Friday, 25 November 2011

Animal Farm Part 3 VII - VIII

     In Chapter 7 the winter hits and causes harm to animals and the food has been in small portions and the windmill is still in production. And the human farmers are starting to hear the news even though the pigs are trying to conceal the weakness of the farm. Squealer gives ennobling speeches on the glory of sacrifice, but the other animals acquire their real inspiration from the example of Boxer, who works harder than ever. In order to feed the animals, Napoleon contracts to sell four hundred eggs a week. The other animals react with shock one of Old Major’s original complaints about humans focused on the cruelty of egg selling, or so they remember. The hens rebel, and Napoleon responds by cutting their rations entirely. Nine hens die before the others give in to Napoleon’s demands. Soon afterwards the animals find out that Snowball has been roaming the farm during the night and he has sold himself to Mr. Fredricks farm, Pinchfield, and in a league has been plotting to take back the Animal Farm. Napolean and Squealer announce Snowball has been on Mr. Jones side all this time and is a traitor to his fellow animals. One day Napolean calls a meeting and along with him comes nine snarling dogs. He has a suspicion that there has been many traitors to Animal Farm and many animals convince that they helped Snowball. The dogs then attack and kill all of the animals who were considered traitors leaving huge blood piles and dead corpses all over the floor. Clover over thinks about the rebellion and all sing Beasts of England and Squealer walks in stating the banishment of Beasts of England for the rebellion has ended and now the animals have to recit:



Animal Farm, Animal Farm,

Never through me shalt thou come to harm!


     After the brutal executions the commandment reading "No animals shall kill any other animal.", with "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause." The grueling times still pass as the animals keep working on the windmill and some suffer from the cold and hunger and Squealer keeps checking the statistics to what can be improved on Mr. Jones old actions. Napolean becomes the so called "leader" and Minimus places a poem on the side of the barn appraising Napolean. Napoleon engages in complicated negotiations for the sale of it to either Mr. Frederick or Mr. Pilkington. When negotiations favor Mr. Frederick, the pigs teach the animals to hate Mr. Pilkington. When Mr. Pilkington then appears ready to buy the timber, the pigs teach the animals to hate Mr. Frederick with equal ferocity. Whichever farm is currently out of favor is said to be the hiding place of Snowball. Following a slew of propaganda against Mr. Frederick. The animals are shocked to learn that Mr. Frederick eventually comes through as the buyer of the timber. The pigs talk endlessly about Napoleon’s cleverness, for, rather than accept a check for the timber, he insists on receiving cash. The five-pound notes are now in his possession. Soon after the completion of the windmill Napolean finds out the money Mr. Fredrick has given them is a forgery and the animals freak out, and Napolean tells them to prepare for the worst. Just then Mr. Fredrick and many other armed men place dynamite on the windmill and blow it up. The animals then come out of cowering and attack the men. They are eventually pushed out but with many animal deaths and Boxer has gotten a serious injury in the battle. During one night the pigs find a crate of whisky and all the other animals hear them singing and having a gay ol' time. In the morning Napolean feels sick and a rumor goes around saying he might be dieing. But, Napolean recovers and Squealer paints a new commandment on the wall not to drink alcohol in great excess.

Friday, 18 November 2011

Animal Farm Part II

      By late summer, news of Animal Farm has spread across half the county. Mr. Jones lives ignominiously in Willingdon, drinking and complaining about his misfortune. Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick, who own the adjoining farms, fear that disenchantment will spread among their own animals. Their rivalry with each other, however, prevents them from working together against Animal Farm. They merely spread rumors about the farm’s inefficiency and moral reprehensibility. Meanwhile, animals everywhere begin singing “Beasts of England,” which they have learned from flocks of pigeons sent by Snowball, and many begin to behave rebelliously. At last, in early October, a flight of pigeons alerts Animal Farm that Mr. Jones has begun marching on the farm with some of Pilkington’s and Frederick’s men. Snowball, who has studied books about the battle campaigns of the renowned Roman general Julius Caesar, prepares a defense and leads the animals in an ambush on the men. Boxer fights courageously, as does Snowball, and the humans suffer a quick defeat. The animals’ losses amount only to a single sheep, whom they give a hero’s burial. Boxer, who believes that he has unintentionally killed a stable boy in the chaos, expresses his regret at taking a life, even though it is a human one. Snowball tells him not to feel guilty, asserting that “the only good human being is a dead one.” Mollie, as is her custom, has avoided any risk to herself by hiding during the battle. Snowball and Boxer each receive medals with the inscription “Animal Hero, First Class.” The animals discover Mr. Jones’s gun where he dropped it in the mud. They place it at the base of the flagstaff, agreeing to fire it twice a year: on October 12th, the anniversary of the Battle of the Cowshed was the victory of their rebellion.

     In chapter five Molly is becoming a burden to Animal Farm with not working nor helping out and is taken away by a red-faced man with sugar to be a pull horse and is never mentioned again by the Animal Farm. As the winter cold comes the animals hold monthly meets and the constant fighting between Snowball and Napolean keep happening. Snowball is a good speaker but Napolean is better support for the farm and the leadership is questioned constantly. Snowball ruffles in Mr. Jones notes and comes up with an idea to make a windmill to generate electricity to make the farm jobs simpiler. When Napolean gets wiff of the plan he comes in and urinates on the plans into the future trying to tell Snowball to stop looking ahead and work on the present. The plan was going to be place and Snowballs speech inspired the barn about the wonders of electricity and Napolean unaffected by the speech whistles and 9 dogs come in and take Snowball away and the animals go back to Napoleans side. Afterward, many of the animals feel confused and disturbed. Squealer explains to them that Napoleon is making a great sacrifice in taking the leadership responsibilities upon himself and that, as the cleverest animal, he serves the best interest of all by making the decisions. These statements placate the animals, though they still question the expulsion of Snowball. Squealer explains that Snowball was a traitor and a criminal. Eventually, the animals come to accept this version of events, and Boxer adds greatly to Napoleon’s prestige by adopting the maxims “I will work harder” and “Napoleon is always right.” And later the animals find out that Napolean was never opposing the windmill idea and him and Squealer take over the plan and call it made by themselves and the animals eventually start following him more into detail.

     During Chapter 6 the animals work at a backbreaking pace to farm enough food for themselves and to build the windmill. The leadership cuts the rations;Squealer explains that they have simply “readjusted” them. And the animals receive no food at all unless they work on Sunday afternoons. But because they believe what the leadership tells them "that they are working for their own good now, not for Mr. Jones’s",they are eager to take on the extra labor. Boxer, in particular, commits himself to Animal Farm, doing the work of three horses but never complaining. Even though the farm possesses all of the necessary materials to build the windmill, the project presents a number of difficulties. The animals struggle over how to break the available stone into manageable sizes for building without picks and crowbars, which they are unable to use. They finally solve the problem by learning to raise and then drop big stones into the quarry, smashing them into usable chunks. By late summer, the animals have enough broken stone to begin construction. The work was the same pain that Mr. Jones had inffliected on the animals and the same food schedules are the same. Later in the year a fearsome storm hits the Animal Farm and tears roof and tree's and sends them flying all over. After the storm they go out to see the windmill and to their horror all the work that has gone into and now it has toppled over. Napoleans excuse was that Snowball sabotaged the windmill in spite and intent on destroying the farm. After a long speech Napolean proposes to build a new windmill in its place and the animals start over again.

     

Friday, 11 November 2011

Animal Farm Blog Part One

     Animal Farm is a political satire about communism and can relate to Russia's way of life. The novel begins with all the animal's except Moses, Mr. Jones tame raven, pile into the barn for a speech after Mr. Jones stutters drunkenly to bed. The speech was from Old Major a 12 year old boar who has been through a lot of hardship and seen many animals die even his 400 or so offsprings and he was one of the lucky ones. The speech is a rovolt against Mr. Jones and anyone who walks on two legs. The song he sings after he gets the animals to follow is:

Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland, Beasts of every land and clime, Hearken to my joyful tidings Of the Golden future time.
Soon or late the day is coming, Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown, And the fruitful fields of England Shall be trod by beasts alone.
Rings shall vanish from our noses, And the harness from our back, Bit and spur shall rust forever, Cruel whips no more shall crack.
Riches more than mind can picture, Wheat and barley, oats and hay, Clover, beans and mangel-wurzels Shall be ours upon that day.
Bright will shine the fields of England, Purer shall its waters be, Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes On the day that sets us free.
For that day we all must labour, Though we die before it break; Cows and horses, geese and turkeys, All must toil for freedom's sake.
Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland, Beasts of every land and clime, Hearken well, and spread my tidings Of the Golden future time. [1]
1. (Orwell, Animal Farm, p. 9-10.)

In the second chapter Old Major passed away and two little pigs, Snowball and Napolean. Napolean is the leader of the rebellion after they drive away Mr. Jones and his wife as well his workers in a act of spite for he has neglected the animals. Napolean in a way resembles Stalin the leader of the Soviet Union and Snowball the second in command that tries to take over which resembles Leon Trotsky. Snowball writes on the barn side the commandments of:

  1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
  2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
  3. No animal shall wear clothes.
  4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
  5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
  6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
  7. All animals are equal.
which the animals shall abide by and work their ways of life into the commandments. The animals become more and more educated and are able to harvest and collect resources to survive on their own better then what Mr. Jones had did in the past.

     In the Third Chapter the animals continue their work on the farm with the exception of Mollie a mare and the Cat who neglect to work and help. The animals learn to use human tools to provide a easier time to harvest the load. Boxer, a cart horse, is like a work horse bringing in the most help and he always says, " I must work harder" as his motto to keep his spirits up. Every Sunday, the animals hold a flag-raising ceremony. The flag’s green background represents the fields of England, and its white hoof and horn symbolize the animals. The morning rituals also include a democratic meeting, at which the animals debate and establish new policies for the collective good. At the meetings, Snowball and Napoleon always voice the loudest opinions, though their views always clash. Snowball establishes a number of committees with various goals, such as cleaning the cows’ tails and re-educating the rats and rabbits. Most of these committees fail to accomplish their aims, but the classes designed to teach all of the farm animals how to read and write meet with some success. By the end of the summer, all of the animals achieve some degree of literacy. The pigs become fluent in reading and writing, while some of the dogs are able to learn to read the Seven Commandments. Muriel the goat can read scraps of newspaper, while Clover knows the alphabet but cannot string the letters together. Poor Boxer never gets beyond the letter D. When it becomes apparent that many of the animals are unable to memorize the Seven Commandments, Snowball reduces the principles to one essential maxim, which he says contains the heart of Animalism: “Four legs good, two legs bad.” The birds take offense until Snowball hastily explains that wings count as legs. The other animals accept the maxim without argument, and the sheep begin to chant it at random times, mindlessly, as if it were a song. But Napolean takes no interest in the committies and Jesse and Bluebell give birth to puppies along the way. Squealer explains to them that pigs need milk and apples in order to think well, and since the pigs’ work is brain work, it is in everyone’s best interest for the pigs to eat the apples and drink the milk. Should the pigs’ brains fail because of a lack of apples and milk, Squealer hints, Mr. Jones might come back to take over the farm. This prospect frightens the other animals, and they agree to forgo milk and apples in the interest of the collective good.