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Animal Farm SparkNotes Literature Guide: Volume 16 (SparkNotes Literature Guide Series)

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Old Major relates a dream that he had the previous night, of a world in which animals live without the tyranny of men: they are free, happy, well fed, and treated with dignity. He urges the animals to do everything they can to make this dream a reality and exhorts them to overthrow the humans who purport to own them. The animals can succeed in their rebellion only if they first achieve a complete solidarity or “perfect comradeship” of all of the animals against the humans, and if they resist the false notion spread by humans that animals and humans share common interests. A brief conversation arises in which the animals debate the status of rats as comrades. Mr. Whymper– A man hired by Napoleon to act as the liaison between Animal Farm and human society. At first, he acquires necessities that cannot be produced on the farm, such as dog biscuits and paraffin wax, but later he procures luxuries like alcohol for the pigs. A solo version, adapted and performed by Guy Masterson, premiered at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in January 1995 and has toured worldwide since. [84] [85] The piglets– Hinted to be the children of Napoleon and are the first generation of animals subjugated to his idea of animal inequality. Orwell, George (2013). Peter Davison (ed.). George Orwell: A Life in Letters. W. W. Norton & Co. pp.231–. ISBN 978-0-87140-462-6.

Minimus– A poetic pig who writes the second national anthem of Animal Farm after the singing of "Beasts of England" is banned; later he composes a poem "Comrade Napoleon". Literary theorist John Rodden compares him to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, [19] who eulogized Lenin and the Soviet Union, although Mayakovsky neither wrote anthems nor praised Stalin in his poems. The other animals from the farm, observing this through the window, can no longer tell which are the pigs and which are the men, because Napoleon and the other pigs are behaving so much like men now. Falling actionSquealer emerges to justify Napoleon’s actions with skillful but duplicitous reinterpretations of Animalist principles; Napoleon continues to consolidate his power, eliminating his enemies and reinforcing his status as supreme leader; the common animals continue to obey the pigs, hoping for a better future. Major Thematic Topics: animalism; mob rule; virtue; religion as a drug; distortion of reality; death; false allegiance; political corruption According to Masha Gessen, the metamorphosis of the eighth commandment ("some animals are more equal") was likely inspired by similar change of a party line which declared all Soviet people equal: the Russian nation and language suddenly became "first among equals" in official CPSU publications in 1936–1937. [82] Adaptations [ edit ] Stage productions [ edit ]Narrator Animal Farm is the only work by Orwell in which the author does not appear conspicuously as a narrator or major character; it is the least overtly personal of all of his writings. The anonymous narrator of the story is almost a nonentity, notable for no individual idiosyncrasies or biases. Boxer’s motto, in response to the increased labors on Animal Farm, of “I will work harder” is an exact echo of the immigrant Jurgis Rudkus’s motto, in response to financial problems, in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.Whereas Boxer exerts himself for the common good, as his socialist society dictates he must, Jurgis exerts himself for his own good, as his capitalist society dictates he must. Both possess a blind faith that the key to happiness lies in conforming to the existing political-economic system. Committed to socialism, Orwell would almost certainly have read The Jungle,which, published in its entirety in 1906, was a searing indictment of capitalism and galvanized the American socialist movement. His appropriation of Jurgis’s motto for Boxer implicitly links the oppression of capitalism with that of totalitarian communism, as, in each case, the state wholly ignores the suffering of those who strive to be virtuous and work within the system. The cows– Unnamed. The cows are enticed into the revolution by promises that their milk will not be stolen but can be used to raise their calves. Their milk is then stolen by the pigs, who learn to milk them. The milk is stirred into the pigs' mash every day, while the other animals are denied such luxuries. These revolutionaries replaced the aristocratic rule which had been a feature of Russian society for centuries with a new political system: Communism, whereby everyone was equal. Everyone works, but everyone benefits equally from the results of that work. Josef Stalin became leader of Communist Russia, or the Soviet Union, in the early 1920s. Leab, Daniel J. (2007). Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm. Penn State Press. ISBN 978-0-271-02978-8.

Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian Revolution and the formation of a Communist regime in Russia (as the Soviet Union). We offer a fuller definition of allegory in a separate post, but the key thing is that, although it was subtitled A Fairy Story, Orwell’s novella is far from being a straightforward tale for children. It’s also political allegory, and even satire. Orwell, George (2006). Peter Hobley Davison (ed.). The Lost Orwell: Being a Supplement to The Complete Works of George Orwell. Timewell. ISBN 978-1-85725-214-9. Animal Farm is an allegory, which is a story in which concrete and specific characters and situations stand for other characters and situations so as to make a point about them. The main action of Animal Farm stands for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the early years of the Soviet Union. Animalism is really communism. Manor Farm is allegorical of Russia, and the farmer Mr. Jones is the Russian Czar. Old Major stands for either Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin, and the pig named Snowball represents the intellectual revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Napoleon stands for Stalin, while the dogs are his secret police. The horse Boxer stands in for the proletariat, or working class.

The setting of Animal Farm is a dystopia, which is an imagined world that is far worse than our own, as opposed to a utopia, which is an ideal place or state. Other dystopian novels include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Orwell's own 1984. But the other animals can’t read them, so they have to take his word for it. Squealer’s lie about the van that comes to take Boxer away (he claims it’s going to the vet, but it’s clear that Boxer is really being taken away to be slaughtered) is another such example.

As members of the revolutionary era in Russia began to expect to receive some compensation for all of the terrible sacrifices they had made in the revolution and in the war with Germany, they became painfully aware of the full extent of their betrayal at the hands of the Stalinist leadership. The quality of life for the average citizen continued to decline, even as the ruling class grew ever larger and consumed ever more luxuries. Orwell uses Boxer’s death as a searing indictment of such totalitarian rule, and his death points sadly and bitterly to the downfall of Animal Farm. Eliot, Valery (6 January 1969). "T.S. Eliot and Animal Farm: Reasons for Rejection". The Times. UK. Archived from the original on 15 October 2009 . Retrieved 8 April 2009.

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Fay, Laurel E. (2000). Shostakovich: a life. Internet Archive. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513438-4. Similarly, the music in the novel, starting with "Beasts of England" and the later anthems, parallels " The Internationale" and its adoption and repudiation by the Soviet authorities as the anthem of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s. [81] Bynum, Helen (2012). Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis. Oxford University Press. p.xiii. ISBN 978-0-19954205-5. In its simplicity, this new, brief slogan is all too easy to understand and becomes ingrained in even the most dull-witted of minds, minds that cannot think critically about how the slogan, while seeming to galvanize the animals’ crusade for freedom, actually enables the pigs to institute their own oppressive regime. The animals themselves may be partially responsible for this power imbalance: on the whole, they show little true initiative to learn—the dogs have no interest in reading anything but the Seven Commandments, and Benjamin decides not to put his ample reading skills to use.

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