Riot’s Classic Literature Reviews: Animal Farm
I’m sure it will be to no one’s surprise that George Orwell finally made his way onto my reading/review list. What might be surprising though, is that I will be covering Animal Farm instead of the more illustrious 1984. The answer as to why is two-fold. First, I already had to do an extensive, deep-dive into 1984 for a literature class during grad school. Second, maybe more unbelievable to some of you; I’ve never read Animal Farm! This came as a great shock to multiple of my co-workers who had all read the novella in public Elementary School (I’m not entirely certain my private school background was the reason I never read it, but it is what it is). I’m fairly well versed in dystopian classic literature, having already read Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, and A Clockwork Orange, but even from what I had previously learned from Archer about the novella, I knew the story is a bit of a different beast. Animal Farm is a poignant, sophisticated allegorical fairytale designed to alert a general public to the evils of Stalinism and systematically highlight the warning signs of a government system that inevitably (as history has shown) devolves into totalitarianism.
History as a subject was never a strong suit of mine (I’m pretty awful at memorizing dates) but I certainly paid sufficient attention to know how awful the Stalinist regime was, even if merely measured by lives lost by his direct orders. This would be terrible enough if it ended there and the amount of deaths caused by the regime’s policies weren’t considered. Though the number seems to fluctuate depending on who is asked, but also because a detailed account was never legitimately taken, it’s certain that Stalin’s Communist Russia was littered with the bodies of its citizens. In that moment, in the years where information could be obfuscated by geographical distance, unverified journalism, and the fog of war, Orwell saw a Western civilization that was somehow enamored by Stalin’s government, completely unaware of its devolving into a totalitarian state. Seeking to remedy this, Orwell wrote Animal Farm and created a work that essentially reflected a one to one comparison of what was happening at the time. Because of this, the themes of the story all relate back to the warning against the Stalinist, totalitarian state.
The Natural Inclination of Class Division: Although Orwell was a devoted socialist, the events of Animal Farm paint the picture of humanity’s natural tendency to divide itself into class structures. Before the day of Revolution on Manor Farm, the animals are shown living in what would inevitably be their last real vestiges of a single class, one that was in servitude of man. Once they had claimed the farm for themselves though, attempts establish an equal society fall apart as quickly as the previous regime they had just supplanted. Sure, it would take time for Napoleon and his minions to really separate themselves in their authoritarian rule, but the lines between animals are established almost immediately between the simple/dumb working class and the educated, inevitable rulers. It’s not enough that characters like Boxer, Clover, and the sheep are so naïve to believe the words of the pigs in the first place, but in any system of governance there exists people that are willing to do whatever it takes to set themselves into the vacated seats of power. Napoleon (Joseph Stalin) and Snowball (Leon Trotsky), while in direct conflict with each other about the method by which to govern, both waste little to no time setting themselves apart from the rest of the animals simply by virtue of their intellects. Even though Snowball is shown to have more concern for the well-being of the entire animal society, it doesn’t change the fact that he allowed himself to be immediately separated from the rest of the farm, quickly violating a core tenant (“equality”) of their belief system.
The Manipulation of Language: Orwell would go on to really get into the heavy lifting of this theme later on when he published 1984, but in Animal Farm, we see some of the foundations of the concepts he would explore. Napoleon and his ilk accomplish their absolute control of the other animals predominately through physical intimidation tactics to be sure, but the foundation of their influence is through propaganda and language manipulation. Like in 1984, the regime spends an enormous amount of effort rewriting history and preying on the naivete and short memory spans of the working class to further their agenda. The phrase “don’t believe your lying eyes and ears” comes to mind during the multitude of times the gullible farm animals are convinced that they have mis-remembered events that they were direct witnesses of. The manipulation is particularly egregious as it relates to the “7 Commandments” of Animalism and their repetitive, often predictable alterations made in favor of the new ruling class of the farm. Every society invariably runs on a set of rules and it is no surprise that a totalitarian regime would be constantly shifting the goalposts to suit their desires. The animals subject themselves often willingly to propagandist songs and chanted phrases that only serve to bend their original idealism to the whims of Napoleon and his dogs. Because time passes and memory naturally fades, the pigs are able to constantly shift what beliefs and phrases are socially “acceptable”.
Bloated Bureaucracy and the “Burden” of Rule: There are multiple references in the novella about the ruling classes’ efforts to create the illusion of accomplishment. Before his exile, Snowball is referenced as creating a slew of committees and bureaucratic oversight that does nothing to actually improve the lives of the other farm animals (sounds familiar eh?). Meanwhile, those in the working class are expected to make more and more concessions to the “big-brained” thinkers who in turn use their propagandist tactics to convince the others that their burdens are comparable, as if intellectual feats are on par with the back breaking work and starvation the working class animals are experiencing. The pigs and their canine underlings take more and more rations while performing none of the labor required to grow the food, meanwhile using their language manipulation to guilt trip the other animals into compliance. For the bureaucratic overlords, there is never any shortage of scapegoats to blame their troubles on as long as the fingers never point inwards. Their “accomplishments” are often a complete façade, masked by metrics/figures that the working class animals can’t understand and to the outside world, a bin filled with sand and topped with a thin layer of grain appears the same as another that is legitimately full.
Fear as the Mechanism of Compliance: Fear really ends up being the central theme to darn near everything that plays out in Napoleon’s rise to power. At the very least, it is the basis by which compliance is wrought from the working class animals at every step of the story. In the time following seizing the means of production from the humans, the animals feared returning to a life of servitude, convinced by the silver-tongued pigs that there would be no worse fate. Following Snowball’s exile, the incremental lies told by Squealer and Napoleon had the animals fearing a phantom, as Snowball’s “machinations” supposedly combated the progress of the farm in a multitude of inexplicable ways. Then it became a game of fear from physical reprisals, with dog squads tearing out the throats of their comrades who admitted to being involved in grand conspiracies that never came to fruition. As I stated before, the physical intimidation and public executions were certainly Napoleon’s greatest tool for the working class compliance, but the animals fear of returning to a life that wasn’t for their “direct benefit” is really what kept the metaphorical chains around their necks.
Wrap Up: When reading dystopian fiction, it is easy to fall into the trap of making connections to real-time events. When it comes to Animal Farm, there was no need to make unfair or unrealistic intellectual observations to fit aspects of the story into an individual’s world view because the story had direct correlations to the actual events of the time. For U.S. citizens, we’ve been fortunate enough to not have had to deal with a totalitarian state (so far) and fingers crossed that we never will. To be sure, there are a number of elements that rang painfully true as far as I could see them and I couldn’t help myself but to point them out. I do see a bloated bureaucracy that spends more time virtue signaling than actually enacting legitimate change/improvements for the general society. I do see a system of governance terrifyingly expanding their influence under the guise of “protection,” exploiting the fears of the moment to seize powers they certainly never intend to give back. I do see a media propaganda and educational system that increasingly instructs people not to believe their lying eyes and ears, shifting the details/facts of stories just to simply arrive first to report. I do see a class division that is being encouraged to paint supposed opposition into a corner labeled as “other,” dolling out multi-tiered “justice” and pretending we don’t notice. I certainly see an online apparatus that is continually working to weaponize words and bend definitions to sow confusion and hate.
What I don’t see is a system past the point of no return. It’s cracked in many ways, but certainly not the hopeless case where people are starving to death in the fields, exiled to the gulags, or permanently removed by firing squads. Whatever this American experiment is, with all its faults, it has provided the means to live blessed lives that are free from the struggles of totalitarianism. Life is hard and is often very cruel but the vast majority of us haven’t even had a whiff of the struggles of the rest of the world. It has made us complacent, lethargic, and laden with so much time that we have invented or exasperated problems that only the privileged would be concerned about. Animal Farm, as far as I can tell, blares out a warning that it is appallingly easy to tear down an existing system but it is exponentially difficult to set a new one in its place and brings to the forefront the reality of the phrase “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.” The human being is complex, often irrational and it’s kind of a miracle that societies are able to be established in the first place. I don’t purpose to know the answers to solve the issues we have but I also don’t waste time grandstanding on the principles of a long dead “philosopher” whose ideas have systematically lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. As far as I can tell, an appreciation for at least some prosperity is better than being forced to concede everything to the malevolence of those who are willing to do anything to seize power and it is beyond naive to believe those people aren’t out there just waiting for their chance.
Riot’s Rating: 10/10: Animal Farm is a literal page turner. It’s simple in its use of language making it incredibly easy to read but the concepts are big and hit you in all the right ways. The characters are compelling and are easy to empathize with. The novella can easily be read in a single evening and probably will be by anyone who picks it up, it’s just that good.