My thoughts on Animal Farm
It was reverberating. I have known about this book and it’s praises for many years. I would definitely say that the book lived up to my expectations, and everything good that has ever been said about it.
The ecosystem created by George Orwell in the book gives a very finished and complete feeling, there were no loose ends. I enjoyed reading the story in the plain, simple and straightforward way that he has narrated. He leaves it up to you to read between the lines, OR NOT.
For years, this book has symbolised revolution and tyranny, words that represent collective actions. My interpretation, however, is more inclined towards the individual tendencies, that might have affected these revolutions and tyrannies. I feel that in many ways it represents my way of looking at the world, I tend to see individuals, more than the system as a whole. I feel that everything, every large conglomerate, any and all political parties.. so many religions, they all initiate at an individual level. It is a one person’s idea that becomes a propaganda. And it is many one person’s vulnerabilities that feed the propaganda. Here are some such individual tendencies that stirred my interest, things that I read between the lines:
Quick disclaimer: you will only enjoy further, if you have read the book.
- Who was the real villain? Napoleon, the great mastermind, or Squealer, the great manipulator? I would love to know if it was the case of Squealer being an avid follower, or instead he was the puppet master. It was only because of Squealer’s wit that Napoleon could keep up with his charade. We all have a Squealer in life.. or different Squealers in different times of our lives, who shape us, impact us, and make our days, one at a time. Parents at home, friends at school, teachers at college, person you marry, boss at work.. But, between all these Squealers, you think we end up losing ourselves?
- Napoleon kept blaming Snowball till long after Snowball was gone. It wasn’t enough for Napoleon that Snowball was physically gone, Napoleon created a dirty illusion of Snowball that was far from reality. Do you think his intentions were seeded into his personal rivalry against Snowball? Maybe he just wanted to be proven better than Snowball.. and then like any other hate story, it dissolved with time.
- The story further makes me think about the symphony between the System and the Self. This one is my favourite! It is the system that you are fighting. And, it is the self that you must conquer. Would you say that Napoleon was a winner after all? He started off fighting the system, but in the end, he became the system. In this whole process, was he evolving into a version that could still face himself in the mirror, or was he oblivious of the fact that he is slowly being consumed by the same thing that he wanted to conquer in the first place? His decision to fill up the bins with sand before topping them with grains arrived from this need to keep up a facade for the outside world. Isn’t that the first thing that the system forces you to do, to keep pretending to be something that is different from how you feel within? And as I ponder more over it, a small part of my brain says: only Napoleon can clear that for us! Each one to his own journey, afterall.
- Lastly, I could clearly see that Napoleon, Squealer and the other pigs were making a fool of the other animals.. how could the animals not see it?! This one is beyond my abilities to comprehend, one of the biggest mysteries for me! The ability/ inability to see things for what they really are. It was only in the climax of the book, when both Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington play the Ace of Spades, that animals could see that pigs had actually become synonymous with man.
As I close this vignette, I want to add that how incredible it is that even though George Orwell is believed to have targeted the Russian Revolution of 1917, this story reflects the foundation of society and Governments all over the world to this day. How many zeros to infinities to zeros do you think that is?
