Animal Farm George Orwell – Many people say that power can change a person. But what happens if someone who has power is a very good person, his actions and horns? Although not everyone can change when they get power, basically human nature is insatiable. So what about the basic nature of animals?
From the expressions of treasures, thrones, and women many of us understand very well how they mean. But still, when we have one of them or even all three of them, it makes us forget how to be human.
But, in such cases as in George Orwel’s Animal Farm story, the author describes a similar situation with the placement of animals as its symbolization. Animal Farm is a legendary story that raises the issue of power.
This fairy tale about rulers is a satire that describes how the true nature of man and his character when he has great power. As a story written since August 17, 1945, his story has continued to be told in many countries and languages for more than 70 years.
George Orwell highlighted the political issue where issues around power, injustice have been inherent in many governments since time immemorial. George Orwell was therefore interested in bringing this story up by putting it on animal characters as political satire.
The author also confesses that his work was aimed at criticizing Stalin’s reign in the Soviet Union, which at that time was too authoritarian and dictatorial. So George Orwell conveyed it through this Animal Farm story.
The story, which was first published in England, is a story written by the author during World War II. After the launch of this book, Animal Farm was also translated into many languages with many versions.
In some versions, the book has different titles customizing the translation of the language. Some versions have the subtitle ‘A Fairy Story’ and some others have the subtitle ‘A Satire’. In addition, some characters in the book also have different names during their translation.
But despite all the quite a lot of versions, Animal Farm is one of the legendary literary works, where until now there are still many people who read it. Even use it as a source of literary analysis.
Animal Farm Book author profile : George Orwell Aka Eric Arthur Blair
George Orwell’s name became known since the book Animal Farm was sold all over the UK and even abroad. But, the name is actually also a pen name of the figure of Eric Arthur Blair.
The man, who was born on June 25, 1903, was born in Motihari, Bengal, India. Living with father Richard Walmsley Blair and mother Ida Mabel Blair their little family eventually moved back to England when little Blair was one year old.
Little Blair had exposed his intelligence past his abilities at the Anglican Parish School. But then he continued his education at St Cyprian School which is on the southern coastline of the Eastbourne area of Sussex.
Blair also first met his best friend Cyril Connolly, who was still on good terms until they grew up. Blair’s cleverness in linguistics has indeed been smelled from a young age, as evidenced by his many achievements in winning poetry competitions, and literary works.
Blair also continued his education on a scholarship for his brilliant achievements. Despite having attended the university at Eton College, Blair’s all-deprived life also made him and his mother fall up and down to survive.
To that end, for the first time in life Blair decided to join the Imperial Indian Police in Burma. His life back in India as a policeman made him realize a lot. Including his views on imperialism.
From here, Blair again found his writing passion, and made him want to change his life as a writer.
For this reason Blair decided to move to Paris where his aunt was. But Blair’s life wasn’t as easy as flipping a palm, so he had to fall up and down many times as a writer who apparently wasn’t enough to make himself survive .
That led Blair to do a lot of odd jobs in Paris. Although eventually Blair returned to London and was still living odd jobs to make a living, there were many experiences of Blair’s life that made him aware of the magnitude of the opportunity to write .
Little by little Blair began writing several short novels Burmese Days in 1934, A Hanging in 1931 and also Shooting Elephant in 1936. With so much experience, the ups and downs of Blair’s life, he became known by using his pen name, George Orwell.
One of his legendary novels that gave a lot of new views to the world of authorship was Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Synopsis of George Orwell Animal Farm Book
What would it be like if a group of animals in a farm slowly began to control the territory and even tried to become a better leader than humans themselves?
Animal farm is a novel that tells the story of the animals in Mr. Jones’ Manor Farm . On the farm there was a pig nicknamed the Old Major, who was the winner of the cattle competition, about freedom.
He gathered the animals on the farm for an internal meeting. In the meeting, he told about his dream, that one day there will come a day when the animals can be free, living peacefully without the need for interference human hands.
The old major also told about his position on the farm, if he died later, then the two pigs there would replace his position as leader. The two pigs in question are Snowball and Napoleon.
The day of The Old Major’s death arrived, and finally Napoleon and Snowball began to replace and form the leadership as expected by the Old Major. One morning, Mr. Jones, who got up late and had not taken care of his farm animals, angered the animals on the farm.
They decided to pick up their own food in the food storage warehouse. Knowing this, Mr. Jones was angry but unexpected resistance arose from the animals who worked together to drive Mr. Jones out of the farm.
A certain amount of fierce resistance from farm animals, made Mr. Jones who even brought the other breeders overwhelmed and chose to give up. These animals can finally achieve their desires with a free life without Mr. Jones and other humans.
Miraculously, they can build such a good cooperation and endless mutual aid. Having cleared the premises on the farm, ensuring that the food is fairly divided for each type of animal, and also a decent place of residence they are always obedient to Napoleon and Snowball.
The slightly rude, lazy and greedy Napoleon is a black pig who is busy taking care of Mr. Jones’ house and the puppies left by his mother. The intelligent and structured snowball of the white pig is the one who gives the most command in setting the rhythm of the work of other animals so that they can continue to live and not run out food.
Snowball wrote down 7 ‘animal farm’ laws that animals are obliged to obey, one of which is the saying of the Old Major, that all animals are equal. This means that even in this leadership there is nothing better or higher in rank, because prosperity can only be achieved by cooperation.
As time went on, animal husbandry began to run well. Starting from horses, cows, goats, ducks, chickens, ferrets, to birds working together. They plant seeds in the fields, collect grass and learn how to use tools and read.
Snowball the pig is structured, endlessly making many programs and monthly plans for animal husbandry. But on the other hand, there was Napoleon who didn’t like it because Snowball was over-arranging.
The hateful Napoleon also tried to get rid of Snowball, and made him leave the ranch forever. It was from here that he finally managed to realize his bad intentions by mastering the ranch with free rules.
There was no cooperation to grow crops, but instead he stole the idea of designing the tower that Snowball wanted to make to make the animals obedient. While all the animals were working hard to collect the heavy rocks, Napoleon allowed the other pigs not to work.
The gap between the pigs and other animals is increasingly noticeable when the pigs even sleep in Mr. Jones’ house, eat jam food and other human food, drink beer and do all the which is prohibited by the 7 Animal Husbandry Law.
Napoleon’s dictatorial reign overwhelmed the animals, this is even worse than when Mr. Jones was still there. The animals did not get food, the chickens were taken eggs in exchange for the pig’s favorite jam.
A jam-carrying entrepreneur makes use of Animal Farm to get as many eggs as possible. This also caused the ranchers to be angry and plan to go back to take over the ranch with Mr. Jones.
The war between animals and humans broke out again, and left only another tribulation. Because the tower they built hard to build collapsed. Napoleon got angry and told the animals to build it again. But again, Napoleon who was unwilling to learn from his mistakes only caused more animals to become victims. Because of his own covetousness, turning Napoleon into like Mr. Jones, or even worse?
Lessons from George Orwell’s Animal Farm Book
1. Collaborate
One of the things that is most often presented in this novel is the existence of cooperation. Where when a group of people or even a group of animals have confidence in building cooperation, they can achieve what they want.
Although this story tells the story of animal resistance to humans, it is depicted that with one strong move and excellent cooperation even animals can win from humans .
Although, in this story requires propaganda as an encouragement and driving force for the animals. So that they have the courage to fight humans. We can also see a picture of great cooperation from how these animals learn to survive by farming.
2. Be Fair and Equal
In the 7 Animal Husbandry Law, all the points are rules that must be obeyed by animals in order to maintain equality among all animals. This is what is interesting to listen to, because apparently George Orwell sent a message to readers about the value of humanity itself.
Although it is depicted through animals, or also called animalism. An equally important value to humanize human beings by understanding that we are all equal. Have value and are equally important to each other.
Respecting human values makes us whole human beings. But for a person who can’t respect human values like Napoleon, then that person will get the same as Napoleon.
3. A responsibility
Through snowball’s character we can see that he is very much trying to fulfill his responsibilities as the leader of the animals on the farm. For the sake of survival, and continue to carry out their vision and mission, just like the wishes of the Old Major.
4. Greed
There are several kinds of descriptions of covetousness that can be seen from this Animal Farm story. through Snowball, as a leader he felt he had to go ahead and develop for the prosperity of the animals.
But it also makes him want to continue to try to reach animals that are outside the farm, which has other impacts as well. But despite Snowball’s good purpose, a character full of dissatisfaction, selfishness and covetousness came from Napoleon.
Where did he choose to produce prosperity for himself, and not the entire ranch. He is also so selfish by deceiving other animals in order to enrich himself. Until finally greed turned Napoleon into a selfish dictator pig, and brought another dictatorial pig to his life.
5. Exploitation
The animal version of the story of forced labor here is also described as intense. The animals that were forced to work non-stop, overwhelmed these animals and exhausted. The exploitation of the work of these animals is also what causes misery to the farm. Even some animals fell ill and died as a result of Napoleon’s own greed.
Disadvantages of George Orwell’s Animal Farm Book
From the title, this book already tells us that this is a satirical story, in which the purpose is indeed to satirize the rule of the Soviet Union at that time. But for a work that everyone read, some people in those days thought this book was too terrible.
For some scenes it is depicted not ‘friendly’, even more so using the animals as the image. But it can also be an option for those who like satirical stories, which tend to be rude.
Advantages of George Orwell’s Animal Farm Book
Although it is packaged like a fable, in fact the story of Animal Farm is much darker and heavier than the image of a fable. However, George Orwell has a pretty good picture in pouring out the plot or plot of the story.
Likewise with the provision of the characteristics of each animal. Where these animals are symbols and reflections of human nature. For example, the Old Major as the most authoritative and respected figure, Squealer the proud and deceptive pig, or Boxer the stallion full of hard work.
Conclusion
The character of the animals in Animal Farm is a picture of what human traits look like, either when they are at the bottom or when their lives are above. Which is the most obvious depiction is when a person gains power.
Be in control of a large number of community groups. Starting with a noble vision and mission, sometimes it can shake our mentality. Is it persisting to stay rational or following the ego that distances us to a reality.
That great power must also be accompanied by great responsibility as well, for all things have their own risks. There are many lives at stake with a life hanging in the hands of someone in power.
This huge burden should not make us even shrill in responsibility, and busy thinking about our own prosperity. Covetousness, selfishness and also oppression will only bring endless misery, and like a vicious circle, karma can happen in a time that we do not ever expected.
Other Book Recommendations by George Orwell
1. 1984
2. Coming Up for Air
3. Down and Out in Paris and London