Animal Farm— A Rant

All my friends have been besieged by my absolute passion for this book, but their exhaustion over this conversational topic will not prevent me from writing a blog about it. You cannot stop me. 

I've been changing a lot, and that includes my growing comfort with talking about politics. Before, I just avoided political conversations; the media is so polarized, I'm afraid I'll open twitter and trump will jump out of my phone screen with a shotgun. Phones, to me, are like little portals that open to ultimate hellfire and suffering. The singular fact that other people can talk through the internet instantly spoils the fun.

Little did I know, books don't attack people! The only conversation you're having is one sided— the author is simply telling you things and you think about them. The author can't even attack me, he doesn't know I exist! He can't track my IP address from my annotations, George Orwell is dead! 

All this to say that Animal Farm has given me information about politics that I was too afraid to find online. It has developed a part of me that I couldn't have otherwise done with the information I'm exposed to on the day to day. 

Uhhh, if this wasn't clear, there will be spoilers in this blog. You have been warned. 

Metaphors

Thanks to Mice and Men, I have the relentless habit of always searching text for big, dramatic metaphors— and I end up overthinking and rambling like a conspiracy theorist. These metaphors I found are less metaphorical and more literary tools, and if they are, so be it, it not like I care, at all, like, I don't care, dude, why are you so insistent on me caring?, like, do you care?, well I don't, promise dude.

The Windmill:

The windmill, I think, always represented the relationship the animals had with their farm. Before Napoleon ran Snowball out, when the initial purpose of the windmill was being completed, the windmill was a uniting force between all the animals (including pigs.) They whould all benefit from this united work, it established community. Back then, there was a genuine promise across all that— despite one animal being more intellectually capable than another— they whould all still be equal. In this way, the windmill represents the motivations of Snowball, who wanted to install electricity in the farm out of a genuine want for a better nation. But when Snowball left, the windmill is used to show how those motivations left and new ones entered. However, to all the other animals, the windmill stood tall over the farm's horizon— it was another beacon of hope, a reminder to them that all their ruthless work will pay off and benefit them. Even when it was blown down, the windmill rose again, and it was build with more pride and strength than last time. Though, this time it was built, Napoleon was in full power, and he imposed a diffrent motivation on it. The promise for equality was gone, and the windmill became another way to exploit the animals, taunting them as they build what they perceived to be a symbol of hope when they where really digging themselves deeper into authoritarian rule.

Snowball: 

Snowball, after he was run out of Animal Farm, became a metaphor for paranoia. "It seemed as though Snowball where some kind of invisible influence, pervading the air around them and menacing them with all kinds of dangers" (page 79) During a historical event called the dancing plague of 1518, people started dancing uncontrollably until they dropped dead. Historians suspect that this plague was caused by stressed-induced psychos. People in this city where constantly terrified of doing something wrong under the watchful eye of religious institutions, they started getting jiggy. It serves as an example to how widespread paranoia can manifest into physical, unexplainable behavior. When snowball is gone, he's treated as if he where Satan— invisible and everywhere, coercing people into doing evil things. Even though Moses, the crow, isn't there to spread the word of religion, the animals behave as if they where under the rule of a catholic church. Just like Napoleon killed all the animals who confessed to being manipulated by Snowball, victims of the dancing plague where forced to pray to a saint and treated— as if their illness was their fault, not the cause of something outside of them. For Napoleon though, Snowball became a scapegoat, another very powerful manipulation tactic: flat out lying. This is proved through the way he and Squealer bent truth in their conversation with other creatures, "Snowball was in league with Jones from the very start! He was Jones' secret agent all the time." (page 79)

Characters

I will only chat about my favorites, because it's my blog. Fuck you.

Boxer:

When Boxer questions if Snowball was truly working with Mr. Jones at the beginning (pg 81), he is thinking of when Snowball told him "No sentimentality, comrade!... The only good human is a dead one." after Boxer accidently killed a man (page 43). And, when his opinion about Snowball changes he still takes that advice to heart. From now on, Boxer begins to show no sentimentality to the enemy and to himself. He literally works himself to death.

He came off to me as a the rise and grind, cryptocurrency, ice bath, "no excuses!", tech-bro of the story. There will always be people who say that there are no excuses for lazy behavior, and that not show any empathy towards themselves. Though they always ignore the privilege that got them to the spot they are in. Boxer isn't strong because he worked for it, he was just born like that. I think that who Boxer is ment represent, though arguably, he never brings down others for their lack of work. He is more so a reflection, a warning for those who work hard to challenge their opinions and loyalty, otherwise, misplaced faith will send you into a horse butchery and turn you into glue.

His death and the removal of a retirement age is very telling of Napoleons opinion of his animals: once they can't work, they serve no use. In this way, living creatures are nothing more than tools like hammers and screws. This serves to reflect our society. Under capitalism, if someone is incapable of providing for themselves— whether it's due to disability, old age, or anything out of one's control— they are treated as burdens. I've heard this countless of times through my father's mouth, "homeless people don't want to work, they put themselves in that situation." Wether or not I agree with that is a topic I'm yet to explore, but for the time being, I understand that his belief stems from a line of thinking similar to Napoleon's.

Benjamin:

Now, this is a character I had difficulty understanding, and the only one I actually went only and researched a bit.

Benjamin is a warning from Orwell, pessimism gets you no where. Benjamin foresaw that the revolution was filled with hope, but whould ultimately end up just the same as before, but he refused to act on it due to the belife that things will always be terrible. "... things had never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse—hunger, hardships and disappointment being, so he said, the unaltered law of life." (page 130) He has to capacity to better his situation, he had the capacity to prevent Boxer from being killed, but he refuses to act. He sees no use in it.

Writing

Sometimes I forget that classics are classic, not because a consensus was randomly spawned into society one day, but because the book is actually good. Maybe it was the commitment I had to annotating everything in this book or the fascination I had with Orwell's perspective of the world, but this book had me enthralled. I finished it next to one of my teachers, who politely didn't comment at the fact that I stared at the roof in utter astonishment— mouth agape— when I read the last few words. Only once the shock wore off, he asked me what I was reading.

Orwell wrote another book, called "The Politics of the English Language" where he presented 8 rules. Number two and three are:

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. 

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Me personally, I like my prose thick and hard to read. I was kind of disappointed to find that Orwell doesn't. Of course, there isn't one correct way to write, and standard grammar is just a suggestion. But, me personally, I prefer writing styles like those of Edgar Allen Poe. Granted I am comparing two completely diffrent kinds of writers from two completely diffrent times.

I chould talk about the writing in more detail, but my eyes are starting to hurt from staring at a computer screen. Here's a list of points I wanted to make, maybe I'll come back and finish them later.

• The threat of doing or learning what the enemy knows is understanding that their behavior isn't unreasonable— and possibly becoming what you hate.
• Political parties only grow more diffrent out of hate
• I don't like the word creature, it feels like an insult. Why whould Orwell pick that word in particular.
• Holy shit. It has just occurred to me that I'm an English teacher's wet dream.

Ranting about things unrelated to Animal Farm

I'm going to school tomorrow.

For the first time in 2 months...

Well, that's a lie, I went last week to help a few teachers with their classrooms but this time I won't be able to walk out whenever I want. This really makes me not want to show up, because, fuck dude I only wanna be there when I have the choice of free will. I'll probably write an essay on this later. Anyways, since I use this blog to be the outlet for all the things I want to talk about that my friends probably don't want to hear: look at my pretty notebooks!

This one is where I'll write all the things I have to do. That way I don't have to constantly pull out my digital planner and have teachers get mad at me for being on my phone. It says "The Very Tired Woman". I'm not a woman, so I might cover the "Wo" part— I just don't know with what.

This one's cover is in French (or Italian, not sure), so I can't read it. But, the paper on the inside has flowers in it. I might use this to write notes in biology.

This is a personal journal I've had for a while now. It was given to me by my aunt, Annie. I use it to jot down thought and sketch. It's just got a little bit of everything in it.

This one's got dotted paper inside, so I'll probably use it for Algebra 2 this year.