have not read the novel to have a great understanding of it and even be interested in reading it! Listing the commandments definitely was a great idea. However I believe if you included your thoughts about them or even provided a few examples on how they were broken and of course your thoughts about the book itself. As a writer, including or presenting your feelings about a work of literature is super important and that as well encourage other writers to either read more or mostly understand you as a writer and where you're coming from. Again, loved it! Write soon!!
ReplyDeleteYour blog was extremely insightful and I admired how you stated the seven commandments in your blog, so that your readers who have never read the book knows what you are talking about and referring too. You also connected "Animal Farm" to Russia (Joseph Stalin), but it was different from your other peers because it had your touch on it (the way you word things). This was brilliantly written as usual. I am looking forward to your next post.
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