Animal Farm
This week, I re-read Animal Farm by George Orwell. In case you were suspicious of my re-reading antics, I’m only re-reading the books that I deem worthy of my time. The reason for my re-reading of Animal Farm? I think that George Orwell told the story of the Soviet Union totalitarianism. I never even paid any attention to any political subjects until now. Animal Farm opened my eyes about the different governments that the world has experienced it, and it has made me grateful that I live in a democratic country were people have rights and aren’t told what to do and separated by social ranks. Animal Farm talks about a farm of animals, who are being mistreated by the farm owner Mr. Jones, so they decide to rebel. After successfully driving the owner of the farm out, they decide to create a government. As the story progresses, the pigs declare themselves the leaders of the farm and slowly begin to turn into the people that they were trying to escape from. The farm is eventually under the rule of a sort of dictator—a pig by the name of Napoleon.
After reading the first few chapters of the book, I felt proud that the animals decided to stand up for themselves and not be pushed around anymore by Mr. Jones. I was inspired by Old Major’s speech about how one day, the rebellion would come and I felt sad when he passed away. However, during the rest of the book, I started feeling more and more bitter toward the pigs, because it felt like they were starting to take over everything, which they eventually did. Napoleon started to really get on my nerves during the last part of the book, just because he was taking over everything and believed that since he was more intelligent, he was superior to the other animals. The end of the book really surprised me, because I was hoping for a rebellion from the animals, but in the end, Napoleon is still the tyrant who rules the farm, and the animals were still treated like slaves.
This book teaches many important lessons, the most important of them is that things are easier said then done. Old Major’s original speech talked about how animals would be treated equally on the farm, but like I said, it was easier said then done. Slowly and slowly, the animals began organizing themselves into a social hierarchy. For example, the pigs, since they were more intelligent, were on the top of this social ranking. Another more depressing lesson that I learned from Animal Farm was that people will probably never be looked at as equals. The animals tried to treat each other like equals, but in the end, the pigs were the superior ones and the rest of them were treated like subordinates. I believe that if we are to be ruled by a ruler at all, then we will never be all considered equal because some people are obviously going to think that they were better then others. One can still see the effects of prejudice and lack of equality just be looking around when they’re outside. The minority races are still seen to be given less job opportunities and less social status. An even more eye-opening lesson that I learned from Animal Farm is that life isn’t fair, no matter how much you want it to be. One isn’t always going to get what one wants, and that’s just how life is going to be.
One thing that surprised me in this book was that the animals of the farm allowed the pigs to take the dominant position in the farm. I expected them to rebel like they did to Mr. Jones, but instead, they just went on with their laborious lives. At first, I didn’t even expect the pigs to turn into tyrants, but at the very end of the book, I was surprised that I didn’t notice the signs that the pigs were becoming the self-proclaimed dictators of the farm. One of the lines that surprised me in the book was, “We pigs should sleep in the farm, because we are the hardest workers and also the smartest, so we deserve it.“, or something along the lines of that. This was one of the tell-tale signs that the pigs were taking over the farm. Also, another thing that surprised me was that the pigs were so successful in brainwashing the animals. In the beginning, the animals had set laws that they should all abide by, but when Napoleon did something that broke one of the laws, he erased them, and said that it was never there. I was also surprised that the animals believed all of the ‘crap’ (please excuse the language) that Napoleon’s public speaker, Squealer, preached. I couldn’t understand why the animals, who were so strong in the beginning of the book, were so willing to accept all the things that Squealer told them.
Animal Farm is probably the greatest book I have ever read in the thirteen years that I have been on this planet. Most would consider that an overstatement, but I consider it true. Animal Farm opened my eyes to the hardships that our world has faced in the past centuries and decades, and made me realize that I’ve been in a sort of ‘bubble’ all this time. I didn’t realize that our world was so troubled and corrupt. So, Animal Farm is indeed, the greatest book that I have ever read.