By Blog 4, we know that Animal Farm is a story about an animal rebellion, organized in hopes of creating a humanless utopia. In this utopia, Animal Farm, animals would be completely self-sustaining and have freedom. It’s unsurprising that this does not work out. Animal Farm, when read as a writerly reader and considering the various narration and addressee roles, offers many different layers.
What struck me as soon as I began reading the book, and as I mentioned in my response to Blog 3, is that Orwell calls Animal Farm a “fairy story.” Most people read this story in school at a somewhat younger age, around middle school. It makes sense, then, that this story is called a “fairy story” because it implies that this story is for a younger audience. I imagine this is an audience that is, for the most part, ignorant of the political and historical satire the story offers. As older, more educated individuals reading this story, the allegorical/satirical nature of the story is evident to us. But it’s interesting that Orwell calls it a fairy story, which opens it up to an entirely new audience, or set of addressees. Already we have two different readerly roles. As informed readers understanding Orwell’s references to and satirizing of Soviet Russia and Communism, they become part of the authorial audience as referred to by Peter Rabinowitz in Truth in Fiction.
Based on our group discussions, I’ve come up with somewhat of an analogy: Orwell is to us as the pigs are to the rest of animal farm. Orwell is, in a way, manipulative and shaping readers to be what he wants and needs for a successful, impactful story. However, this can mean many different shapes. Orwell interpellates us in one distinct way. There is a character named Napoleon. This pig’s name is a very obvious allusion to anyone who is educated in history at all. This allusion, I think, portrays Rabinowitz’s narrative audience: Most people are familiar with the name Napoleon. Whether it is conscious or subconscious, many people understand what the name implies, even without extensive knowledge of the real Napoleon’s reign. Both the real Napoleon and the pig Napoleon are guilty of tyrannical, authoritarian leadership, mass murder, The difference, however, is that Orwell’s Napoleon seems to succeed.
As a group, we discussed that each character seems to represent a different kind of reader. For example, Mollie, a very vapid horse, could be analogized to a passive kind of reader who is stuck within the mimetic register. When things start getting crazy in the story and on the farm, Mollie just leaves and “none of the animals ever mentioned Mollie again” (Orwell 47). She just wasn’t on their level. Benjamin, a donkey, plays the role of a resistant reader, as he “seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark” (5). I could consider Boxer, the most loyal and hardest working horse, to be a very submissive reader, as “his two favorite maxims, ‘I will work harder’ and ‘Comrade Napoleon is always right’” (125-6).
He immediately accepted anything the pigs fed him. A part of Orwell’s plan I didn’t fully realize I was submitting to throughout the story was that I was, without question, accepting the fact that the animals learned to read, write, organize a military, talk, etc. These are all things that animals just do not do. This entire story would have been for naught if Orwell wasn’t able to convince me that animals are capable of doing something more than eating and existing.
The pigs as characters are also very manipulative – to both the animals and the readers. As a reader, I sometimes caught myself believing them! At one point, Snowball, the pig, becomes everyone’s scapegoat. If the windmill fell, it was Snowball’s doing. If something was missing or someone was slacking in their work, it was because of Snowball. If the pig leaders needed to divert the attentions of others from themselves, they blamed Snowball and made him the enemy. In referencing Rabinowitz again, I consider my falling into believing Napoleon and Squealer when they were blaming Snowball as my joining the ideal narrative audience. It’s interesting that the narrator of this story resides in the third person objective point of view. The narrator only relays the story, giving us no thoughts or feelings onto which we can project. I think this third person voice encourages the audience to trust what the narrator is saying, falling into the same traps the comrades of Animal Farm do. I also wonder if this doubles as a time where I’m a submissive reader: is it part of Orwell’s plan to have me fall into this trap? Maybe if I accept the role that the animals on the farm do, then I would be more likely to perceive his social commentary.
Therefore, the submissive and authentic reader for Orwell is one who accepts his tale of human-like animals, one who is knowledgeable about communism and Russian history, and one who understands the allusions to Napoleon. I think taking on this role can be quite difficult. This interpretation of Animal Farm is so widely accepted. New readers maybe trapped in going into the story only halfway there. Instead of taking on a readerly role that understands and accepts all the nuances of Orwell’s strategic work, they may just assume it’s there and not work to discover it.
How Writers Read... 
In Animal Farm as Amanda mentions, there is the authorial and narrative audiences. Between these two audiences is a distance of realism in the text. Rabinowitz explains in Truth to Fiction that when a text is more realistic the narrative audience (who has to adopt beliefs in addition to what they already believe) has little to adopt, causing the authorial audience(who uses their knowledge to understand the text) to easily believe the text. This creates a small distance between narrative and authorial audiences. Rabinowitz continues to explain that when the text is not realistic the narrative audience has much more to adopt causing the authorial audience difficulty in believing the text. This creates a large distance between the audiences. Animal Farm is figurally historical, under the personification of animals Orwell presents events of the Russian Revolution and Stalinism. The historical foundation of the novel creates a small gap between the audiences. The narrative audience can believe this novel is possible because we believe it is already, we believe this because the authorial audience has the historical information to back the belief. Although, for this realism to be convincing, the authorial audience has to accept the pretense that animals can be as humans are: talk, wear clothes, walk on two feet, etc. Then the narrative audience can proceed in believing.
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While discussing the ending of the story in class, Julie said that she thinks that this book was meant to be an anti-communism book. However, when I was looking up information on the book and its author, George Orwell, I learned he was a communist. So why would a believer in the communist agenda be against it? Answer: He wasn’t.
At the beginning of this ‘fairy story,’ we see that Animalism works and that it helps the farm. The only reason why it changed was that Napolean grew greedy and began to have a totalitarian grip over the ‘people.’ The reason I say ‘people’ is because that’s what happened to communism in the USSR. The story retells the tale of the USSR’s rise to power and corruption in such a way that it could be considered a cautionary tale.
So what am I getting at? I believe the audience Orwell was trying to capture is not one who accepts his tale of human-like animals, one who is knowledgeable about communism and Russian history, and one who understands the allusions to Napoleon. I believe that the reader has to simply be open to the idea of communism, as this book at its core is a propaganda piece. A story of how communism CAN work, but also CAN be corrupted.
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