Allegory, Animal Farm Powerpoint Notes

What is Allegory?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpxMcJ3-MTE

Animal Farm
Introduction

Animal Farm is the most famous by far of all twentieth-century political allegories. Its account of a group of barnyard animals who revolt against their vicious human master, only to submit to a tyranny erected by their own kind
A group of farm animals band together after realizing their master Mr. Jones mistreats them by giving almost nothing in return for the work they have done for him.
One night a prize-winning boar, Old Major, gathers the animals and describes a vision he had of a new world where animals live in harmony without mistreatment and overworking. The animals are inspired and believe they can achieve this ideal world.
Old Major dies soon after, unable to communicate more about his ideal world. Three pigs, Snowball, Napoleon and Squealer, take his ideas and put them into a philosophical doctrine. They name this political philosophy Animalism.
After Mr. Jones forgets to feed the animals in his drunken stupor, they decide enough is enough. After a battle, the animals run Mr. Jones and his farmhands off the land and redub the farm “Animal Farm.”

The goal of Animal Farm was to create an egalitarian society where all were equal in worth and social status, but the principles of animalism quickly changed.

Orwell examines the deceitful and powerful use of rhetoric and language by those within power.

Manor Farm was once owned by aristocrats – lords of the manor. Hence its name. Before the ‘Rebellion’ it has become the property of a gentleman farmer, who is in fact, a drunken, philistine brute, lower, morally, than the animals he owns and exploits.
The clever pigs make the political analysis that the animals slave, and are harvested, for the sole benefit of their owner. What right has Jones to exploit them, their labour and their very flesh on his table? They draw up a political code – ‘Animalism’ (ch. 2). Its slogans are ‘All Animals Are Equal’ (ch. 2) and ‘Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad’ (ch. 3).
The pigs mastermind a successful uprising, calling it a ‘Rebellion’. After much bloodshed the animals take over the farm. Power then has its universal effect. Having ruthlessly secured their leadership, the pigs install a totalitarian state, complete with canine police, thought control, liquidation and purges. They reserve for themselves creature comforts and owners’ privileges.
For the lower animals, life is, if anything, even harder than it was under Jones:

But if there were hardships to be borne, they were partly offset by the fact that life nowadays had a greater dignity than it had had before. There were more songs, more speeches, more processions. Napoleon had commanded that once a week there should be held something called a Spontaneous Demonstration, the object of which was to celebrate the struggles and triumphs of Animal Farm. (ch. 9)

Published in 1945, “Animal Farm” was a subtle attack on Stalinism in Russia. Napoleon portrays Stalin and his violent takeover through bullying tactics and brute force. Snowball, Napoleon’s adversary, is based on Leon Trotsky, an eloquent orator who is run out of Animal Farm. Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party, deported from Russia and murdered by Stalin’s order.

It was written to specifically focus on Stalin’s regime, but in modern times still comments on many political structures around the world and the citizens’ ability to blindly follow corrupt leadership and declare that leadership is what they actually wanted.

A revolution can quickly be torn apart by ignorance and greed. Orwell shows how revolution can be as dangerous as a corrupt government and end with the same government they rebelled against. This sort of rebellion is dangerous because it uses words like “brotherhood” and “equality” to enslave and use the citizens.

Like all the best parables (Jesus Christ’s par excellence) Animal Farm is richly enigmatic. Is Orwell only thinking about Stalinist Russia of the 1930s and 1940s? Or is Animal Farm a statement about human society everywhere and at all times?

Socialists, particularly, have objected violently to Orwell’s depiction of the working classes as irredeemably ‘lower’ animals. Within Orwell’s animal kingdom there is no real equality – despite the proclamations of ‘Animalism’ (‘All Animals Are Equal’) – and no potential for class mobility among the lower orders: the sheep will always bray slogans mindlessly, the chickens will always run round in circles clucking senselessly, the horses (principally Boxer) will always work brainlessly, the dogs will always savage their fellow animals ruthlessly. Only the pigs have higher mentality and a capacity to change? Into what? So many Joneses. So it was, so it will be. Forever.

The cold war is over, but Animal Farm continues to sell. Posterity has passed its verdict. This is a book which contains perennially valid truths.

Young people should be able to recognize similarities between the animal leaders and politicians today. The novel also demonstrates how language can be used to control minds. Since teenagers are the target not only of the educational system itself but also of advertising, the music industry, etc., they should be interested in exploring how language can control thought and behavior.

The novel can be taught collaboratively with the history department as an allegory of the Russian Revolution, allowing students to draw parallels between actual events and people and the imaginary ones created by Orwell. The novel can also be taught as a beast fable following the study of shorter fables by Aesop and James Thurber. Examining the work as a satirical comment on the corrupting influence of power, students should be able to trace the corruption of the pigs and perhaps relate their findings to individuals in our own government who have succumbed to the lure of power at any cost and by any means.

Teenagers are especially influenced by peer pressure. In exploring the skillful use of peer pressure (along with the threat of death later in the book) used by the pigs to keep the other animals in line, the students can analyze their own lives and discover how peer pressure controls their actions.

What are the qualities of a good leader?

What are good reasons as to why a government might be overthrown?

SCAPEGOATING ALLOWS UNSCRUPULOUS PEOPLE TO TAKE POWER

“Only get rid of Man” proclaims Old Major, and the animals could be “rich and free.” For those of us with more than a decade or two under our belts, the sentiment is far too familiar. “Only get rid of the Jews,” “the blacks,” “the immigrants.” The list of scapegoats is a long one. Throughout the book, the pigs in charge keep the animals angry at humans through lies and persuasion. If the animals in the book learned that humans weren’t so different or evil, there would be no reason to fight. If humans in the real world could learn that lesson about other humans, there would be a lot less warfare.

EDUCATION CAN BE USED AS A WEAPON

From Chapter 3 onward there is a divide between “the more intelligent animals” like the pigs, and the “stupidity and apathy” of the other animals like horses and sheep. The divide that Orwell depicts creates a system where knowledge is power, and those without it are kept ignorant so that they can focus on labor. Later in the book, Boxer discusses his impending retirement, and how “it would be the first time that he had had leisure to study and improve his mind.” As Boxer was forced to work instead of study, we was kept subordinate until his labor was no longer useful, and no longer a threat to the pigs' power.

RELIGION IS ALL RIGHT, SO LONG AS IT DOESN'T HAVE MUCH POWER

In one of the symbols that even a 12-year-old can understand, Moses, a tame raven, comes to represent religion (see what Orwell did there?). His only role in the story is talking to the animals about Sugarcandy Mountain, a magical place that he claims animals go to when they die. The ruling pigs assert that the heavenly place doesn’t exist — yet they let Moses remain on the farm without working and they provide him with food and beer. The pigs, as did the soviet leaders, understood that religion is important to their citizens — but that it should be constrained for the sake of their own unchallenged power. Soviet Communism used Russian Orthodox Christianity to mollify people during rapid — often terrifying — challenges to the status quo, but ensured that religious leaders were killed or exiled if they strayed from the party line.

THE WINDMILL SYMBOLIZES UNENDING WORK ON UNENDING GOALS

Much of the book is devoted to the animal’s goal of building a windmill, an allegory for both of Stalin's five-year plans to change the USSR's economic landscape. It inspires everything that they do and makes up for all that they lack. As Orwell writes, “They had had a hard year … but the windmill compensated for everything.” The construction takes years, and once it’s finally completed Napoleon has them begin work on another one. As did the Soviet bureaucrats, the farm centers on windmill construction fastidiously — making it their primary goal about all others. The windmill is a distant goal that keeps the animals inspired enough to work hard without complaint, a situation that Napoleon is conscious of and exploits.

Napoleon uses his power to sleep with a lot of women

Depending on what grade you took Sex Ed in, this small element of the book may have gone over your braces-laden head. One autumn after the revolution, Orwell describes how the four sows on the farm had littered at the same time, and states “the young pigs were piebald, and as Napoleon was the only boar on the farm, it was possible to guess at their parentage.” In case you’re still not getting it — he slept with all the sows, because that’s what male leaders tend to do (with females of their own species, obviously). Later on, Orwell refers to one of the pigs as Napoleon’s “favourite sow,” confirming that his sex habit has not diminished with age.

 

The story is pretty anti-booze

The whole animal revolution begins because the farmer gets drunk and forgets to feed the animals, and the book ends with a drunken brawl between pigs and humans. Once the pigs discover alcohol towards the middle of the story, things take a turn for the worst. The low point comes when Napoleon sends Boxer, the horse (and the closest thing to the novel’s protagonist), to be killed for his parts. The pigs then use the money to buy a case of whiskey and get wasted. As it turns out, the Soviet Union wasn't too cool with booze either, leading to various efforts to curb consumption throughout the 20s, 50s, and 80s.