January 12, 2009
Aphorism on Animal Farm
The future of the 1940's holds a world dominated by animals and the extinction of the inadequate being: humans. George Orwell's, Animal Farm delineates the idea of a utopia using metaphoric representations of people with animals. In the reality of Animal Farm, the main oppressor and obstruction of a “utopia” is the farmer. In the Russian Revolution, the authoritarians used propaganda to persuade society into believing in an ideological world. In search for this perfect world, citizens were willing to completely devote themselves for a higher cause. This devotion gave the authority a superior ranking, as citizens needed guidance. Leaders and followers: Two separate ranking classes. “Separate but equal” did not work during the Civil War in the 1960’s, and it does not function for the creatures in Animal Farm either. The proletarians of Animal Farm believed in an Eden; their exploited and manipulated judgment formed an idea of a world where they would make there own lives and work together, as “comrades,” and equality would flourish. Orwell uses the naïve nature of the animals to represent the ineffective attempts to control and maintain a communist/socialist government through history (i.e. the Russian Revolution.) The ideological ambition towards an Eden is unsuccessful as the ringleaders smother the population with propaganda, keeping the ranking classes and thus demolishing utopian equality.
After the death of Old Major, the animals develop a method of thought known as “Animalism.” The theory of Animalism is a doctrine that human beings are purely animal in nature and lacking a spiritual connection to the world and other beings. Therefore, the maxims of Animalism developed based on the enmity that the doctrine places towards man-kind. Animalism correlates with communism. A communist state is governed by an economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization...