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Animal Farm

George Orwell

Start date: March 1, 2014

Finish date: March 31, 2014

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Mar 04, 2014 Betsy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

George Orwell's book Animal Farm is a tale about a group of overburdened animals. Led by a pig called Napoleon, Clover, Boxer, Benjamin and others who rebelled against their drunken master Mr Jones and drove him off his farm. The triumphant animals now tries to run the farm by themselves and at first everyone demonstrated a willingness to work above and beyond, for the success of the farm.

The animals came up with a mantra and a set of commandments (All animals are equal...), which all the anima George Orwell's book Animal Farm is a tale about a group of overburdened animals. Led by a pig called Napoleon, Clover, Boxer, Benjamin and others who rebelled against their drunken master Mr Jones and drove him off his farm. The triumphant animals now tries to run the farm by themselves and at first everyone demonstrated a willingness to work above and beyond, for the success of the farm.

The animals came up with a mantra and a set of commandments (All animals are equal...), which all the animals must adhere to in order to keep the status quo. However, not too soon after, the pigs began to set themselves apart from the other animals because they regarded themselves as the more intelligent of all the animals.

They asserted themselves in the role of the elite and privileged who controlled the power and began to alter the original doctrine, to suit themselves. However, the less intelligent animals went along with it because they didn't know any better.

The animals in the story are a personification of the political climate at the time of Stalin's government, with Britain as their allies. It tells the story if a revolution that went horribly wrong and reminds us how fickle we are. At first there was one common cause and everyone were comrades in arms but allegiance switched when the power changed and enemies became allies.

This is a stark reminder of the nature of human beings. We start off with good ideals and intentions but eventually forget our principles and become just like the very people we fought valiantly against and the new regime is just as bad as their predecessor.

The story made me chuckle a few times but it also had me questioning myself. What would I do if I was in Benjamin's place? Would I put myself in harms way and speak up for the down trodden? Or would a pretend I didn't know what was going on? He took part in the rebellion and saw the dumbing down of the original doctrines over the years but chose to do nothing about it and was more concerned about self-preservation. I guess it was a case of hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. This is a very interesting story which I enjoyed reading. ...more

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