animal farm essay about equality

A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s Animal Farm

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Animal Farm is, after Nineteen Eighty-Four , George Orwell’s most famous book. Published in 1945, the novella (at under 100 pages, it’s too short to be called a full-blown ‘novel’) tells the story of how a group of animals on a farm overthrow the farmer who puts them to work, and set up an equal society where all animals work and share the fruits of their labours.

However, as time goes on, it becomes clear that the society the animals have constructed is not equal at all. It’s well-known that the novella is an allegory for Communist Russia under Josef Stalin, who was leader of the Soviet Union when Orwell wrote the book. Before we dig deeper into the context and meaning of Animal Farm with some words of analysis, it might be worth refreshing our memories with a brief summary of the novella’s plot.

Animal Farm: plot summary

The novella opens with an old pig, named Major, addressing his fellow animals on Manor Farm. Major criticises Mr Jones, the farmer who owns Manor Farm, because he controls the animals, takes their produce (the hens’ eggs, the cows’ milk), but gives them little in return. Major tells the other animals that man, who walks on two feet unlike the animals who walk on four, is their enemy.

They sing a rousing song in favour of animals, ‘Beasts of England’. Old Major dies a few days later, but the other animals have been inspired by his message.

Two pigs in particular, Snowball and Napoleon, rouse the other animals to take action against Mr Jones and seize the farm for themselves. They draw up seven commandments which all animals should abide by: among other things, these commandments forbid an animal to kill another animal, and include the mantra ‘four legs good, two legs bad’, because animals (who walk on four legs) are their friends while their two-legged human overlords are evil. (We have analysed this famous slogan here .)

The animals lead a rebellion against Mr Jones, whom they drive from the farm. They rename Manor Farm ‘Animal Farm’, and set about running things themselves, along the lines laid out in their seven commandments, where every animal is equal. But before long, it becomes clear that the pigs – especially Napoleon and Snowball – consider themselves special, requiring special treatment, as the leaders of the animals.

Nevertheless, when Mr Jones and some of the other farmers lead a raid to try to reclaim the farm, the animals work together to defend the farm and see off the men. A young farmhand is knocked unconscious, and initially feared dead.

Things begin to fall apart: Napoleon’s windmill, which he has instructed the animals to build, is vandalised and he accuses Snowball of sabotaging it. Snowball is banished from the farm. During winter, many of the animals are on the brink of starvation.

Napoleon engineers it so that when Mr Whymper, a man from a neighbouring farm with whom the pigs have started to trade (so the animals can acquire the materials they need to build the windmill), visits the farm, he overhears the animals giving a positive account of life on Animal Farm.

Without consulting the hens first, Napoleon organises a deal with Mr Whymper which involves giving him many of the hens’ eggs. They rebel against him, but he starves them into submission, although not before nine hens have died. Napoleon then announces that Snowball has been visiting the farm at night and destroying things.

Napoleon also claims that Snowball has been in league with Mr Jones all the time, and that even at the Battle of the Cowshed (as the animals are now referring to the farmers’ unsuccessful raid on the farm) Snowball was trying to sabotage the fight so that Jones won.

The animals are sceptical about this, because they all saw Snowball bravely fighting alongside them. Napoleon declares he has discovered ‘secret documents’ which prove Snowball was in league with their enemy.

Life on Animal Farm becomes harder for the animals, and Boxer, while labouring hard to complete the windmill, falls and injures his lung. The pigs arrange for him to be taken away and treated, but when the van arrives and takes him away, they realise too late that the van belongs to a man who slaughters horses, and that Napoleon has arranged for Boxer to be taken away to the knacker’s yard and killed.

Squealer lies to the animals, though, and when he announces Boxer’s death two days later, he pretends that the van had been bought by a veterinary surgeon who hadn’t yet painted over the old sign on the side of the van. The pigs take to wearing green ribbons and order in another crate of whisky for them to drink; they don’t share this with the other animals.

A few years pass, and some of the animals die, Napoleon and Squealer get fatter, and none of the animals is allowed to retire, as previously promised. The farm gets bigger and richer, but the luxuries the animals had been promised never materialised: they are told that the real pleasure is derived from hard work and frugal living.

Then, one day, the animals see Squealer up on his hind legs, walking on two legs like a human instead of on four like an animal.

The other pigs follow; and Clover and Benjamin discover that the seven commandments written on the barn wall have been rubbed off, to be replace by one single commandment: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ The pigs start installing radio and a telephone in the farmhouse, and subscribe to newspapers.

Finally, the pigs invite humans into the farm to drink with them, and announce a new partnership between the pigs and humans. Napoleon announces to his human guests that the name of the farm is reverting from Animal Farm to the original name, Manor Farm.

The other animals from the farm, observing this through the window, can no longer tell which are the pigs and which are the men, because Napoleon and the other pigs are behaving so much like men now.

Things have gone full circle: the pigs are no different from Mr Jones (indeed, are worse).

Animal Farm: analysis

First, a very brief history lesson, by way of context for Animal Farm . In 1917, the Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, was overthrown by Communist revolutionaries.

These revolutionaries replaced the aristocratic rule which had been a feature of Russian society for centuries with a new political system: Communism, whereby everyone was equal. Everyone works, but everyone benefits equally from the results of that work. Josef Stalin became leader of Communist Russia, or the Soviet Union, in the early 1920s.

However, it soon became apparent that Stalin’s Communist regime wasn’t working: huge swathes of the population were working hard, but didn’t have enough food to survive. They were starving to death.

But Stalin and his politicians, who themselves were well-off, did nothing to combat this problem, and indeed actively contributed to it. But they told the people that things were much better since the Russian Revolution and the overthrow of the Tsar, than things had been before, under Nicholas II. The parallels with Orwell’s Animal Farm are crystal-clear.

Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian Revolution and the formation of a Communist regime in Russia (as the Soviet Union). We offer a fuller definition of allegory in a separate post, but the key thing is that, although it was subtitled A Fairy Story , Orwell’s novella is far from being a straightforward tale for children. It’s also political allegory, and even satire.

The cleverness of Orwell’s approach is that he manages to infuse his story with this political meaning while also telling an engaging tale about greed, corruption, and ‘society’ in a more general sense.

One of the commonest techniques used in both Stalinist Russia and in Animal Farm is what’s known as ‘gaslighting’ (meaning to manipulate someone by psychological means so they begin to doubt their own sanity; the term is derived from the film adaptation of Gaslight , a play by Patrick Hamilton).

For instance, when Napoleon and the other pigs take to eating their meals and sleeping in the beds in the house at Animal Farm, Clover is convinced this goes against one of the seven commandments the animals drew up at the beginning of their revolution.

But one of the pigs has altered the commandment (‘No animal shall sleep in a bed’), adding the words ‘ with sheets ’ to the end of it. Napoleon and the other pigs have rewritten history, but they then convince Clover that she is the one who is mistaken, and that she’s misremembered what the wording of the commandment was.

Another example of this technique – which is a prominent feature of many totalitarian regimes, namely keep the masses ignorant as they’re easier to manipulate that way – is when Napoleon claims that Snowball has been in league with Mr Jones all along. When the animals question this, based on all of the evidence to the contrary, Napoleon and Squealer declare they have ‘secret documents’ which prove it.

But the other animals can’t read them, so they have to take his word for it. Squealer’s lie about the van that comes to take Boxer away (he claims it’s going to the vet, but it’s clear that Boxer is really being taken away to be slaughtered) is another such example.

Communist propaganda

Much as Stalin did in Communist Russia, Napoleon actively rewrites history , and manages to convince the animals that certain things never happened or that they are mistaken about something. This is a feature that has become more and more prominent in political society, even in non-totalitarian ones: witness our modern era of ‘fake news’ and media spin where it becomes difficult to ascertain what is true any more.

The pigs also convince the other animals that they deserve to eat the apples themselves because they work so hard to keep things running, and that they will have an extra hour in bed in the mornings. In other words, they begin to become the very thing they sought to overthrow: they become like man.

They also undo the mantra that ‘all animals are equal’, since the pigs clearly think they’re not like the other animals and deserve special treatment. Whenever the other animals question them, one question always succeeds in putting an end to further questioning: do they want to see Jones back running the farm? As the obvious answer is ‘no’, the pigs continue to get away with doing what they want.

Squealer is Napoleon’s propagandist, ensuring that the decisions Napoleon makes are ‘spun’ so that the other animals will accept them and carry on working hard.

And we can draw a pretty clear line between many of the major characters in Animal Farm and key figures of the Russian Revolution and Stalinist Russia. Napoleon, the leader of the animals, is Joseph Stalin; Old Major , whose speech rouses the animals to revolution, partly represents Vladimir Lenin, who spearheaded the Russian Revolution of 1917 (although he is also a representative of Karl Marx , whose ideas inspired the Revolution); Snowball, who falls out with Napoleon and is banished from the farm, represents Leon Trotsky, who was involved in the Revolution but later went to live in exile in Mexico.

Squealer, meanwhile, is based on Molotov (after whom the Molotov cocktail was named); Molotov was Stalin’s protégé, much as Squealer is encouraged by Napoleon to serve as Napoleon’s right-hand (or right-hoof?) man (pig).

Publication

Animal Farm very nearly didn’t make it into print at all. First, not long after Orwell completed the first draft in February 1944, his flat on Mortimer Crescent in London was bombed in June, and he feared the typescript had been destroyed. Orwell later found it in the rubble.

Then, Orwell had difficulty finding a publisher. T. S. Eliot, at Faber and Faber, rejected it because he feared that it was the wrong sort of political message for the time.

The novella was eventually published the following year, in 1945, and its relevance – as political satire, as animal fable, and as one of Orwell’s two great works of fiction – shows no signs of abating.

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'Animal Farm' Themes and Symbols

Political allegory, totalitarianism, corruption of ideals, power of language.

• B.A., English, Rutgers University

George Orwell's Animal Farm is a political allegory about revolution and power. Through the tale of a group of farm animals who overthrow the owner of the farm, Animal Farm explores themes of totalitarianism, the corruption of ideals, and the power of language.

Orwell frames his story as a political allegory; every character represents a figure from the Russian Revolution. Mr. Jones, the original human owner of the farm, represents the ineffective and incompetent Czar Nicholas II. The pigs represent key members of Bolshevik leadership: Napoleon represents Joseph Stalin, Snowball represents Leon Trotsky, and Squealer represents Vyacheslav Molotov. Other animals represent the working classes of Russia: initially passionate about revolution eventually manipulated into supporting a regime that was just as incompetent and arguably more brutal than the previous one.

Orwell argues that any revolution led by a small, conspiratorial group can only degenerate into oppression and tyranny. He makes this argument through the allegory of the farm. The revolution begins with firm principles of equality and justice, and initially, the results are positive, as the animals get to labor for their own direct benefit. However, as Orwell demonstrates, revolutionary leaders can become as corrupt and incompetent as the government they overthrew.

The pigs adopt the human ways they once fiercely opposed (drinking whiskey, sleeping in beds), and they make business deals with farmers that benefit them alone. Meanwhile, the other animals see only negative changes in their lives. They continue to support Napoleon and work harder than ever despite the decline in quality of living. Eventually, the promises of heated stalls and electric light—what they've been working for all along—become fantasy.

Animal Farm suggests that totalitarianism and hypocrisy are endemic to the human condition. Without education and true empowerment of the lower classes, Orwell argues, society will always default to tyranny.

The pigs’ descent into corruption is a key element of the novel. Orwell, a socialist, believed the Russian Revolution had been corrupted by power-seekers like Stalin from the start.

The animals' revolution is initially led by Snowball, the key architect of Animalism; at first, Napoleon is a secondary player, much like Stalin. However, Napoleon plots in secret to seize power and drive Snowball away, undermining Snowball's policies and training the dogs to be his enforcers. The principles of equality and solidarity that inspired the animals become mere tools for Napoleon to seize power. The gradual erosion of these values reflects Orwell’s criticism of Stalin as nothing more than a tyrant hanging onto power through the fiction of a communist revolution.

Orwell doesn’t reserve his vitriol for the leaders, however. The animals representing the people of Russia are depicted as complicit in this corruption through inaction, fear, and ignorance. Their dedication to Napoleon and the imaginary benefits of his leadership enable the pigs to maintain their hold on power, and the ability of the pigs to convince the other animals that their lives were better even as their lives become demonstrably worse is Orwell’s condemnation of the choice to submit to propaganda and magical thinking.

Animal Farm explores how propaganda can be used to control people. From the start of the novel, Orwell depicts the animals being manipulated by common propaganda techniques, including songs, slogans, and ever-changing information. Singing "Beasts of England" evokes an emotional response that reinforces the animals' loyalty to both Animalism and the pigs. The adoption of slogans like Napoleon is always right or four legs good, two legs bad demonstrates their unfamiliarity with the complex philosophical and political concepts underlying the revolution. The constant alteration of the Seven Commandments of Animalism demonstrates how those in control of information can manipulate the rest of a population.

The pigs, who serve as the leaders of the farm, are the only animals with a strong command of language. Snowball is an eloquent speaker who composes the philosophy of Animalism and persuades his fellow beasts with the power of his oratory. Squealer is adept at lying and spinning stories to maintain control. (For example, when the other animals are upset about Boxer’s cruel fate, Squealer quickly composes a fiction to defuse their anger and confuse the issue.) Napoleon, while not as smart or as eloquent as Snowball, is skilled at imposing his own false view on everyone around him, as when he falsely inserts himself into the historical record of the Battle of the Cowshed.

As an allegorical novel, Animal Farm is rife with symbolism. Just as the animals represent individuals or groups from Russian history, the farm itself represents Russia, and the surrounding farms represent the European powers that witnessed the Russian Revolution. Orwell’s choices about which objects, events, or concepts to highlight are not driven by plot as in narrative fiction. Instead, his choices are carefully calibrated to evoke a desired response from the reader.

Whiskey represents corruption. When Animalism is founded, one of the commandments is ‛No animal shall drink alcohol.’ Slowly, however, Napoleon and the other pigs come to enjoy whiskey and its effects. The commandment is changed to ‛No animal shall drink alcohol to excess’ after Napoleon experiences his first hangover and learns how to moderate his whiskey consumption. When Boxer is sold to the Knacker, Napoleon uses the money to purchase whiskey. With this act, Napoleon fully embodies the human qualities that the animals once revolted against.

The Windmill

The windmill represents the attempt to modernize Russia and the general incompetence of Stalin’s regime. Snowball initially proposes the Windmill as a way of improving the farm’s living conditions; when Snowball is driven off, Napoleon claims it as his own idea, but his mismanagement of the project and the attacks from other landowners mean the project takes far longer to complete than expected. The final product is of inferior quality, much like many of the projects undertaken by the Soviets post-revolution. In the end the Windmill is used to enrich Napoleon and the other pigs at the expense of the other animals.

The Commandments

The Seven Commandments of Animalism, written on the barn wall for all to see, represent the power of propaganda and the malleable nature of history and information when the people are ignorant of the facts. The commandments are altered throughout the novel; each time they are changed indicates that the animals have moved even further away from their original principles.

• 'Animal Farm' Overview
• 'Animal Farm' Quotes Explained
• 'Animal Farm' Characters: Descriptions and Analysis
• 'Animal Farm' Summary
• 'Animal Farm' Quotes
• 'Animal Farm' Questions for Study and Discussion
• 'Animal Farm' Vocabulary
• '1984' Themes, Symbols, and Literary Devices
• '1984' Study Guide
• 10 Works of 1940s Literature Still Taught Today
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• '1984' Quotes Explained
• What Is Totalitarianism? Definition and Examples
• Allegory: Definition and Examples
• Causes of the Russian Revolution
• George Orwell: Novelist, Essayist and Critic

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Equality And Equity From Orwell And Vonneguts’s Perspectives: A Comparative Analysis

To better understand equality and equity, both chosen stories highlight flaws with equality as a concept via social critique. Harrison Bergeron is meant to be viewed as political and social criticisms of America in general and in the sixties. Vonnegut’s story depicts a government founded on egalitarian principles, emphasizing on equality. Equality is a principle enshrined in the Declaration of Independence (All men are created equal) but Vonnegut hints at the dangers of egalitarian ideals if implemented literally. Orwell’s Animal Farm, on the other hand, is a direct form of criticism towards Stalin’s rule, albeit in the form of a fable. Both stories were chosen for the similarities in setting and context, where they are essentially focused on this line from Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This essay shall discuss the reasons behind the impracticality of equality, and how equity is more important than equality Keywords: Equality Equity Paradox Animal Farm Harrison Bergeron

Introduction

The importance of acknowledging the need for equal treatment has always been something civil rights activists have fought for since time immemorial. However, in these fights to achieve equality, it is often found that equality is difficult to achieve due to our fundamental differences. Is equality alone therefore sufficient? The rationale behind the chosen texts can be seen through the author’s intentions via social critique. Harrison Bergeron (1961) is meant to be viewed as political and social criticisms of America in general and in the 1960s by depicting a government founded on egalitarian principles, emphasizing on equality. Equality is a principle enshrined in the Declaration of Independence (All men are created equal) but Vonnegut hints at the dangers of egalitarian ideals if implemented too literally. The government in the story is, therefore, enslaving its own people to mediocrity for the sake of maintaining complete equality, and it shows how equality taken to an extreme is not feasible and risks wiping out individuality. It has even gone to the extent of altering the genetic code, where people born during the time of the amendments are quite literally mediocre, as shown by Hazel and her average intelligence. George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) on the other hand, was selected for similar reasons, but the other point of interest comes from the phrase “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The stories being analysed in this essay indicate otherwise, for equality does not seem to function well enough on its own. George Orwell’s Animal Farm  (1945) is a good example of why equality, as promised, is often not enough. Equality may be promoted as the solution to many problems faced by individuals in society, it is important to note that “individuals” are not equal to the masses and therefore need different treatment in order to advance. This essay shall discuss the reasons behind the impracticality of equality, and how equity is more important than equality.

Problem Statement

The concept of equality remains idealistic and just, but the problem arises when we try to implement such measures to eradicate real-world problems: In Animal Farm , the animals faced oppression by the humans, being forced to work but receiving close to nothing for their labour. In Harrison Bergeron on the other hand, we see the emergence of a paradox: equality is then applied to an extreme, because humans are not born equal, even biologically. Therefore, the paper attempts to address this discrepancy in attempting to enforce equality as the best possible solution to problems faced by society. The analysis examines how the practice of equality and equity are executed in the works of fiction by George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut pose as standard forms of oppression and subordination. Using textual analysis, the theme of equality, the abuse of power, and the indoctrination of commandments will be used to highlight the issues pertaining to the weakness and the impracticality of equity and equality.

Literature Review

Equality’ (or ‘equal’) signifies correspondence between a group of different objects, persons, processes or circumstances that have the same qualities in at least one respect, but not all respects, i.e., regarding one specific feature, with differences in other features (Gosepath, 2001). Equity deals with difference and takes into consideration the fact that this society has many groups in it who have not always been given equal treatment and/or have had a level field on which to play ( Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2016 ). The theory used in this essay, that is Marx’s Class Theory as stated in Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context, 2 nd Ed states that Marx’s class theory rests on the premise that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." According to this view, human society has remained fundamentally divided between classes who clash in the pursuit of class interests. Coser ( 1977 ) continues by saying that:

In the world of capitalism, for example, the nuclear cell of the capitalist system, the factory, is the prime locus of antagonism between classes--between exploiters and exploited, between buyers and sellers of labor power--rather than of functional collaboration. Class interests and the confrontations of power that they bring in their wake are to Marx the central determinant of the social and historical process (p.48-50).

Dickstein ( 2007 ) supports that Animal Farm showed how the initial idealism of the revolution decayed by steps into inequality, hierarchy and finally dictatorship, and mentioned how Orwell would have likely blamed “the work of intellectuals, whose theoretical minds, fervently committed to higher goals yet often blinded by self-interest, allowed for behaviour from which most people would instinctively shrink” on the failure of the Russian Revolution. Previous studies on Harrison Bergeron includes Johar ( 2014 ) who states that Harrison Bergeron reflects Vonnegut’s humanist stance on human development, by mentioning that humans have natural abilities due to individual uniqueness. It is because of this inherent uniqueness of each individual that restraining them would result in disastrous outcomes. The other study by Alexander ( 2016 ) takes brief examples from texts that depict gross violations of equality as a concept and argues that “the pursuit of equality beyond equality before the law and a generous safety net is to be resisted. That pursuit tends to produce impoverishment and repression. And it is at odds with the pursuit of excellence, beauty, individuality, and achievement. A state of true equality is a dystopian spectre.” Harrison Bergeron, he states, “is a vision of what a truly egalitarian society would look like.” Pelissioli ( 2008 ) analyzed both novels and connected it to Orwell’s personal experiences with totalitarianism as reflected in his work, showing how his use of allegory in Animal Farm was an effective manner of showing the horrors of a system gone wrong. Monica (2011) in her thesis “Tyrannical Control over the Proletariat in George Orwell’s Animal Farm” primarily focuses on Mr. Jones and Napoleon, and has observed how both represent a ruling class that mistreats the proletariat. In spite of having their differences, they both eventually share a similar system of oppression that exploits the working class, as per her analysis in a Marxist context.

Research Questions

This article will answer the following research questions

How the impracticality of equality has been presented in Orwell’s Animal Farm and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron?

How the concept of egalitarian societies has been depicted in Orwell’s Animal Farm and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron?

To what extent the practicality of equality and equity can be practiced in real circumstances as depicted in Orwell’s Animal Farm and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron?

Purpose of the Study

This study aims to fulfil the following purposes:

To examine the impracticality of equality practices presented in Orwell’s Animal Farm and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron.

To compare and contrast how the concepts of equality and equity through the representation of egalitarian society being depicted in Orwell’s Animal Farm and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron.

To discuss the effectiveness and the shortcomings of equality and equity as presented in Orwell’s Animal Farm and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron

Research Methods

The research methods used in this study are:

Thematic Analysis

Using thematic analysis, this paper analyses how the concepts of equality and equity depicted in two different societies by Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron (1961). The theme of idealist egalitarian society promotes individuals’ freedom of choice which proves to be impractical to practice. The implementation of authoritarian power which promotes the domination of a demonic leader practiced in both societies exposed the vulnerability of basic human rights for freedom of speech and freedom of choice. Using textual analysis, the theme of equality, the abuse of power, and the indoctrination of commandments will be used to highlight the issues pertaining to the strength and the impracticality of equity and equality.

Textual Analysis

The textual analysis of the novel will answer the research question: What are the reasons behind the impracticality of equality, and how equity is more important than equality in both Animal Farm and Harrison Bergeron? As a qualitative research, the thematic analysis will examine how the government bodies manipulate the concept of equality and equity. Based on Marx’s Class Theory, the discussion will show how equality alone is problematic and difficult to achieve, completely. Thus, textual analysis is employed to investigate and fulfill the research objectives.

To begin with the result of this study can be divided into two:

Equality and Equity in a nutshell

This essay focuses on the impracticality of equality, by using Harrison Bergeron to compare what a fully restricted society looks like when equality is taken literally. Equality is defined as:

Ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents, and believing that no one should have poorer life chances because of where, what or whom they were born, what they believe, or whether they have a disability. Equality recognises that historically, certain groups of people with particular characteristics e.g. race, disability, sex and sexuality, have experienced discrimination. (Understanding equality, n.d.)

Equity, on the other hand, differs from equality, in the sense that it may be more beneficial to its recipients because it is tailor made to consider the shortcomings of the person in question. This is done to ensure that the person has what they need in order to obtain the same quality of life or the same opportunities as everyone else, because giving someone the same thing as everyone else may not be enough. Fairness here is then able to be distributed better, than equality.

To do so, the argument will focus on the failure of Animalism in the phrase “All Animals Are Equal” to prove how the modified, “corrupted” version of Animalism as shown in “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” will forever ring true, and that due to circumstances, it cannot be changed if equality is focused on instead of equity.

 The modified “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” ( Orwell, 2014, p. 25 ) is essentially the ultimate example of the pig’s abuse of language and the manipulation of power to control their regime. This reduction of the Seven Commandments in Chapter X shows how the animals have reverted to their initial system which is made worse by the pigs being in power. However, it also highlights the reality of the world, in which there are different or varying levels of equality even in society, the way colours can be gradable on a scale (more colourful, moderately colourful).

The revised phrase points to a specific form of ideological corruption where despite the inclusivity of the original phrase as coined by Old Major, it is proven to be highly idealistic and not plausible due to two factors: the differences in animals as a species are even more varied than humans, and that there is a limit to what the animals can do to improve themselves physically. Unlike the humans, in Harrison Bergeron, humans have mostly similar traits in terms of physique, apart from what may differ per genetics. But the handicapping was conducted in a more uniform and effective manner because of the uniformity of humans as a single race or species.

Compare and Contrast the concepts of Equality and Equity in Animal Farm and Harrison Bergeron

In contrast, “All Animals Are Equal” is likened to what is said in the American constitution, “All men are created equal” and despite this, there will still be people who are left out by the existing systems due to the lack of equity. Vonnegut’s dystopia features an extreme egalitarian approach where above the average people are assigned physical handicaps. This shows that true equality is only achievable through oppression and the suppression of individual uniqueness. He thus argues that total equality is an ideal not worth striving for, and it is an ideal that cannot, in reality, be achieved, and that it is a mistake that should not happen. To achieve complete and utter equality, the American citizens are tortured by the government: the beautiful wear masks or disfigure themselves (A ballerina with a beautiful voice is forced to speak with an unattractive “grackle squawk”), and the intelligent are assigned radios that emit ear-splitting noises meant to scatter thoughts and impede their thinking ability. The strong or graceful are made to wear weights filled with birdshot on the body at all times. Equality here is then used as a form of propaganda that dumbs down the general population, who in turn also hide their true talents out of fear of the government.

This uniformity of self-flagellation has turned into a defeatist mentality that also affects the animals in Animal Farm (1945). The animals are in constant fear, yet they are poisoned by their perceived goal of Animalism. This form of brainwashing is done wilfully by the citizens themselves (in both stories). Both have not considered their strength in numbers and how they can overthrow their oppressive regimes. America thus becomes a land of stupid, slow people where these handicaps have even begun to interfere with nature, producing people like Hazel Bergeron who are “extremely average” in intelligence and cannot think in anything more than “short bursts”. Hazel’s character is similar to that of Clover the horse, who is actually aware of the abuses of the Commandments, but convinces herself or blames herself for not being able to remember them properly. Yet, unlike Hazel who was naturally born with average intelligence, Clover represents the minority of people who refuse to think for themselves, and thus become enablers in oppressive regimes by refusing to allow themselves to think critically.

This can be further contrasted with the brainwashing of George Bergeron, who is trying to justify his own oppression by the US government: "If I tried to get away with it," then other people had get away with it and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?" Competition here is viewed extremely negatively, as it would mean the complete loss of equality for all. However, if Napoleon’s view is taken into consideration, his manner of manipulating the masses stems from him being the leader who supposedly has his subjects’ best interests at heart, and removes competition initially through the charisma of Squealer and later, through fear. Fear, in this case, is used as an inhibitor for rebellion, just like Vonnegut’s dystopia.

How then does equity come into question? In the context of Harrison Bergeron, it would mean that people are given the right things to in order to advance and improve their quality of life, and this is especially true if it concerns mental capacity like intelligence. Despite looks giving someone a slight advantage, it does not really matter because there is a higher need or emphasis on intelligence in general. For this to be achieved, the education system would need reformation, and consideration has to be given to the underprivileged group with their various backgrounds (they may be slow in class, or lacking in funds for basic necessities). Thus, the care given to these people must be appropriate to their needs.

Equality is also very impractical in Orwell’s dystopia because there are little the animals can do to change themselves, physically. Unlike humans, the varying species and diversity of the animal kingdom make it difficult for there to be uniformity, beyond job specification. All in all, Animalism was doomed to fail from the start, due to the imbalance in power and the advantage the pigs had from the very beginning. Harrison Bergeron’s society, on the other hand, did the converse by applying equity in tandem with equality to produce a mediocre population instead of a smarter one.

While it can be argued that Animalism is a failed ideology because of the execution and the fact that the animals were not prepared for that form of freedom, parallels can be drawn between the animals and the humans in today’s society. The animals can represent the human’s desire for equality, but our differences are not necessarily physical. There are also other factors that can be taken into consideration, such as socioeconomic background, biological roles, and cultural background.  Each individual has different needs and these needs would have to be addressed when equality is promised as each individual is expecting to have a fair starting point, and therein lies the problem with the equality.

Equality bears the promise of giving everyone equal treatment, but the mechanism of delivering equal treatment needs to be addressed as well.  Harrison Bergeron’s dystopia can also be interpreted as a direct critique of the communist ideology. This futuristic society, therefore, operates on communist principles, supporting the idea that equal distribution of wealth and power promotes the ideal society, and those class hierarchies should not exist. Through his story, Vonnegut argues that the classless society is unreasonable and foolish and that the distribution of wealth and power equally is not feasible, and only by handicapping the best or better citizens, can equality truly be achieved. While the political undertones of both stories do not bear much significance in this study, the other factor to consider is the clamping down on individual liberties and individuality, which needs to be sustained. Earlier it was mentioned that this effective, systematic dumbing down of the citizens results in the production of a genetically altered, mediocre human race.

Equality is often used interchangeably with equity and it can be very problematic because both words contain different connotations and meanings. If it is used in relation to issues of social justice, equality is impossible to be practiced because equality means different thing to the commoner in comparison to upper class/leaders. While equality promises every individual right to equal distributions, if practiced properly, equality benefits all.  Both stories depict the ugly reality of manipulated equality. Conceptually, equality requires the government to apply its laws even-handedly.

The government in Animal farm and Vonnegut exercise discrimination against the masses and prioritize the elite class.  This then relates to the paradox of what equality and equity may bring when the implementation of equality is manipulated and the fruits of equality were not distributed equally to benefit everyone. The analysis of the stories serves as means to warn about the dangers of total equality as an ideology and its impracticality, as shown by Vonnegut that like Animalism, egalitarianism can also be taken into extremes, and is at its most effective when used in tandem with equity.

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• Gosepath, S. (2001, March 27). Equality. Retrieved August 8, 2017, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/
• Johar, R. K. (2014). Vonnegut's Humanist Belief Against the Dehumanization Of People In His Three Selected Short Stories. Vivid Journal, 3(2). Retrieved September 18, 2017, from http://jurnalvivid.fib.unand.ac.id/index.php/vivid/article/view/22
• Orwell, G. (2014). Animal Farm. Essex: Pearson.
• Pelissioli, M. (2008). From Allegory into Symbol: Revisiting George Orwell's Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four In The Light Of 21st Century Views of Totalitarianism (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
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• Vonnegut, K. (1961). Harrison Bergeron. New York: Mercury Press.

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Sociolinguistics, linguistics, literary theory, political science, political theory

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Krishnan, N. A., & Muhammad*, S. H. (2019). Equality And Equity From Orwell And Vonneguts’s Perspectives: A Comparative Analysis. In N. S. Mat Akhir, J. Sulong, M. A. Wan Harun, S. Muhammad, A. L. Wei Lin, N. F. Low Abdullah, & M. Pourya Asl (Eds.), Role(s) and Relevance of Humanities for Sustainable Development, vol 68. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 561-568). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2019.09.62

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‘All Animals Are Equal’: Animal Farm in the Anthropocene

By mikhail bishop, portland state university.

An environmental ethics reading of Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell examines the dominating power dynamic between humans and animals, and poses the consideration of equality for all Earth-inhabiting lifeforms. This essay will position different literary understandings of the novel in ecocritical conversation to examine how readers and scholars digest representations of animal bodies. With this analysis of the novel’s content, I will examine what occurs when animal characters become more than representations of human suffering, and instead signify physical animal bodies. I form a case for the consideration of animal rights in the allegorical and historical contexts of human-constructed oppression.

 “Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no other creature except himself. And among us let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.”

–George Orwell, Animal Farm , p.10, 1945.

Across critical readings of George Orwell’s canonical work Animal Farm (1945), scholars have understood Orwell to have written the text as an allegory for the fate of communism in the USSR (Dwan 2012). He provides a rich, easily digestible commentary for those humans who do not immediately suffer from oppression under communism. Now an academically featured text, his intentional metaphor has become a staple of high school classroom discussions. However, the mapping of political purpose onto the text ignores a significant portion of the book’s meta-meanings. The author experiments with the installation of meta-meanings predicated on forms of human/animal entanglement. Critics overlook a powerful aspect of the text’s construction of nonhuman content: the animals , not the humans, suffer.

Animal Farm envisions an environment created for human consumption at the expense of animal labor. Thus far, our intellectual consideration of Animal Farm —in ignoring or placing under critical erasure the positions of nonhuman animals in the text—propagates this oppressive tradition. In our age of the human ego, the Anthropocene, we completely manipulate the natural world to serve our desires. [i] We exert this same level of domination exhibited in our intellectual understandings, including literary criticism. When canonical commentary resides within the limits of its considerations of human themes and morals, the positions of the Animals forgo exploration of their liberation to analysis of allegorical human warfare (Eisenman, 2013). [ii]  An ecocritical reading of Animal Farm examines the power dynamic between humans and other animals, and poses the consideration of equality for all Earth-inhabiting lifeforms. Principally, Animal Farm engages with how we digest representations of animal bodies, and in doing so, demonstrates we can no longer ignore the interests of animals. The allegorical connection between human societal oppression and farming conditions in this literature spurs an eco-ethical argument for the application of animal rights in present-day society.

Mainstream readings of this text interpret it as a piece of writing that reflects wider reactions to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) with continued contemporary relevance. [iii] Orwell’s distrust of the Soviet Union was forged in the Spanish Civil War, where he witnessed the betrayal of the non-Stalinist Left by their pro-Russian comrades (Holmgren, 1972). He and his wife fought alongside Troskyists, many of whom were jailed in what Orwell witnessed as blind persecution for dissent (Orwell, 1947). His experience in Spain “informed his anti-Communism and his view of the Soviet Union as totalitarian” (Leab, 2007). As a British citizen, Orwell fixed his work with a political purpose: to cut through the lies of totalitarian propaganda that populated Western media. He stated his goal within his assessment of immediate political action in his 1947 preface to the Ukranian edition,

I understood, more clearly than ever, the negative influence of the Soviet myth upon the western Socialist movement… it was of the utmost importance to me that people in western Europe should see the Soviet regime for what it really was (Orwell 1947, 2).

However, in Orwell’s preface, he included a second purpose of this text, a commonly discarded intention: to position nonhuman animals at the center of his argument. “I proceeded to analyse Marx’s theory from the animals’ point of view. To them it was dear that the concept of a class struggle between humans was pure illusion, since whenever it was necessary to exploit animals, all humans united against them: the true struggle is between animals and humans” (Orwell 1947, 3). When reading this book through the lens of human politics, humans identify the protagonist, Snowball, or the antagonist, Napoleon, with their historical counterparts; but they disregard the fact that there are human characters who exist within the text in greater opposition to the animal characters. The animals’ point of view in Marx’s theory is best summarized by Old Major, the Lenin of the farm’s society:

The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth. But is this simply part of the order of nature?… No, comrades, a thousand times no!… Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings (Orwell 1945, 7).

Old Major positions the well-being of the Animals against the profit of humanity. The prize-winning pig recognizes the existing environment to be heavily imbalanced and encourages his fellow domesticated creatures to rebel against the “miserable condition” that is apart from “the order of nature” (Ibid.).  However, by the end of the novel there occurs “a complete reversion to the same system of domination and repression that had existed before, only this time with the complicity of animals themselves…” (Eisenman 2013, 234).

By positioning a contemporary analysis of Animal Farm against environmental intention, we see how literary analysis echoes a process of disputing what beings are worthy of respect, based upon a set of pre-conceived attributes. In “Orwell’s Paradox: Equality in Animal Farm ,” David Dwan (2012) analyzes equality as it relates to political concepts in Animal Farm . [iv] As Dwan discusses ambiguity in Orwell’s definition of equality, he draws the conclusion that a criticism of Animal Farm can be based solely in its critique of human morals (Dwan 2012). In his analysis, he declares:

The demand that animals should be treated equally seems to imply that they are not at present equal… Indeed, it is not immediately obvious what equality construed as a fact actually means, outside of the simple tautology that animals are animals (Dwan 2012, 665).

He goes on to compare the Animals to each other by emphasizing their physical differences. Dwan rests a large part of his determinate criteria of equality upon the characteristics of human equality dynamics. When it comes to an actual dissection of the book, he decides “The line drawn by the animals is wholly arbitrary and parodies the moral parochialism of human beings” (Dwan, 666). [v] In this conversation, debating the definition of “human” to delve further into the definition of “equality” presents animal images solely to serve human interests. By conflating humanity and equality in the novel based upon Orwell’s exterior work, Dwan overlooks the novel’s expression of the human/animal relationship dynamic. Furthermore, in claiming that Animal Farm grounds itself in the direct consideration of human interest, Dwan reaches the one-sided assertion, “The key tenet of Animalism—‘all animals are equal’—is really a coded form of humanism” (Dwan, 667). [vi] What he means is the species distinction can be dissipated by declaring the Animals to be as narrowminded as humans. By centralizing human content, humanist readings of Animal Farm ironically enact the same anthropocentric oppression the animals attempt to combat.

For example, in the case of a farm, all animals are domesticated, and there is no need to struggle for resources in an environment where they produce for themselves. However, they are unable to escape the power of the Anthropocene, so the Animals inherit the toxic human behaviors that initially inspired the Rebellion. In Old Major’s initial speech, he constructs societal rules against human vices, including, “No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade” (Orwell 1945, 11). If these Animals existed in a more “natural” environment, there would be no need to specifically forbid any human behaviors. It is only because the domesticated Animals were witness to indulgent behaviors that they choose which traits to maintain in their community.

As Manor Farm society constrains animals against human-like action, it is important to note that there are no rules against acting like any other animal in this multi-species community. These Animals are individuals, and are accorded to act as their own beings, as opposed to acting like humans. Stephen Eisenman, in his work The Cry Of Nature: Art and the Making of Animal Rights , researches animal identity against artistic representations in multiple works. In analyzing Animal Farm , he details the significance of unity in this diverse society, as animal revolution disassembles human metaphor:

“Indeed, there are many elements in the book that buttress this non-metaphoric, Marxist reading, including the absence of any clearly drawn human figure who may be compared to the animals, and most of all, the individualism of each anima … it is difficult to see the animals in animal farm as mere metaphors of essential human ambition, avarice, anger and duplicity, or the typology of revolutions. Instead they are individuals united in protest and revolution” (Eisenman, 236).

By renouncing human activity and defining humanity as something to be rejected, the characters attempt to discard allegorical subjugation. Although the similarities between Animal Farm and the history of the USSR revolution are inescapable, avoiding such generalization reveals that each animal has agency to work together. Arguably, community in this natural habitat would have the capacity to function symbiotically. However, in the novel, the second generation of leaders do fall prey to Eisenman’s described traits. They recognize that in order to flourish and thrive in human society, the implications of running Manor Farm are that the society must acquire an input and output of goods. This prominent economic influence leads to inequality in food rationing, housing, and many other power imbalances between the pigs and the other farm members. Production is found on exception in the animal kingdom as a social necessity; animals do not naturally engage in any recognizable form of trade. By doing so, they minimize the consideration of their own interests and continue to prioritize human values.

The idea of human-animal interests as oppositional spawned an influential definition of equality when “All Animals Are Equal” became the first chapter title of Peter Singer’s ethics book, Animal Liberation (1990). As a utilitarian, Singer believes in creating the least suffering and the most pleasure for the most beings possible. His chapter argued that “the ethical principle on which human equality rests requires us to extend equal consideration to animals too” (Singer 1990, 1). By deriving his title from Animal Farm, he is positioning principles of equality against our societal norms. This position interprets “All animals are equal” on a literal level: “The basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment ; it requires equal consideration. Equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights” (Singer, 2). He recognizes equality to be more than human social construction, and bases it in moral philosophy of global action. In declaring that all animals are due equal consideration, Singer is arguing against, for example, the way Manor Farm operates at the expense of the animals who produce its worth.

With Singer’s work enabling an animal-centric interpretation, we can discern Orwell’s book identifies equality as a social idea defending animals against subjugation or manipulation for inconsiderate purposes. The idea appears in Animal Farm at the end of Old Major’s rallying monologue. “And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All Animals are equal” (Orwell 1945 , 11). This quote places equality in opposition to violence. It is as simple as that: the consideration of the animals’ interests involves not murdering them, not abusing them for our purposes. Their capacity as animals does not preclude tyranny. The assertion within this quote is a moral idea that should work idyllically within this society of domesticated animals; there is no reason for any of these animals to take advantage of each other in their habitat. Especially in an environment with so many species of creatures, the principle of “brotherhood” dissipates any physical distinctions in favor of symbiotic community.

And yet, Manor Farm operates as a hierarchy that continually forgoes the interests of its civil creatures. One of the most potent examples of the disregard for animal equality occurs when Boxer is sent away from Manor Farm. Even though the pigs run the farm, the entire situation constructs itself around human desire. Boxer is the hardest laborer on Manor Farm and puts in many extra hours to build their windmill. One day, Boxer’s lungs give out, and Napoleon arranges to have him sent away from the farm to attend a hospital (Orwell 1945, 120). This is near Boxer’s retirement age, as the farm had set a limit of 12 years as social security. A “sly-looking man” steers a large closed van labeled, “Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon” (Orwell, 122). The farm Animals quickly realize what is truly happening, and appeal to the horses driving the van, “But the stupid brutes, too ignorant to realize what was happening, merely set back their ears and quickened their pace” (Orwell, 123). Napoleon, now the elected President of the farm, sold Boxer for human consumption. This is an explicit scene that asks the audience to consider how farms treat animals when they are no longer able to produce. After all the long years Boxer had served the farm, “he looked forward to the peaceful days that he would spend in the corner of the big pasture” (Orwell, 121). However, instead of being rewarded for his faithfulness, his body became a source of profit.

If we return to Dwan with this example in mind, we see that “all animals are equal” cannot possibly be an example of humanism, because this literature dictates situations that are removed from human society. The animal, in this case Boxer, has labored his whole life for the good of his community. The plot climaxes when the pigs become so warped by human interest that they choose to sacrifice one of their own “brothers” to the world outside their society. As animals instrumentalize other animals, the murder of a faithful animal for monetary gain is pointed to as explicitly immoral. A humanist reading would see this as a metaphor for injustice within humanity, or read Boxer as a symbol of the laboring class. We see the predicament of animal sacrifice so often that we can no longer recognize it as the important story. Our own farms are run with the least consideration of animal interests possible. Animals are beings who live and breathe and experience, but they are continually harmed by cost-effective strategies of operation in these controlled environments.

Additionally, Singer’s interpretation of this structured inequality identifies a new strain of thought prejudice, speciesism (1990). While humanism separates man from deity, “Speciesism is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species” (Singer 1990, 6). In other words, speciesism is the thought process that justifies the immoral treatment of non-human animals. Old Major defines the qualifier of this ideology, “Man serves the interests of no other creature except himself” (Orwell 1945, 10). When debating the extension of equality, Singer moves to expose the moral wrongdoing done to animals solely because they are non-human. To read the pigs in the novel as speciesist, not humanist, alters any comprehension of the Animals’ revolution against their conditions, because it places their environment in reality instead of metaphor.

We must consider Animal Farm ’s statement “All Animals Are Equal” as reacting to the subjugation of real animals to human interest. Initially, this statement spurred the Animals to overthrow their human master and use their trained skills to produce for themselves. Eventually, the pigs differentiated themselves not as the superior species, but as the most human . At the end of the novel, Orwell erases the line between man and animal that had been so distinctly drawn: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which” (Orwell 1945, 141). But the Animals do not become their own enemy; instead, they morph into the true enemy, the species that was their initial oppressing force. As far as we know, humans are the only species that both value and disregard equality, and yet we cannot conjure a successful definition of it.

Based upon its merits, content, and cultural impact, I believe Animal Farm will remain a long-term member of the literary canon. However, analyzing Animal Farm in a way that negates the struggle of the characters continues the tradition of minimizing experiences and voices that are not our own (educated humans). This is a facet of our society to which we must attend. As the animals of the Manor Farm exhibit, they cannot simply escape the dominating landscape we have conjured for them. Our hazardous norm of slaughtering animals by the millions for food, abusing the natural cycles of life for production, and forcing our animals to labor until they collapse is unethical. Some reading this paper may say, “Well, I’m not a farmer!” But by benefitting from the stability of an economy predicated in large measure by corporatized animal agriculture profits, we continue the awful abuse of animals we have enslaved.

So, we are not farmers. We are not Mr. Jones, Mr. Pilkington, or Alfred Simmonds. Obviously, we position ourselves to be morally higher than these evil caricatures. But we, as humans, see animals as products to be consumed. Even readers of Animal Farm who subscribe to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle continue to digest literary animal bodies for social commentary. Ultimately, we are all readers . The fact remains that we can write and read texts about animals without once considering their position: and that is surely wrong. In the end, Animal Farm moves readers to be conscientious about thinking through human-animal relations on a larger scale. As humanity expands, and we have knowledge of the damage we inflict, why do we continually disregard the consideration of the earth’s interests? When defining the idea of equality, we extend it only to ourselves, and even then, it usually remains a thought or ideal. Animal Farm is positioned against the Everyman, the person who reads the social commentary and comes away with a critique of the Soviet Union without even considering the novel’s plot. The typical reading takes the position that if animals are not symbols for humans, they are nothing. But if the plot is taken as anything other than an analogy, then it reveals the lived condition of animals . The plot consists of animals rejecting their human master, creating a society that mimics human interest, and falling prey to the exact vices and delusions that harnessed them in the first place. With this analysis of the novel’s message, we can begin to re-examine how dependent we are upon animal suffering. By replacing animal literary bodies with physical images, we can begin to take small steps forward to create a safer Earth for all.

• The Anthropocene has been defined by the dictionary as “the epoch of geological time during which human activity is considered to be the dominant influence on the environment, climate, and ecology of the earth, a formal chrono-stratigraphic unit with a base which has been tentatively defined as the mid-twentieth century. The Anthropocene is commonly taken to extend from the time of the Industrial Revolution to the present, but is sometimes considered to include much or all of the Holocene” (OED). The term spans across disciplines and resonates in many academic fields. For more information about the literary role of the Anthropocene, see the introduction of Anthropocene Reading: Literary History in Geologic Times (Menely and Taylor, 2017).
• For the purposes of this paper, when referring to the characters of Animal Farm , the word “animals” will be capitalized.
• Indeed, if you look on any major scholarly website offering a synopsis or summary of the text, they will encourage the historical connection. One example, from Britannica: “… Animal Farm (1945), George Orwell’s allegorical tale about the early history of Soviet Russia. Most critics agree that Snowball represents Leon Trotsky” (Britannica). Additionally, from Cliffsnotes: “The main action of Animal Farm stands for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the early years of the Soviet Union. Animalism is really communism” (Moran).
• For the purposes of this paper, the farm will be referred to as Manor Farm, and the book shall hold the sole title of Animal Farm .
• Parochialism means a limited or narrowed outlook, “esp. confinement of one’s own interests to the local sphere” (OED).
• Humanism is “Any system of thought or ideology which places humans, or humanity as a whole, at its centre” (OED).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dwan, David. “Orwell’s Paradox: Equality in Animal Farm .” ELH 79, No. 3 (2012): pp. 655-683.

Eisenman, Stephan. “Primal Scenes”. The Cry of Nature, London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2013.

Encyclopædia Britannica Editors. “Snowball”. Encyclopædia Britannica , Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2011. Retrieved Oct 10 2019, from www.britannica.com/

Holmgren, Jonas. “The Freedom of the Press: Orwell’s Proposed Preface to Animal Farm ”. The Times Literary Supplement , London: Stig Abell, 1972. www.marxists.org/ .

Leab, Daniel. “Orwell and Animal Farm”. Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Making of Animal Farm. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007.

Menely, Tobias and Taylor, Jesse. “Introduction”. Anthropocene Reading: Literary History in Geologic Times. Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press,

Moran, Daniel. “ Animal Farm at a Glance”. Cliffsnotes on Animal Farm . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. Retrieved 10 Oct 2019, from www.cliffsnotes.com/

Orwell, George. Animal Farm . New York: Penguin, 1945.

Orwell, George. “Preface to Ukranian translation of ‘ Animal Farm : A Fairy Story’”. First published Prometej , 1947. Orwell Project, O. Dag, 2000. www.orwell.ru .

Singer, Peter. “All Animals Are Equal.” Animal Liberation, ed. 2 . New York: Random House, 1990.

Sleigh, Vita. “The Farm Myth: Fantasy Farms, Factory Farming”. Sloth 5, No.1 (2019). https://www.animalsandsociety.org/human-animal-studies/sloth/sloth-volume-5-no-1-winter-2019/the-farm-myth-fantasy-farms-factory-farming/

Unknown Author. “Anthropocene”. In Oxford English Dictionary. New York: Oxford University press, 2000.

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Unknown Author. “Parochialism.” In Oxford English Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press

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Animal Farm

George orwell, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Animal Farm depicts a revolution in progress. Like all popular revolutions, the uprising in Animal Farm develops out of a hope for a better future, in which farm animals can enjoy the fruits of their own labor without the overbearing rule of humans. At the time of the revolution, all of the animals on Mr. Jones ’s farm, even the pigs, are committed to the idea of universal equality—but these high ideals that fueled the revolution in the first place gradually give way to individual and class-based self-interest. Animal Farm thus illustrates how a revolution can be corrupted into a totalitarian regime through slow, gradual changes.

At first, the revolution creates the sense that there could be a bright future in store for Animal Farm. Old Major makes a number of objectively true points in his speech to the animals, such as that Mr. Jones is a cruel and unfeeling master who cares little or not at all for their wellbeing, and that humans themselves don’t produce anything (like eggs or milk). The Seven Commandments that Snowball and Napoleon come up with in the months after are similarly idealistic, and, in theory, lay the groundwork for a revolution that truly will elevate individual workers above horrible, totalitarian leaders like Mr. Jones. Indeed, when the rebellion surprisingly happens, things initially seem as if they’re going to go in a positive direction for everyone: there are debates among the animals, animals have the ability to propose items for discussion, and every animal participates in the working of the farm. Best of all, the animals pull in the best and fastest hay harvest that the farm has ever seen, suggesting that their revolution has benefits in addition to freeing them from a cruel situation under Mr. Jones. It seems possible that they’ll truly be able to make self-government work.

However, the novel also offers early clues that corruption begins to take hold on Animal Farm long before Napoleon takes drastic steps to turn it into a totalitarian state, even when by most metrics, things seem to be going smoothly and fairly. For instance, it’s not an accident that only the pigs and the dogs are the ones who become fully literate. While to a degree, this becomes a chicken and egg question (in terms of which came first: literacy or corrupt power), the fact remains that the only literate creatures are the ones who ultimately seize control. Further, even idealistic Snowball insists to the other animals that because the literate pigs are “mindworkers” engaged in figuring out how exactly to run the farm, they need the entire crop of apples and all the cows’ milk. This power shift takes place during that first exceptional hay harvest, making it clear that things aren’t as rosy as the hay yield, and the increased productivity it suggests, might lead one to believe.

The corruption doesn’t end with the theft of milk and apples; by the end of the novel, the pigs sleep in the farmhouse, have a school for their pig children, drink alcohol, and consume sugar off of the Jones’s set of fine china—all things initially forbidden in some form in the original Seven Commandments. However, one of the most corrupt things that the pigs do is to modify the Seven Commandments to effectively legalize whatever it is they decide they want to do, from drinking alcohol to sleeping in beds. This corruption is something that most animals don’t notice, while those that do are either cowed into pretending that they don’t notice or executed for expressing concern. This combination of fear and unthinking trust in leaders, the novel suggests, is one of the most important elements that allows corruption to flourish.

Though the animals’ rebellion began as one against humans and everything they stand for in the animals’ eyes—greed, alcoholism, decadence, and cruelty, among other vices—it’s telling that the novel ends when animals, led by Clover , cannot tell Napoleon and his pig cronies apart from the human farmers who came for a tour and dinner. With this, the novel proposes that revolution is something cyclical that repeats throughout time. Because of corruption, those individuals who are powerful to begin with or who overthrow cruel and heartless leaders will inevitably come to resemble those former leaders, once they understand what it’s like to occupy such a position of power. In this sense, Orwell paints a grim view of revolution as a whole, as Animal Farm demonstrates clearly that even when the ideals of a revolution may be good, it’s all too easy to twist those ideals, fall prey to corruption, and poison the movement, harming countless powerless individuals in the process.

Revolution and Corruption ThemeTracker

Revolution and Corruption Quotes in Animal Farm

“Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings.”

“Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”

“Remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.”

“Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.”

“I have no wish to take life, not even human life,” repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears.

At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws.

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”

“Napoleon is always right.”

“Comrades, do you know who is responsible for this? Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill? SNOWBALL!”

If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal.

If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak [...] Instead - she did not know why - they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.

At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. [...] None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to understand, but would say nothing.

Besides, in those days they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out.

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer—except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.

“Four legs good, two legs better !”

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Rosa Parks: the Birth of a Civil Rights Legend

This essay is about Rosa Parks, born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, and her significant role in the Civil Rights Movement. It outlines her early life, shaped by the segregation of the Jim Crow South, and her strong family values emphasizing education and self-respect. The essay highlights her marriage to Raymond Parks and their involvement with the NAACP, which set the stage for her historic act of defiance on a Montgomery bus in 1955. This act sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, leading to a Supreme Court ruling against bus segregation. The essay also discusses her continued activism in Detroit and her enduring legacy as the “mother of the Civil Rights Movement.”

How it works

On a cool day in early February, 1913, in the small town of Tuskegee, Alabama, Rosa Louise McCauley was born. This day would come to be celebrated as the birth of one of the most influential figures in American history. Rosa Parks, as she would later be known, became a symbol of the struggle against racial segregation and a beacon of courage and resilience. Her story, however, is much more than the iconic moment on a Montgomery bus; it’s a rich tapestry of determination, activism, and unwavering commitment to justice that spanned her entire life.

Rosa’s early years were shaped by the challenging realities of the segregated South. Born to James McCauley, a skilled carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a dedicated schoolteacher, Rosa was raised in an environment where the values of education and self-respect were paramount. Her parents separated when she was young, and Rosa moved with her mother to Pine Level, a rural community outside Montgomery. There, she grew up on her grandparents’ farm, surrounded by a supportive extended family.

Despite the oppressive environment of the Jim Crow South, Rosa’s family instilled in her a strong sense of dignity and self-worth. Her mother and grandparents emphasized the importance of education, encouraging Rosa to excel in her studies. She attended the Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery, one of the few educational institutions available to African American girls at the time. The school provided a refuge from the harsh realities of segregation, offering Rosa a place to nurture her intellectual and personal growth.

Rosa’s experiences with racial discrimination began early in her life. She recounted memories of walking to the school bus and watching white children ride by in a bus provided by the state while she and other black children had to walk. These daily indignities, along with more overt acts of racial violence, shaped Rosa’s understanding of the deeply entrenched racial inequality in her society. Her early exposure to injustice sowed the seeds of her lifelong commitment to civil rights.

In 1932, at the age of 19, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber and a prominent member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Raymond was deeply involved in the fight for racial equality, and his activism profoundly influenced Rosa. Together, they became active in the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, where Rosa served as a secretary and youth leader. This involvement provided her with a platform to engage more directly in the struggle for civil rights and to connect with other activists committed to challenging the status quo.

The defining moment of Rosa Parks’ life—and indeed, one of the most significant moments in the history of the Civil Rights Movement—occurred on December 1, 1955. After a long day of work at the Montgomery Fair department store, Rosa boarded a city bus and took a seat in the “colored” section. As the bus filled up, the driver demanded that she and three other black passengers give up their seats for white riders. While the others complied, Rosa quietly refused. Her simple act of defiance led to her arrest for violating the city’s segregation laws.

Rosa’s arrest sparked outrage and mobilized the African American community in Montgomery. Under the leadership of a then-unknown young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr., the community organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott, which lasted for 381 days, was a landmark event in the Civil Rights Movement. It demonstrated the power of collective action and nonviolent protest in challenging racial segregation and highlighted the economic power of the black community.

The success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a turning point in the fight for civil rights. It led to a Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation on public buses unconstitutional, marking a significant victory for the movement. Rosa Parks’ role in this victory cemented her status as an icon of resistance and courage. However, her involvement in the struggle for equality did not end with the boycott.

In the years following the boycott, Rosa continued to work tirelessly for civil rights. She and her husband faced economic hardship and threats of violence, prompting them to move to Detroit in 1957. In Detroit, Rosa became an administrative aide to Congressman John Conyers Jr., a position she held for over two decades. She remained active in the NAACP and other civil rights organizations, advocating for racial equality, economic justice, and human rights until her death in 2005.

Rosa Parks’ legacy extends far beyond her act of defiance on that Montgomery bus. She is remembered as the “mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” a title that acknowledges her critical role in igniting a broader struggle for justice. Her life and actions continue to inspire generations of activists and serve as a reminder of the power of individual courage in the face of systemic oppression.

Her story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the impact one person can have on the course of history. Rosa Parks’ birth on February 4, 1913, marked the beginning of a life that would profoundly shape the fight for civil rights in America. Her unwavering commitment to justice, her quiet strength, and her refusal to accept the status quo are enduring lessons for all who seek to make the world a more equitable place.

Rosa Parks’ journey from a small town in Alabama to the annals of history is a story of resilience, perseverance, and the transformative power of courage. It serves as a powerful reminder that change often begins with a single, courageous act. Her life encourages us to stand up for what is right, to challenge injustice wherever we find it, and to never underestimate the impact of our actions.

Today, as we reflect on Rosa Parks’ legacy, we are reminded that the fight for civil rights is ongoing. The struggles she faced and the victories she achieved continue to resonate in today’s efforts to address racial inequality and social injustice. Her story is not just a chapter in history but a call to action for each of us to contribute to the ongoing struggle for equality and human dignity.

Rosa Parks’ date of birth is more than just a historical fact; it is a symbol of the enduring fight for civil rights and the power of the human spirit to effect change. Her life and legacy inspire us to continue working towards a world where justice and equality are not just ideals but realities for all.

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Category: Plant and Soil Sciences

Leveraging landscape architecture for conservation

May 30, 2024 Written by Molly Schafer

University of Delaware alumna Juliahna Mistretta is leveraging her landscape architecture degree for conservation. This summer, Mistretta completes a master’s degree in global biodiversity conservation at the University of Sussex in Brighton, United Kingdom. The former Blue Hen is building on a strong foundation. At the UD College of Agriculture and Natural Resources , she combined her landscape architecture studies with an internship at the  UD Botanic Gardens . 

Mistretta is adamant that her work should positively impact people, places, and the environment. In 2005, she watched Hurricane Katrina ravage her hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. The massive storm overwhelmed the New Orleans’ levee system, leaving 80 percent of the city underwater. Witnessing this life-changing storm and the environmental challenges that followed catalyzed her interest in conservation and sustainable design. 

“Experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change and rising sea levels ignited my interest in creating sustainable environments,” Mistretta said. “Spaces that are not only resilient toward our changing climate but that can reintroduce biodiversity into urban areas and have a profound effect on people’s lives.”

Mistretta was attracted to UD’s landscape architecture program because the major seeks to address solutions to environmental, natural resources and sustainable challenges at local, regional and global levels.

“I moved across the country to study landscape architecture at the University of Delaware because the program focuses on sustainability and resiliency,” underscored Mistretta. 

At UD, Mistretta worked on her capstone project with Anna Wik , associate professor of landscape architecture and registered landscape architect. Her project sought to transform an abandoned power plant in her hometown of New Orleans into a public space bursting with functional, sustainable design.

“Not only did Juliahna approach this goal from the perspective of landscape architecture, designing thoughtful, sustainable, and exciting outdoor spaces,” Wik explained. “She also took risks and succeeded in devising architectural strategies that transformed the building into a lush and dynamic destination.”

In her master’s program at the University of Sussex, Mistretta’s classes included Advanced Conservation Biology. Visiting lecturers presented on various topics, including dark sky preservation, light pollution, and citizen science. In her Science of Climate Change course, Mistretta studied the history of climate change and climate fluctuations. Her favorite class was Decolonizing Development.

“The class asked you to consider your impact on the world,” Mistretta explained. “We discussed ways to ensure that equity and equality are at the forefront of our work and explored issues with gentrification and Indigenous rights.”

Mistretta’s final presentation for the class was on indigenous self-determination and anti-colonial nationalism.

This spring, Mistretta spent three weeks on a field study with the University of Sussex in Zambia, Africa. Her class collected biodiversity data for Kasanka National Park.

“We captured bats via mist netting and then identified them for the park’s database,” Mistretta explained. “Kasanka National Park has the largest bat migrations in the world from October to December; we were identifying which bats are present year-round.”

Another project involved searching the park for dung beetles.

“We found an abundance of beetles and identified three species not previously recorded in the park,” Mistretta elaborated.

Although she was in Zambia to collect biodiversity data, Mistretta couldn’t help but notice the changing climate.

“You see the effects of climate change everywhere now,” Mistretta noted. “Zambia is usually pretty wet this time of year, but they’re experiencing an extreme drought that is affecting the park’s biodiversity.”

The drought is the worst Zambia has experienced in two decades. In February the president of Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema, declared a national emergency. Food production has been affected as well as the nation’s water and energy supply. 

According to Mistretta, African bush elephants were not in the park during the wet season in previous years. They would be nearby, eating the village’s crops.

“This year, during the wet season, there were elephants in the park while we were there,” Mistretta said. “Their presence affects the availability of food sources for other animals.”

Elephant digestion is not very efficient; it is easy to see what they have eaten.

“A lot of the dung we were looking at was elephant dung,” elaborated Mistretta.” We did find maize and pumpkins, suggesting the elephants had gone to the village. But with the extreme drought, the village did not have many crops, so the elephants returned to the park.”

Kasanka National Park will review the data Mistretta and her class collected as part of the park’s biodiversity conservation efforts.

Back in Sussex, Mistretta is collecting data for her dissertation; researching the effects of wildflower availability on pollinator diversity—Using quadrats, FIT counts, and pan trappings she will survey pollinator visits to flowers at Rathfinny Wine Estate and Vineyard in East Sussex, England. Last year, the vineyard planted the same mix of wildflowers at two different locations. Mistretta will examine both sites for increased insect biodiversity and compare findings. 

After she has completed her fieldwork, a 6,000-word essay, and presented her dissertation, Mistretta will return to the U.S. in search of an apprenticeship with a licensed landscape architect. This multi-year undertaking is a requirement for earning a landscape architecture license. 

“Landscape architecture is what I love to do,” Mistretta stated. “I want to find a way to merge the skills I’ve learned through this master’s course, whether it is conservation or decolonization, with landscape architecture.” 

When searching for apprenticeship opportunities, Mistretta noticed that many firms focus primarily on aesthetics, not sustainability. Instead of being dissuaded, she sees this as an opportunity to incorporate sustainable practices.

“With how the world is changing,” Mistretta emphasized. “I don’t think it will be acceptable for much longer just to have a pretty landscape. It has to be functional.” 

“That is why I enjoyed the University of Delaware so much,” Mistretta smiled. “Because a lot of the work we were doing was conscious of the environment.”

Learn more about the University of Delaware’s  landscape architecture major .

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