George Orwell's Animals

Buddies

Have you noticed just how intelligent animals can be, and how sometimes they have buddies, like these two that we watched for several years.  Perhaps George Orwell had noticed that when he wrote "Animal Farm."

But first, it was the word " Dystopia that prompted this blog.  A Dystopia is an imagined, deeply flawed society, where life is wretched, dehumanized, and fearful.  Two good examples of the word are the books of Aldous's "Brave New World" and George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four."

The description of dystopia includes acts of extreme control, forced labor, mass surveillance, wealth, worker exploitation, and environmental neglect.  Examples of dystopian behavior include wealth inequality, with stark differences between the rich and poor, increasing homelessness, financial instability, and social and economic dystopia. 

In addition to George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," and his many other works, he wrote "Animal Farm."  "Animal Farm" has been called a fairy story by Orwell himself, but "Animal Farm" has also been called satire, a masterpiece, and a view of the future.  The title of the book, as well as the characters being talking animals might cause you to assume that "Animal Farm" is a children's book.  It is not.

"Animal Farm" is a dystopian book in which the main characters are animals laboring in the field, forced by humans to live a dystopian life.  What Orwell did was use animals to address issues he saw happening to humans, whose abuse was often ignored.

Here is a taste of what Orwell's fusion of political and artistic purpose moved forward.  

The farmer for whom the animals worked was a drunk and sloppy farmer, and Old Major knew he had not long to live.  He decided to speak out about the things he had learned over the years.   "Let us face it:  Our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.  We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty.  No animals in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old.  No animal in England is free.  The life of an animal is misery and slavery:  that is the plain truth."

Old Major did not live to guide the animals to rebel, but he inspired them to proceed forward on their own.  The book goes forward to explain how they achieved independence and how they managed once they took charge.    

I hope some of you might find "Animal Farm" worth reading.  

As for why I used the picture that I did at the top of the blog, I believe it is proof that animals are smarter than we give them credit, and they have emotions that we overlook.  Orwell chose farm animals to represent how humans are able to respond to opportunity, just as the animals did.  Did it work?