Animal Farm

I would recommend this book if and only if you've relatively understood what happened during the 1917 Russian Revolution, and/or you've already read 1984 of the same author. In which, I have yet to read. However, I will confidently assume and say that meeting these two prerequisites will ultimately make you engage a lot more better into the story.

I encountered George Orwell after using Pinterest for a substantial amount of time as the algorithm eventually figured out about my literary wanders.

So I went on and used a search engine to find what the synopsis of this book. And eventually I ended up adding this to my wish list.

Then out of nowhere, a trip to the nearest National Bookstore here at my local area, I encountered this book and bought it immediately after recognizing it.

This book...sighs

It was good when I started it, I was heavily engaged with the plot of it as it had MANY, and I mean, MANY parallels to the historical accounts of what had happened to the story's real life counterpart.

But as I kept on reading, I found it to get even more boring until I kind of didn't care anymore towards the end.

And the reason being, that it kind of felt like I'm reading a history lesson for kids... And well... let's just say... some accusations about the author were thrown out there because of this book.

Old Major, at the start of the story, gave a marvelous speech about his ambitions as he himself threw a critique of the human "Mr. Jones" who has exploited them all throughout their life. In which says:

His ideas were of that his kind, the animals, were being exploited by their human owner, Mr. Jones and that their human overlord were leeching off of the animal’s labor and goods, and had quite the small exchange of protection and care for them. Which is mirrored on the fact that the animals in real life was that of the working class, the people.

His speech stirred up something inside of the hearts of the animals, as they were being introduced. And as for the Old Major himself, he grew old and passed away some time after his speech.

The Ideology of Animalism was centered for the better benefit of the Animals at Animal Farm. The coming uprising is that it was centered on vilifying Mr. Jones and another human being ruling over them.

The ideology says that these rulers were obviously oppressing them and exploiting their labor in exchange for loose protection and other “benefits.”

These three were the backbone of the early foundations of who were to be in charge of the coming revolt. As they pretty much learned how to read just from studying a children's book from Mr. Jones. And Snowball being able to create a blueprint for a windmill from a guidebook Mr. Jones used to have.

Snowball is the fictional counterpart of Leon Trotsky, and his personality is of that what could have theoretically been a competent ruler, making innovations and improving the state planning and development of the people’s lives.

Squealer is the fictional counterpart of Vladimir Lenin. He is described as…

The exile of Snowball marked the unmasking of Napoleon's Regime in taking full authority of the farm with little to no opposition. They made his exile theatrical as it painted Snowball to be a traitor of the farm and to the animals as a whole, and this was all meticulously orchestrated by Napoleon for a long time before.

And because of this, Napoleon became the only person who was qualified to be the ruler of the farm. In which, reminds me of the strategy of people who want more power through a monopoly, especially shady corporations and what not.

Explaining through an analogy of "The Tallest Building is The Best Building." Though you cannot change the height of the building to be even taller than what it already is, the only choice then becomes destroying the other buildings until you are the last one standing, therefore you are the tallest building.

Through manipulation of narratives, propaganda tactics, and ruling with an iron fist. Napoleon has swayed the animals of the farm to be revering to him as the best leader the farm could have had. In actuality, everything was all theatrical, especially the supposed construction of the windmill, in which his regime stole from snowball's blueprint.

With every tool within Napoleon's arsenal, he used to control the opinions and thought of the animals. Boxer the horse kept on believing the theatrics, pushing on since he placed his faith on the hopes that his labor could amount to the benefit for the farm...

I don't personally have much to say other than this reminds me of a nationalistic propaganda and racism through a surface level of interpretation.

However, I'd like to digress and say that this is more poorly address as "If you are not from the working class, then you are bad" Which is what the Russians went through with their revolution with the narrative that if you were in support of the monarchy during that era, then essentially you are against the people. The one's who were keeping the country together in terms of labor, production and other goods and services.

Napoleon, the vicious swine that he is. At the end of the story, wraps everything up as the story highlights the absolute misery that the other farm animals have been feeling under his rule.

And that they have begun to question what they were even fighting for. In actuality, they were fighting for a good cause, but the head of this cause was never good. And so what the animals were then fighting for became bad and as a consequence, their lives became bad.

From everything discussed, the story suggests that in the midst of fighting for what people believe is right, it is when this supposed noble movement is then hijacked by an abusive individual who takes on full power. And then the cause for the movement and it's revolutionary idea gets shattered and twisted to fit within the demands of those in power, who favor the one leading this totalitarian regime. Therefore it just becomes a cycle of whoever is at the top of the hierarchy, becomes the exploiter of the labors of the lower caste.

So ultimately, must we be knowledgeable, less gullible. Then, we can never repeat the past mistakes of our history. Never be swayed by the sweet talkers who speak of nothing but sorcery, but be of conscious decision to decide what is right for you, others, and for the world stage.