LITERARY

CRITICISM

ANIMAL
Submitted FARM
by:
YARANON, Louise Joy S.
I. An introduction to the authors, including the author’s title and place of work, and
some indication of which the authors is, are.

Noted as a political and cultural commentator, as well as an accomplished novelist,

Orwell is among the most widely-admired English-language essayists of the 20th
century. He is best known for two novels written towards the end of his life: Nineteen
Eighty-Four and Animal Farm

Eric Blair was born on June 25, 1903 to an Anglo-Indian family in Motihari, Bihar, in
India, during the period when India was part of the British Empire under the British
Raj. There Blair's father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked for the opium department
of the Civil Service. His mother, Ida Mabel Blair, brought him to Britain at the age of
one. He did not see his father again until 1907, when Richard visited England for
three months before leaving again. Eric had an older sister named Marjorie, and a
younger sister named Avril. He would later describe his family's background as "lower-
upper-middle class."

At the age of six, Blair was sent to a small Anglican parish school in Henley-on-
Thames, which his sister had attended before him. He never wrote of his recollections
of it, but he must have impressed the teachers very favourably, for two years later he
was recommended to the headmaster of one of the most successful preparatory
schools in England at the time: St Cyprian's School, in Eastbourne, Sussex. Blair
attended St Cyprian's on a scholarship that allowed his parents to pay only half of the
usual fees. Many years later, he would recall his time at St Cyprian's with biting
resentment in the essay "Such, Such Were the Joys", describing the stifling limits
placed on his development by the Warden. "They were my benefactors", writes Orwell,
"sacrificing financial gain in order that the cleverest might bring academic accolades to
the school". "Our brains were a gold-mine in which he had sunk money, and the
dividends must be squeezed out of us". However, in his time at St Cyprians, the young
Blair successfully earned scholarships to both Wellington College and Eton College.

After some time at Wellington, Blair moved to Eton, where he was a King's Scholar
from 1917 to 1921. Later in life he wrote that he had been "relatively happy" at Eton,
which allowed its students considerable independence, but also that he ceased doing
serious work after arriving there. Reports of his academic performance at Eton vary;
some assert that he was a poor student, while others claim the contrary. He was
clearly disliked by some of his teachers, who resented what they perceived as
disrespect for their authority. During his time at the school, Blair made lifetime
friendships with a number of future British intellectuals such as Cyril Connolly, the
future editor of the Horizon magazine, in which many of Orwell's most famous Essays
were originally published.

After Blair finished his studies at Eton, his family could not pay for university and he
had no prospect of a scholarship. So in 1922 he joined the Indian Imperial Police in
Burma. He came to hate imperialism, returned to England in 1927 and resigned,
determined to become a writer. He later used his Burmese experiences for the novel
Shooting an Elephant" (1936).

In 1928, he moved to Paris, where his aunt lived, hoping to make a living as a
freelance writer. But his lack of success forced him into menial jobs – which he later
described in his first book, Down and Out In Paris and London (1933), although there
is no indication that he had the book in mind at the time.

Ill and broke, he moved back to England in 1929, using his parents' house in
Southwold, Suffolk, as a base. Writing what became Burmese Days, he made frequent
forays into tramping as part of what had by now become a book project on the life of
the underclass. Meanwhile, he became a regular contributor to John Middleton
Murry's New Adelphi magazine.

Blair completed Down and Out in 1932, and it was published early the next year while
he was working briefly as a schoolteacher at a private school in Hayes, Middlesex.
Blair became George Orwell just before Down and Out was published, adopting the
pen-name of George Orwell. It is unknown exactly why he chose this name. He knew
and liked the River Orwell in Suffolk and apparently found the plainness of the first
name George attractive. It is believed by some that he chose George by way of Saint
George, among other things the patron saint of England.

Orwell drew on his teaching experiences for the novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying
(1936).

In early 1936, Orwell was commissioned by Victor Gollancz of the Left Book Club to
write an account of life in the depressed areas of northern England, which appeared in
1937 as The Road To Wigan Pier.

Soon after completing his research for the book, Orwell married Eileen
O'Shaughnessy.

In December 1936, Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republican side in the
Spanish Civil War against Francisco Franco's Nationalist uprising. He went as part of
the Independent Labour Party contingent, a group of some 25 Britons who joined the
militia of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), a revolutionary socialist
party with which the ILP was allied. The POUM, along with the radical wing of the
anarcho-syndicalist CNT (the dominant force on the left in Catalonia), believed that
Franco could be defeated only if the working class in the Republic overthrew
capitalism- a position fundamentally at odds with that of the Spanish Communist
Party and its allies, which argued for a coalition with bourgeois parties to defeat the
Nationalists. By his own admission, Orwell joined the POUM rather than the
communist-run International Brigades by chance- but his experiences, in particular
his witnessing the communist suppression of the POUM in May 1937, made him
sympathetic towards the POUM line and turned him into a lifelong anti-Stalinist.
During his military service, Orwell was shot through the neck and was lucky to
survive. His book Homage To Catalonia describes his experiences in Spain. To
recuperate from his injuries, he spent six months in Morocco, described in his essay
'Marrakech".

Back in Britain, Orwell supported himself by writing freelance reviews, mainly for the
New English Weekly (until he broke with it over its pacifism in 1940) and then mostly
for Time and Tide. He joined the Home Guard soon after the war began (and was later
awarded the Defence medal).

In 1941 Orwell took a job at the BBC Eastern Service, mostly working on programmes
to gain Indian and East Asian support for Britain's war efforts. He was well aware that
he was shaping propaganda, and wrote that he felt like "an orange that's been trodden
on by a very dirty boot."

Despite the good pay, he resigned in 1943 to become literary editor of Tribune, the
left-wing weekly then edited by Aneurin Bevan and Jon Kimche. Orwell was on the
staff until early 1945, contributing a regular column titled "As I Please."

In 1944, Orwell finished his anti-Stalinist allegory Animal Farm, which was published
the following year with great critical and popular success. The royalties from Animal
Farm were to provide Orwell with a comfortable income for the first time in his adult
life.

While Animal Farm was at the printer, Orwell left Tribune to become (briefly) a war
correspondent for Observer. He was a close friend of the Observer's editor/owner,
David Astor, and his ideas had a strong influence on Astor's editorial policies. (Astor,
who died in 2001, is buried in the grave next to Orwell.)

Orwell returned from Europe in spring 1945, shortly after his wife died during an
operation (they had recently adopted a baby boy, Richard Horatio Blair, who was born
in May 1944).

For the next three years Orwell mixed journalistic work, mainly for Tribune, the
Observer and the Manchester Evening News, though he also contributed to many
small-circulation political and literary magazines, with writing his best-known work,
Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was published in 1949.

Having requested burial in accordance with the Anglican rite, he was interred in All
Saints' Churchyard, Sutton Courtenay, and Oxford shire with the simple epitaph: Here
lies Eric Arthur Blair, born June 25th, 1903, died January 21st, 1950.

One of the revealing quotations that caught my attention was "All Animals Are Equal,
But Some Animals Are More Equal than Others” Through allegorical means Animal
Farm presents a scathing satire on government. The events of the story, though
particularly referring to the French Revolution, suggest elements of almost all
totalitarian governments. The animals of Manor Farm, feeling suppressed by the
master, Mr. Jones, rebel and set up their own government. They develop a
constitution, consisting of seven commandments written on the barn wall, by which
their government is to function. The pigs become the natural leaders, the animal state
establishes its position in the community, several wars are waged, and the animals
become adjusted to a new life. However, a transformation takes place; ideals are
rationalized away; group welfare is sacrificed to individual ambitions. Kept in
ignorance, deceived and exploited, the common animals are reduced to a state of
misery and permissive slavery. As the principles of government change, the
commandments are conveniently altered to accommodate the will of the leaders. To
the commandment, "no animal shall sleep in a bed," for instance, is added the words,
"with sheets." Finally the commandments are reduced to only one, it also having been
altered: anti-Stalinist intellectuals of his acquaintance claimed that the parable of
Animal Farm meant that revolution always ended badly for the underdog, “hence to
hell with it and hail the status quo.” He himself read the book as applying solely to
Russia and not making any larger statement about the philosophy of revolution. “I’ve
been impressed with how many leftists I know make this criticism quite independently
of each other—impressed because it didn’t occur to me when reading the book and
still doesn’t seem correct to me.

II. Summary of the intended purpose of the book and how it contributes for improving
academic life and operations and to the discipline of college planning generally

When I search about what is the intended purpose of this book it says that George
Orwell wrote the book during the war as a cautionary fable in order to expose the
seriousness of the dangers posed by Stalinism and totalitarian government. Orwell
faced several obstacles in getting the novel published. First, he was putting forward an
anti-Stalin book during a time when Western support for the Soviet Union was still
high due to its support in Allied victories against Germany. Second, Orwell was not yet
the literary star he would quickly become. For those reasons, Animal Farm appeared
only at the war’s end, during the same month that the United States dropped atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The tragically violent events of the war set the
stage well for Orwell’s fictional manifesto against totalitarianism.

In my own opinion the main purpose of this book is that we citizens, we should open
our eyes wide. We need to be aware of what our government’s decision and what are
the plans they making or what they’re doing. Not all, but we all know that some of
government officials are often full of greed when it comes to power and of course
money. they don’t care about the citizens. Yes we can say that they care but they only
do that when they need something to us. People should not only sit back and accept
everything the government throws at them. They, we should stand up for their rights
and needs, even if it seems very difficult to change anything.

We must be the eye for the others to be able to see what is wrong and what is right,
ears to hear the opinion of others that the people in higher class can’t hear not
because they are deaf but because they avoid it or they don’t want to hear it. And
mouth to speak out what they want to say and to speak out their own feelings and
opinion.

III. Description of the way the author approaches his/her topic

First, silliness. Silliness Reported Seriously Orwell, a political court jester, pokes holes
in the balloon of socialist attitudes throughout. At one point, the animals vote on the
question, "Are rats comrades?" Only the dogs and cat disagree, having "voted on both
sides." Orwell reports this childish nonsense in clipped, balanced sentences, befitting
the minutes in a meeting. Later, the leaders argue over Snowball, a pivotal founder
denounced as a traitor: "I could show you in his own writing, if you were able to read
it." We are left to wonder how a pig puts pen to paper at all.

Second, his words. Orwell's dialogue also hints at his satirical intent. The animals
speak in crisp, brief sentences of slavish devotion: "I will work harder!" and "Napoleon
is always right." The leaders' dialogue is entirely party slogans: "Forward, comrades!"
and "All animals should go naked." When a leader speaks at length, Orwell -- whose
stylistic rules demand that writers omit needless words -- devotes entire paragraphs to
the speech to demonstrate how little of it has real content. His syntactical style implies
that the more words are used, the more they are misused.

Third, Darker Satire, Darker Messages. The politically correct aspects of Orwell's style
darken as the takeover of Animal Farm becomes more sinister; like a good party
member, he reports all lies as truth. The pigs become the Stalin-like ruling class,
taking all the food because "the importance of keeping pigs in good health was
obvious." Orwell begins the animal rebellion with the "Seven Commandments" of
Animal Farm, the last being "all animals are equal." By novel's end, he has verbally
shaved the commandments down to one corrupt, equivocal message: " but some
animals are more equal than others."
And Last Manifesto into Maniacal Dream. In the final chapter, pigs have become
human: They transact business, walk on two legs, and carry whips. Orwell's dazzling
ending underlines this change and evokes fairy-tale horror straight out of "Beauty and
the Beast." The other animals spy on a business conference and "looked from pig to
man and from man to pig impossible to say which was which." This visionary moment
breaks the straightforward style Orwell has used thus far: The manifesto becomes a
cautionary nightmare.

IV. Comparison with the earlier or similar books in the field to place the book in the
existing literature.

V. An evaluation of the book merits, usefulness, and special contributions along with
short coming you think are necessary to point out.

The book is defiantly targeted to a younger audience and I believe that it was intended
to teach us important life lessons involving power. Giving good examples of how it can
change you as a person of even as a society. It is a natural instinct to want to possess
power but as famous quotation in Spiderman with power comes great responsibilities.
Napoleon is a perfect example of how power can overwhelm someone and how it can
be used to take advantage of someone who is of a lower class. Much like everyone else
I believe that this book links directly to Joseph Stalin and the Russian Revolution. It
would be very hard to argue that it does not because of how closely linked they are
manipulates the other animals in many ways; one of the worst cases is with Boxer. He
was very loyal to Napoleon, but he was not treated fairly. ”All animals are equal, but
some animals are more equal than others." this is quote in my mind verified any
doubts that this book was linked to Joseph Stalin. Also the following quote depicted a
direct link to people in my opinion “If you have your lower animals to contend with,”
He said, “we have our lower classes!”

VI.

1. How can character behavior, narrative events, and/or images can be explained in
terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind?

2. How might the work be seen as a critique of capitalism, imperialism or classicism?

that is in what ways the text reveal, and invite us to condemn oppressive
socioeconomic forces? If a wok criticizes or invites us to criticize oppressive
socioeconomic forces, then it may be aid to have Marxist agenda.

3. How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning? How exactly does the
text’s indeterminacy function as a stimulus to interpretation?