Animal Farm in Generation Joshua

Jan 05, 2011 Lydia rated it really liked it

*spoiler warning*
Okay, not sure if this counts as cheating, but I listened to it on audiobook. I really enjoyed it, and thought it interesting to read how power can change people. The pigs came into control because they were the smartest. Yet, the book seems to say, even the most brilliant people in the world can be distracted by hunger for power. Very interesting, and I was surprised and interested when I found that there was no happy ending. Or ending at all, for that matter. It leaves you wit ...more

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Oct 01, 2009 Tori rated it it was ok

Shelves: classics, for-genj-book-club

Written for a book club:
Picture a farm. Not the farm you would usually picture, with happy, content animals mulling around, fat pigs wallowing in their mud puddles, horses grazing acres of land, neighing occasionally. Not the farm where the farmer is out sowing his fields, talking to his animals. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a farm where the animals are treated poorly, and where a drunk and lazy farmer does very little work. I am talking about Manor Farm.
George Orwel Written for a book club:
Picture a farm. Not the farm you would usually picture, with happy, content animals mulling around, fat pigs wallowing in their mud puddles, horses grazing acres of land, neighing occasionally. Not the farm where the farmer is out sowing his fields, talking to his animals. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a farm where the animals are treated poorly, and where a drunk and lazy farmer does very little work. I am talking about Manor Farm.
George Orwell paints a shocking picture in his book Animal Farm. When the animals decide that the horrors on Manor Farm need to be stopped, they chase Mr. Jones, his wife, and the hired help off the farm, taking it for themselves. The animals rename Manor Farm. They call it Animal Farm instead and start working for themselves. They think that everything will be better from now on.
At the beginning it is. The pigs take charge since they are the smartest of the animals and start making great plans to improve upon the farm. Seven commandments, the new rules of the farm, and their new motto "Four legs good, two legs bad." are inscribed on the side of the barn. The animals take great care to memorize these, and some of them even learn to read.
The animals hold onto their farm against the humans who try to take it back. They harvest their own food, and life for them has become easy and enjoyable. But, the pigs start to take more and more power. First, they take extra food saying that they need it since they are smarter, and without them, the farm will fail. Next, they start to make laws. At first, the animals have a say in these laws, but gradually the pigs take even that away from them.
The animals are eventually forced to labor long and hard hours while the pigs watch and supervise the operations. Secretly, the pigs even start to change the rules that were painted on the barn, allowing themselves to live in luxury while their comrades starve and freeze.
Things become very dark and dismal on Animal Farm. The golden beginnings of their revolution are a fond memory that is slowly fading.
Right here, you open up a great opportunity to hook your reader into reading the book. After something like this, ask questions that the reader will want to learn the answer to and then tell them they need to read the book.
George Orwell's book is more than a story; it's a message. At the time it was written, the Russians were in the middle of a revolution. Orwell knew that if he came out and said that socialism was wrong, few people would listen to him. So he took it upon himself to write this eye opening allegory against the Russian Revolution. I doubt that he knew then that it would become a classic novel that would be read for years and years to come!
But Animal Farm didn't lose it's purpose with the end of the Russian Revolution. We can apply it to our lives today. Everywhere around us there are people who are willing to do what the pigs did. There are people, even in our government, who will slowly take away more and more away from us, so that they can have more. People who would take our country, so grand after its revolution from England, and bring it down so that there was nothing left but old forgotten dreams. This book is a warning against anyone who would do that in any country at any time period.
Animal Farm is a good read. It's interesting. It has a good plot and characters with characters with whom the reader can enjoy and love and relate. But what really takes it the next step is the meaning behind the story; the message that Soviet Russia isn't what it seemed. If you have any interest in Russian history, Socialism, Current Events, or if you are just looking for a good read, this is a book you should pick up. ...more

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