Here’s to finishing off another novel! Animal Farm was a not so boaring read and was rather humorous. However, on the surface it seemed like George Orwell was just being a clown, but in reality it was just a way to create his satirical novel. Satire is the use of humor, sarcasm, irony, or exaggeration to expose the flaws or vices of individuals, institutions, or groups (including their ideas, claims, and proposals). Orwell criticizes the ineffectiveness of totalitarianism because of the outcome they achieved after they overthrew the czar. He does so by utilizing situational irony. We think that since because the animals rule the farm, they will have a utopia. However, the pigs become dominant, and they have a utopia while the other animals suffer from misery. The animals overthrow Jones and his family but as their leadership forms, the reader sees direct relationship between the new leadership and the rule of Jones. By the end of the story, the pigs, or the new leaders of farm, have become exactly like the humans to the point where the animals can see no difference between the two. Therefore, only a worse situation came out of the revolution because the animals had worse living conditions than before. Orwell also criticizes the people who do not stand up for what they believe and follow the revolutionaries while ignoring the future outcomes of their actions. For example, the animals follow blindly after the pigs not realizing who would be the governing body and how they would get supplies they could not get from the farm like food and parts for the windmill. Another criticism is directed to the people who are power hungry like the pigs. They start as one of the group and work for the good of everyone, but their motivation slowly changes to focus on just them and how they can benefit in the end. Orwell, also criticizes the way individuals believe everything the authority tells them by using dramatic irony. We know that the pigs (Squealer) are changing the commandments, but the other animals are clueless. We know that Boxer was slaughtered while the other animals think he died in the veterinary clinic, even though he was given lots of expensive medicines that Napoleon supposedly paid for. We recognize that the pigs are slowly taking over little by little, while the other animals do not realize that every move the pigs make means less freedom for them. Ultimately, Orwell utilized different types of irony to criticize totalitarian government: absolute power corrupts absolutely. As in the novel, the three not so little pigs struggle to maintain absolute power, controlled every aspect of the farm is nearly impossible. They begin using propaganda and lying to the other animals of the farm in order to exact their power, but eventually everything falls apart. But this is not just true in the novel-but throughout history. Major rulers including Stalin and Hitler (we all know how that worked out…) tried to maintain complete control over their nations by poisoning the minds of their citizens through education and propaganda, but guess what? The USSR disintegrated and so did the Third Reich. So Orwell made a very valid statement through his satirical novel: absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you disagree, I challenge you to find me a true dictatorship or totalitarian government that worked out and is thriving.
I also read a book by George Orwell and I can definitely see where you are coming from. "1984" wasn't quite as humorous as "Animal Farm" was, according to you, but his satirical tone was still there. However, both books present his strong views on politics and current events. Sometimes book will be subtle when expressing views on such matters. But Orwell never says from being obvious and straightforward. His characters also show great similarities to real life people during the time the book was written. These patterns in his writing show that he uses his novels to fight battles in his own way.
ReplyDeleteI love reading anything that has to do with totalitarian society. I feel as though it is always interesting to see a different society from ours, through works of literature. I loved how you intertwined a summary of the novel while discussing how satire is incorporated in it. Overall, your blog post is cute just like always. Good work(:
ReplyDeleteI like your use of the first visual, in which it can give people who have not read Animal Farm some background information. Even though I read the same novel, it is always interesting to view the same subject from a different point of view. With the author’s and your opinion on the ineffectiveness of totalitarian government, I feel like it is always the outsider who can see the flaws more clearly than someone who is involved in the institution. Maybe there is a time that we are the animals in the farm, and it is not until we become the outsider that we can see the flaws within it.
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