Animal Farm by George Orwell is widely known as, and upon reading, immediately identifiable as a political satire. As I make my way through reading this book, I find I am largely in tune to the thematic register— acknowledging the overall themes and symbolism that are present within the text, though I do not yet know how they all tie together in the end. For a more in-depth look into the events in Animal Farm and how they relate to the different registers of reading, see our first blog for this book. The language present in the beginning of the book mirrors the vernacular of communist ideas, such as (quite plainly) the overwhelming use of calling the fellow farm animals “comrades.” Another telling line would be when Old Major is giving his speech in chapter one about initiating a rebellion against mankind, where he says “Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our labour would be our own. Almost overnight we could become rich and free”, which are some of the promises made in idealistic communism (9). So, we have the genre, which gives us the scope from which we can view this text.
If we look closer within the text, however, we can examine different forms that are utilized to shape our reading experience in different ways. Kenneth Burke describes the different aspects of form in the chapter in his book Counter Statement called “Lexicon Rhetoricae”. Forms are conventions used to fulfill different aspects of a text that all add up to forming a certain genre. One form is the conventional form– using conventions of an understood genre and fulfilling our expectations of what should happen based on that pretense. For instance, since Animal Farm is a political satire, we expect to see some sort of conflict within the societal system that the protagonists seek to resolve. In the text, the rebellion against Farmer Jones “was achieved much earlier and more easily than anyone has expected” (18). I feel that this is true for both the characters in the book and the reader (at least, this was the case for me). I expected the rebellion to be a major conflict in the storyline, but it happened quickly and the plot easily moved along into a different facet. When this happened, my expectations changed, as I realized the focus of the major conflict in this book was going to be something other than what I thought going in.
From there on, I began to expect something to go wrong with the animals leading themselves, as would fulfill the conflictual needs to become a real social commentary/satire. That conclusion also is combined with what is called syllogistic progressive form, meaning that the plot is set up in such a way that it’s logical for the events that follow to happen. Because the rebellion happened so soon, there must be further corruption in the new form of government in order for there to still be a story. Similarly in chapter 4, we get a look at what Mr. Jones has been doing and how the news of Animal Farm has spread, so we can assume that this will lead to action on the farmers’ part– which it did. The farmers “attempt[ed] the recapture of the farm,” which led to the Battle of the Cowshed– the first purely violent defense from the animals that solidified their power and feelings of superiority under their new system (40).
An interesting thing that happened during the time of the battle gives us an example of qualitative form. Qualitive form is about the different moods that are present while reading a text, and how they change and relate to one another. During the battle, the horse Boxer’s “very first blow took a stable-lad from Foxwood on the skull and stretched him lifeless in the mud” (42). When Boxer expresses remorse for believing he killed someone (with his eyes “full of tears”), the pig Snowball tells him not to feel remorse because all humans are better off dead, and that this was just a product of war (43). Shortly after that, it was discovered that the boy was not actually dead, and had ran off when they were investigating something else. However, despite how upset Boxer was, we did not get any internal imagery from him when they discovered that the boy was alive. It could be that after Snowball gave the order about how he should not be bothered by killing humans, it ceased to matter if the stable-lad was dead or alive: the verdict was set.
I also would like to look at the physical language used in this story. The writing in this is simplistic and straightforward, without much imagery or description. This book was written to be easily digestible, so that many could read it and understand the harsh political point that Orwell was making. The writing is similar to a fable or fairytale, and with the subject matter being strangely competent talking animals, this correlation fits. It’s interesting to consider another fable-like story about talking animals rising up against an oppressive ruler; namely, The Jungle Book. I’m talking about the movie version that was released in 2016, where the conflict with Shere Khan is a little more dramatized and his power over the jungle is absolute. Obviously, these “texts” are very different, but the way that the jungle creatures decide to rise up against Shere Khan at the end is similar to how the farm animals take charge from Mr. Jones. There’s also similar themes in relation to man vs. animal, since the whole reason Mowgli is being hunted by Shere Khan is because he is a mancub, and man doesn’t “belong” in the jungle. This ideology that Shere Khan tries (and fails) to instill in the jungle animals is similar to what the pigs successfully instill in the farm animals; “four legs good, two legs bad” (34).
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I think it’s really interesting that this story is called a “fairy story.” As older, more educated individuals reading this story, I think the allegorical/satirical nature of the story is obvious to us. But it’s interesting that Orwell calls it a fairy story, which opens it up to an entirely new audience and, because of which, new thematic elements. I’ll talk more about this in blog #4 🙂
I’d like to make another literary connection to Lord of the Flies. I would actually argue that LOTF alludes to Animal Farm quite often. There is a character in LOTF named Piggy, after all. They both cover the similar thematic elements in that they both attempt at a utopian society which ultimately turns into a dystopian society.
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I would like to add that there is also a repetitive form. In this form a foundational idea repeatedly occurs throughout the text under new pretenses. The repetitive form can be seen in how the society of Animal Farm gradually becomes more and more corrupted. It begins when the pig take the milk and the apples for themselves, then snowball is chased away by Napoleon’s dogs, Napoleon changes the commandments one by one, till the rule of everyone is equal no longer holds true. This also is apparent every time squealer gives a false explanation to the animals when there is a predicament. As the events get worse the explanations become worse. The idea of corruption stays true under new recurring pretenses. In addition to the qualitative form there are instances in which the emotional responses of the animals recur over and over to what Napoleon does. This contains the development of their mood changing over time to be less and less happy with how Animal Farm is run.
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While I do see why Julie believes that there is a repetitive form of the story, I would have to argue that the Qualitative is more prominent throughout the story. While the idea of corruption is brought up time and time again with the story, a repetitive form is best illustrated through repetition of a single action. If we read Boxer working harder and harder, and we see that throughout the story, that would be repetitive, and as such could be regarded as a repetitive form. Now one could argue that the changing of the commandments over time could be considered Repetitive, but the form would stop there.
The things that lead up to it, though, to such as Squealer’s explanations and the changes that the pigs make their appearances would line up with the Qualitative form that Cayla has laid out, as it pushes one emotion from us: suspicion. Suspicion of what the pigs will do once they seize absolute power… Unfortunately, just like the Soviet Union, we know how this plays out.
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