Animal Farm Discussion

We've read the book, now let's chat about it. 

I'll go through some themes, some imagery, some thoughts and theories. 

If you have any thoughts or suggestions or feedback, or to just tell me how wrong I was, then let me know by shooting through an email, I'd love to chat about it with you.

Contact the pod on: thesolobc@gmail.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Solo Book Club. This is our discussion episode on Animal Farm. We've read the book. Now let's have a chat about it. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend doing that, or at least going back and listening to the last six episodes where we read Animal Farm together. Now, Animal Farm has been around for quite a while. Published in 1945. So, so what is that? Just after the Second World War? Obviously, news of the world as as it is now. Um, not in the best state. A lot of people have been killed, second world war, a lot of changes politically, a lot of countries changing. As it is now, I guess we could say. I mean, as it is always. When has there ever been a time where everything is stable and fine? But Orwell, obviously, with Animal Farm, he's making a real comment on what he sees as socialist ideals and their corruption. We'll go into a bit more later on, corruption of socialist ideas, but basically, Animal Farm is a retelling of the events of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and everything that happened after. So let's go through some of the themes, some of the imagery. I'll put forward some of my thoughts and theories, and let's have a chat about it. So basically, all the characters in Animal Farm can be linked to real people involved in the Russian Revolution and then in the Soviet Union, right up to the Second World War, really. The way Orwell puts it together is just so succinct, and yet everything makes sense and fits together, and um, anyway, let's get into it. So, the parallels um between Animal Farm and the Russian Revolution. So each character, like I said, has a real life equivalent, basically. So Snowball said to be Leon Trotsky, he was the leader of the Russian Revolution in the Civil War, and Stalin's main rival for power. Snowball was Napoleon's main rival for power. Napoleon in this story represents Stalin, who then goes on to expel Trotsky as Napoleon expelled uh Snowball from Animal Farm. Stalin expels uh Trotsky from the Soviet Union with you know the power struggles that that happened there. Now, in real life, uh Trotsky flees to Mexico and is assassinated, supposedly on the orders of Stalin. We don't actually find out what happens to Snowball in the book. Maybe Orwell at the time didn't know what happened to Trotsky. Um, but I find it interesting that throughout the story, Snowball is consistently portrayed as the ultimate enemy against Napoleon, the ultimate one to outdo everything. Everything that he did um at the Battle of the Cow Shed is really turned around and painted in a really bad light. And that's done um by Napoleon uh and Squealer, who is Napoleon's mouthpiece basically. And so I find that interesting. I don't know a whole lot uh about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union apart from what you know the basics that everyone knows. But I mean, I would imagine that Stalin would continue painting Trotsky as the bad guy in order to stop support of Trotsky the same way painting Snowball as the bad guy, the guy who's making their lives more difficult, makes it easier to stop him gaining supporters. Um if we go back to the start of the story, old major, he's meant to be, he's meant to be in an illusion of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Um Karl Marx obviously had um his writings. Lenin was the leader uh of the Russian Revolution, I think we've all heard of Lenin, and he was the one kind of pushing socialism, right? But then he obviously gets overthrown and um a power struggle begins. And I think that this the small amount of story time that old major has compared to the impact of his ideas is the same as Lenin's. The impact of Lenin's ideas pushing his not so much agenda, but the the way he wanted society to run. I mean, you could argue, I mean, obviously Russia isn't run like that today, but Russia won't be what it is today without Lenin to kick it all off, basically. Now, the rebellion, what old major basically incites before he dies, that is basically the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Russian people, in this case the animals, rise up and overthrow Farmer Jones or the Romanov family. The Rom the Royal the Romanov royal family, they are overthrown and eventually killed. Um, you know, in the book, Jones isn't killed, but he does die in an inebriators uh hospital, which is basically like a place for drunks. So basically drinks himself to death. We never hear about Mrs. Jones, what happens with her. Anyway, they're out of the picture completely and they're not a concern. But I do find it interesting how Squealer constantly is telling people, do you want Jones to come back? Because that's what's going to happen if you don't stick to these rules and ideas that the pigs are putting forward, Jones will come back. I wonder if that same thing happened with Stalin, with the Soviet Union, maybe even with Lenin to a certain degree. If you have any issues with socialism, with the way things are being done now, then you may as well go back. Go back to a ruling family and suffer how you suffered then. Squealer, he could be several people throughout history, but I quite like uh in my Googling, I quite liked the comparison to him with Pravda, which was a Soviet newspaper that Stalin would use to spread his propaganda. And that's pretty much all Squealer does. Especially towards the end, he just spreads propaganda, explains why we're doing this, gives the ridiculous amount of numbers of how they're doing better now than they were when when they were under Jones's rule. And I I quite like that um comparison to him to the the Pravda newspaper. Molly the horse, who ends up leaving uh Animal Farm to go live on a on a neighbouring farm, she represents the bourgeoisie, the upper middle class in Russia, um, who may not have supported the ruling family, but definitely enjoyed the privileges that came along with being upper middle class. Moses. Now, when we first came across Moses, I did ask the question. Through the naming of these animals, is Orwell making a comment on religion, perhaps, right? Particularly with Moses. Moses is said to represent the Russian Orthodox Church. So that makes sense. He constantly going on about uh Candyland Mountain and all that stuff. I mean, yeah, that kind of makes sense. Boxer is the Russian proletariat or the working class, so the labourers. Um, the green flag with the hoof and the hook and the horn, the flag that represents Animal Farm, obviously, very easy to see the parallel to the red communist flag, the hammer and the sickle, um, that then does get adopted by the Soviet Union. Um, now what I found quite interesting is Mr. Pilkington and Foxwood Farm, they represent England, Winston Churchill, basically any of the Western allies. And then Mr. Frederick and Pinchfield Farm represents Germany and Hitler. And I found that interesting because in that chapter where Napoleon's kind of working both sides, he kind of really stuffs it up. Like at one point, neither of them want anything to do with him. Then he ends up siding with Mr. Frederick, obviously Hitler in this case, and then that doesn't work out, right? Because then Frederick and his men attack the farm and try to get over that, which will end up being um World War II, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of the Windmill, the Battle of the Cow Shed, said to be the Russian Civil War. Now the windmill, which I kind of struggled with at the start. I was like, I don't understand why Napoleon is so hell-bent on completing this windmill. Like, it's fallen down three times, like it doesn't really make sense. But the windmill represents Stalin's five-year plans. Now, these five-year plans was his way his idea to improve the Soviet Union's economy through industrialization, which is creating factories and making things move and work a bit smoother. But even though that may have been what they're working for, the same way as the animals in the farm are grinding to the stone every single day to build this, their lives actually never get better. Even once a windmill is built and working and functional, their lives are the same. They're still hungry, there's still even more work to be done, there's no relief. Whereas the pigs, they're living in luxury. And that's kind of the same as what the peasants and the Soviet Union experienced. They're working so hard, but when they're out on the farm, they're not seeing any benefit. There is nothing coming back to them after building these factories and introducing this industrialization. Whereas in the cities, especially the ruling elite of the Soviet Union, they're living in luxury. And same as in the book, how they're constantly on experiencing famine, but are desperately trying to show the other farms that they're not. The same thing happened in the Soviet Union experiencing famines, but the rest of the world doesn't know. Quite similar to what we suspect is happening in North Korea and even parts of China. The most obvious, the dogs, the Soviet secret police, who would go around and suppress and execute Stalin's political opponents, as the dogs did. So that's kind of like a parallel one-to-one of the characters in the book, the events that happen in the book, and real life. So let's dig into some of the themes that uh have been explored. First one, corruption of socialist ideals. This one I think is pretty obvious right from the start. You've got that comrade, they call everyone each other comrade. And I think it's pretty easy to see the parallels, even if you know nothing about uh the Russian Revolution or the time at which Orwell was writing. I think it's really easy to see the parallels between Animal Farm and the corruption of socialist ideals or the corruption of communist ideals. Um, this one specifically, obviously, Orwell's writing, but the corruption of socialist ideals in the Soviet Union, and he's basically critiquing what happened and how it played out. And I guess you could really read a lot into Orwell's own personal political standing through this book. Um, but we probably won't do that today. The emergence and the development of Soviet communism, um, obviously the rise to power of Joseph Stalin, who does become a pretty horrid dictator. Um, animalism, socialism, communism, it's it's all um, I mean, it speaks for itself, doesn't it? Um, we've got the struggle of the rivalry between Trotsky and Snowball and Stalin and Napoleon. We see Trotsky, Snowball being expelled from the revolutionary state by the violent usurper of Stalin, Napoleon, in their bid to take power. We also see Stalin use purges and show trials to eliminate his enemies, get rid of those political opponents, and solidify his political base. Basically, he's gone, you look shifty. I don't want you here anymore, so I'm gonna create a reason to get rid of you. And he uses some people, so like for instance, those pigs at that first execution slaying in in Animal Farm, they kind of went forward being like, hey, I've done this, they would have been told to come forward and say that, whether they knew they were gonna be executed or not, they were being put to the slaughter, as it were, thrown to the wolves, quite literally, and were basically being made an example of. If you don't follow the rules exactly, if you even step out of line a tiny bit and even think about opposing the leader, you will be killed. And that happened in real life. There were purges, show trials throughout Stalin's reign in order to secure his political standing and to secure his power. Basically, Stalin's tyrannical rule and his abandonment of the founding principles of the Russian Revolution, they're represented by the pigs just gradually adopting more and more human traits and behaviors until right at the end, they're standing up on their hind legs, and you can't actually tell them apart from the humans who are the original oppressors. So the new oppressors, they're exactly the same as the old ones. Nothing has changed. In fact, things have gotten worse. Now, what I found really interesting is that Orwell in Animal Farm doesn't actually condemn tyranny, right? He he's not saying this is bad, this shouldn't be. He's kind of like just showing you, hey, this is what tyranny looks like. This is the hypocrisy of tyranny, especially when they only came into power through equality and liberation, and yet now they're taking advantage of it. And it really shows through the disintegration, the perversion of those seven commandments, the constant changing of the words, changing of the meanings, and also, I mean, you got you know squeal as justifications for what the pigs are doing, what they're going against, what was what was originally agreed and decided by everyone of what equality on Animal Farm looks like. I mean, we really see that the animals all come together. At the start of the book, the animals all come together and are fighting against a common enemy, the human overlord, Jones. And they have these ideas of rebellion, and once they kind of take over the farm, the pigs kind of gain more and more control over the working class. They realize they actually no longer have a common enemy, they've got they no longer have a common purpose, they are now fully in control, and now they start to slowly and quietly remove those reminders of rebellion because they realize that if someone were to rise up, they are now the ones that would be overthrown if the working class got it into their heads, hey, I don't like living like this anymore. For example, they remove the seven commandments, they remove old major's skull that everyone was meant to walk past every day, they remove the icons on the flag, all these things that signify one, their equality, two, the fact that they've risen up against an oppressor, they're all being removed because they are now being repressed. Very interesting and I think very cleverly done by Orwell in a show not tell way. Um, so now totalitarianism and power. Obviously, Napoleon's regime is a tyrannical one. But what's interesting is that Orwell kind of suggests that power always corrupts. It doesn't matter who is in that position of power, they are always going to be corrupted. So he does a lot of foreshadowing on this and suggests that the events of the story, completely unavoidable. It wouldn't have mattered if Snowball had been in that position instead of Napoleon. Snowball still would have been corrupted and the pigs still would have, like the same events still would have happened, regardless of if it was Napoleon or not. Even Old Major could have turned into Napoleon. Again, that imagery of the pigs being indistinguishable from humans, it shows that the power has the exact same effect on everyone. They all look the same by the end. Now, something that I found very interesting was language as a tool of control and as a use of propaganda. So language obviously very clearly manipulated throughout the story. The pigs gradually twist and distort the rhetoric of socialist revolution in order to justify their behavior and to keep the other animals in the dark as to what they're doing, their motives, and stuff like that. So while the animals did embrace Major's initial visionary ideal of socialism, once Major dies, the pigs kind of run away with it. They twist the meanings of his words, they change it basically to suit them. Due to the twisting of his words, along with the apathy of the other animals, which, by the way, is incredibly infuriating, the other animals just seem unable to oppose the pigs. It's like they just don't know how to speak out and not have something come back at them as to why what they're saying or their reasoning for opposing is wrong. Um, and they just can't seem to oppose those ideals, well, the pigs' ideals of rebellion. Um, and often they are met with squealer going, Well, do you want Jones to come back? Because that's what's going to happen if you don't follow what we're doing. Um, which of course would scare them into complying, right? Because Jones is the oppressor. They at that time don't see the pigs as the oppressors, even though it's kind of starting. And I think the the main principle of the farm, I love how Orwell reveals it at the end. All animals are equal, but some animals more equal than others. That phrase had been replaced on the side of the barn, um, had replaced the seven commandments, and that's exactly how the pigs see themselves, right? They're like, well, yeah, you guys are equal to each other, you labouring workforce, uh the horses and the sheep, but us pigs, well, we're more equal, we're better. Um, I think that's quite well done. I mean, and through this, Orwell just exposes the abuse of language, and he does it really well, and it's really compelling. It's a really interesting part of how they twist it, they change the story, they change the narrative. He uses songs, Beasts of England, the poems, the Ode to Napoleon poem, the slogans, you know, the sheep's chants, all to serve as propaganda, which was and is used in parts of the world that are under our tyrannical dictatorship. And basically, they serve to control the wider society. If you say it often enough, you will begin to believe it. And the songs, I mean, I saw someone on uh online wrote that the songs could also be said to erode the animal's sense of individuality and keep them focused on the laborious task which will supposedly give them freedom. I mean, how true is that? So the songs make them think, well, we're all in this together. I can't do anything alone. I need everyone to be doing the same thing with me. And the only way I can be free in the future is if I work hard now. But there is no free moment in the future, as we saw in the book. No, no animal retires. They even take the pasture that had been put aside for retiring animals and they sort with barley in order to make alcohol for the pigs. Um, and that brings us to class warfare and exploitation. Obviously, the class divide on animal farm, you've got the pigs, then you've got probably the dogs, probably next up, and then you've got the labouring animals after that, um, who are, well, as you know, represent the working class of the Soviet Union. And um, I think it's quite interesting to see Orwell comment on the development of class tyranny and how that does seem to be the human tendency to maintain and even some cases re-establish these class divides in societies that are meant to be all about equality. Like there's meant to be equal amongst every single person, and yet, well, who's the leader? Why need someone to go to? Isn't that just fascinating? Maybe, maybe that says that as a species, we're not meant to live in a socialist society. Maybe we are meant to have a leader, someone to look to, someone to lead us. I guess it's just how do you pick that person? How do you decide who that person is, and how do you ensure that they do not become corrupt with power? The pigs really go on about the class divide. They really separate themselves, they separate the intellectual animals with the physical labor animals and even call themselves brain workers and use their intelligence to manipulate the other animals, to manipulate the society of Animal Farm. And they use food. They use food a lot in order to do this, in order to define that class divide. The laboring animals receive less and less food for more and more work. Every year, nothing ever changes while the pigs continue to become more and more gluttonous. They eat more and more, they become fatter and fatter, um, like the previously overthrown ruling class of Jones. Now let's turn to apathy and obedience. So basically, the danger of a naive working class, which is what I was getting quite frustrated about reading the book, is the animals just wouldn't speak up when like when they were like, oh, I don't know, that doesn't sound quite right. They kind of mumble it amongst themselves. And yes, obviously, there was a point in the book where they were afraid to speak up because the guard dogs were out and you know that they'd just be killed if they said anything. But I guess that's what the ruling class does and makes you think that even though there's more of you, you're weaker than the few. And eventually the animals stop questioning things and just believe it. Um, and they give in too easily to the pig's explanations and are basically manipulated by the pigs into believing what the pigs want them to believe. The labouring animals, they're portrayed as gullible, loyal, and hardworking, as we see with Boxer. He's incredibly loyal, incredibly hardworking. His motto, his personal motto is that he goes by keep working harder, Napoleon is always right. Obviously, not great. I mean, you know, helpful when building a new society, but that just fed into what the pigs were doing. Orwell shows quite brilliantly, actually, that these situations of oppression don't actually arise from the motives and tactics of the oppressor, or not only just from that, but also from the naivete of the oppressed, right? So you could be as manipulative as you want, but if the people you're trying to oppress are pushing back, it's never gonna work. You need to have both those sides of the coin where the oppressor is manipulative and they're using dangerous tactics, but you also need the group of people that are being oppressed to give in and believe what they're being told and go along with what they're being told. And in order to do that, right, in order to make that happen, a lot of dictators will reduce or eliminate entirely their ability to educate themselves, their ability to become better informed on the necessary issues, their ability to raise questions and seek answers. And we see that happening even today in our modern world. Um, and it's very concerning when you can see that happening, and you can kind of see it happening in the US with the book banning and this idea of changing the education system, and and and it in it is quite concerning because if you have a whole group of people who aren't educated and just believe what they're being told, they can become very dangerous, as we have seen. That kind of ties into the the perversion of truth, which is what the pigs are doing every time they change the story, every time they convince someone as to what Snowball did or didn't do during the Battle of the Cowshed, every time they slightly change the wording of the Seven Commandments, they're changing the memories, they're perverting the truth so that it now fits their agenda, regardless of what actually happened. They don't care what actually happened, they just need it to work for them. Now, while Orwell was very clearly writing about the Soviet Union, these sequence of events can be seen numerous times throughout history. Not just the Russian Revolution then descending into the Soviet Union as we all know it to be, tyrannized by Joseph Stalin. But this happened at multiple points throughout history, right? French Revolution, Russian Revolution, obviously, many other revolutions that have happened in smaller countries around the world. There are parallels with some parts of the story with uh China, with North Korea, and even now with the US. And I mean you could probably find parallels to with absolutely every leader that that's ever come about, but I think what's concerning is just how it's the same sequence of events that happen every time. Every time it's happened, power has always corrupted, which is exactly what Orwell is saying. Now, something that I found quite hilarious is just the image of a pig of Napoleon, the leader, coming out of his house surrounded by dogs. And I think it's just very interesting and quite I think it's a comment of Orwell. He's calling leaders pigs. And and that's what we often do, don't we? When when we think someone's gross, when they're, you know, you go, oh God, you're such a pig, or he's such a pig, or they're such a pig. Um, often aimed at at leaders who are taking a bit too much liberty with their roles. And I just love that imagery of a pig walking out of their house surrounded by dogs, surrounded by their security guards. We can see the manipulation of recent history, manipulation of the common narrative to serve the agenda of the pigs, and you know, squealers constant leaning towards unnecessary hyperbole. I mean, I see that in recent events going on around the world, particularly in the US as well. So, you know, I think I think Animal Farm has really stood the test of time, as most of Orwell's stuff does. And even though he's he's writing specifically about one event in history, I think it should concern us that it fits so many events in history as well. And even though, like I know Animal Farm uh and and a couple of Orwell's stuff, 1984 as well, um, are banned in parts of the world because of this fear that the book will incite rebellion. Um, but I guess that's only for people who don't actually finish the book, right? Because I actually think Animal Farm cautions against rebellion. I actually think Animal Farm is telling people, hey, sure, you can rebel. You can rebel against your horrible oppressor, but the leader, the tyrannical leader that comes after the rebellion, he's gonna be worse. They're gonna be worse, and your life is gonna be worse off than it was before the rebellion. So I've kind of taken a different view away from Animal Farm than I think most people do in that rise up, rebel, this is what happens. I actually think that Orwell may be going, yeah, just be careful about that. Rebel by all means, but just don't be surprised in how things end up. Anyway, thank you so much for coming along with me with Animal Farm. That was a fascinating read. Um, I quite enjoyed it and kind of got scared about it at the same time. Um, as you do with uh current world events. Now, if if you have any thoughts or feedback on what I've talked about today, or you think everything is absolute rubbish and you want to tell me how wrong I was, feel free to do so. Shoot me an email. Ema's in the in the show notes, um, shoot me an email, we can have a chat about it. Now, for our next book, I know that I was talking about doing A.A. Milne's The Red House mystery. Uh, unfortunately, well, maybe fortunately, I realized that I gotten the dates wrong and A.A. Milne's work actually doesn't enter uh public domain in Australia until next year. So that can be something that we look forward to next year. In the meantime, I am looking for a murder mystery because I actually think it'd be quite fun to do a murder mystery. But I'm just having trouble finding one that is in the public domain. So I think what we're gonna do is our next book, we're gonna get started on some HG Wells. I'm thinking The Invisible Man to Kick Us Off. I think it'll be good. This is, I think, the longest book we've done to date. Um I mean it's still pretty small, um, but I think it'll be fun because even if you haven't read The Invisible Man, you've probably seen film or a TV show about it. And even if you haven't done any of those, the title kind of tells you what it is. It's about an invisible man. And everyone can imagine everything that goes along with that. So we'll do that next, and then I'm thinking after that, perhaps we'll do some Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, we'll see how we go. But yes, next week, keep your ears open for the invisible man. Talk to you then.