The Official LitNet AF homework help thread - get your answers here!

[Heyyy!]

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[The Atheist]

Animal Farm seems to be the hot topic of homework at the moment, so I thought I'd start a thread for people to have a look at and to add to, so that we can maybe hook up all the points in one place. Then, with a bit of luck, students can pick and choose which bits to expand on.

Let's start off with this:

Animal Farm, along with Orwell's 1984, are classic dystopian novels. They portray a harsh and totalitarian lifestyle where only a few are privileged and the many are simply machines of use to the few.

Animal Farm was written primarily to expose the horrors of Soviet totalitarian rule, typified by Josef Stalin

Animal Farm makes heavy use of symbolism - making an animal or object signify something else. Classic examples are the dogs standing in for the KGB, the Soviet secret police, Napoleon for Stalin himself, and Frederick & Pilkington for Hitler and Churchill.

(Apologies for making such heavy use of Wiki, but they're pretty accurate and simple for easy historical points like these.)

The following is a list of the main characters from Animal Farm and who they equate to in the USSR:

Napoleon - Stalin
Snowball - Leon Trotsky
Pilkington - Winston Churchill
Frederick - Adolf Hitler
Dogs - KGB
Boxer - Russian peasantry/manual workers
Old Major - a combination of Karl Marx and V I Lenin

Nearly all of the characters are symbolic of some part of USSR or its partners, allies or enemies and many of the events have historic relationships as well. For instance, the takeover of the farm symbolises the Russian Revolution, while the flag, with hoof and horn is a direct copy of the USSR flag, in negative with green/red juxtaposition.

Many of the minor characters have important parts to play in the allegory, so try to be creative when dealing with symbolism, which seems to be a favourite question at the moment!

Another interesting tack has been brought up recently, so I'll repeat that here as well as it also gives clues to other options for essays - assume you're working for the United Nations or similar body and asked to provide a report on Animal Farm:

Report on the Investigation into Living Conditions at Animal Farm.

1 - state object of report. Maybe you could start with reports received from passing birds, or neighbouring animals, giving a reason for the investigation.

2 - list problems, e.g.

Animal feeds - note examples of rations
Retirement - note details and lack of retirees
Working conditions - note details of increases in workload, use of whips
Repression - note killings of hens and sheep and the attack on Boxer
Money over welfare - note Boxer's removal to knacker's instead of being retired

3 - State possible counters - trade embargoes, etc.

What was George Orwell trying to tell us?

He was mainly keen to expose the terrible truth of the USSR to English apologists and admirers of the perverted "communism" it practised. Many people outside USSR saw the original intent of the Revolution - "to each, according to his needs, from each according to his means" as an ideal and believed that the Russian version was working. The truth was vastly different and Orwell realised that a simple, plain-language expose of USSR wouldn't reach a wide target, but an allegorical novel , playing on the English people's love of animals might.

In Animal Farm, just as in USSR, the men behind the revolution managed to sieze power with the help of the wider population, who were promised Utopia - a free and fair society where all share equally. In both cases, the Utopia never materialised, the dream turning to a nightmare. A classic case of "boiled frog" syndrome - the people never knew what was happening until it was far too late, exactly as shown at Manor Farm.

That's enough from me, no doubt Bazarov and a couple of others will come and add to it.

If this works well, I'll see if we can get it stickied!

[Moira]

This is great and helpful.

You ..... LitNet's Wikipedia......you

What you are doing is great.

[bazarov]

That's enough from me, no doubt Bazarov and a couple of others will come and add to it.

If this works well, I'll see if we can get it stickied!

Nice job! Here are some facts that weren't mentioned:

Squealer - Vyacheslav Molotov, minister of propaganda, like Goebels in Third Reich
Minimus - poet Maxim Gorky
Mr. Jones - last Russian emperor, tsar Nicholas II Romanov

Be careful about Old Major. He obviously represents Marx, but he represent only Lenin's teaching, because Old Major died before revolution and Lenin made the revolution.

[ulvmane]

correct me if im wrong about this but from what I gathered was

moses-the church

the donkey(cant remember his name)- the elderly who have sense enough to know where the situation will go

the sheep- the blindly loyal followers of stalin

[The Atheist]

Thanks, Baz, knew you wouldn't let me down!

Ulv - dead right.

[bazarov]

You're welcome! Tired of answering same things for several times? I know that feeling...

[The Atheist]

Yes, well these teachers are nothing if not repetitive, so it seems easier for all if we stick as much as possible in one thread. It's a short and concise book, so we should be able to get it all laid out easily.

We're better than Wiki, any day!





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[Scheherazade]

Thank you very much for posting this thread, guys!

I have made it Sticky so it will be the first one to see for anyone who come to this section of the Forum.

[The Atheist]

Thank you very much for posting this thread, guys!

I have made it Sticky so it will be the first one to see for anyone who come to this section of the Forum.

Cheers, thanks.

I hadn't realised quite how popular the topic still was in English nowadays! We'll put 'em all straight here.



All contributions welcome!

[ulvmane]

i cant remember quite what the representation was but it was when napolean changed his hate from one neighboring farm to another (similar to the switch of hate in contries during the two minuites hate in 1984)

[bazarov]

i cant remember quite what the representation was but it was when napolean changed his hate from one neighboring farm to another (similar to the switch of hate in contries during the two minuites hate in 1984)

Orwell was probably pointing on relation between USSR and Third Reich.

On August 23th 1939 they made non-aggression treaty, which was later very helpful for Hitler; 8 days later he attacked Poland. Peace between USSR and Germany ended in dawn of June 22th 1941 when Germans attacked USSR in operation known as Operation Barbarossa.
After that, Stalin become friend with western states.

Someone also asked about cards at the end of story; probably pointing on Teheran's conference, where Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt acted like friends and were only trying to get what's best for them.

[ennison]

It's the hens that represent the peasantry. Boxer is a symbol of the loyal (and dim) proletariat

Moses represents the unreformed Orthodox Church which was a major landowner and very much in the pocket of the Czarist state. Orwell was particularly scathing in that representation. The donkey represents the alienated cynical intellectual who sees the truth but is not able to do much about it. He's not exactly effete but is helpless as well as cynical. He isn't terribly old at the start but his pride doesn't allow him to be honest about his age.

[The Atheist]

i cant remember quite what the representation was but it was when napolean changed his hate from one neighboring farm to another (similar to the switch of hate in contries during the two minuites hate in 1984)

Baz has it exactly right, but I'll briefly cover the difference between the two uses of identical situations:

In Animal Farm, it's done to reprise Hitler's treacherous deeds. Accordingly, the object of the enmity is important.

In 1984, it's to show that even though people believe there is a war, they are able to doublethink so successfully that they don't even choose to notice the change of enemy. The object of the enmity is irrelevant to the story. Another way to note the difference is that in 1984, the former USSR becomes an ally of Oceania.

Thanks, ennison.

I always liked Benjamin, the donkey as a representation of the Russian intelligentsia. Classic fatalism - what will happen, will happen. I think Orwell may have let his distaste for the church creep into Moses, because the RO church was no more able to deny the Czar than it did in England when Henry VIII wanted to change the rules.

[The Atheist]

Here's another question type which has just come up, and while that poster has missed out, hopefully this will help the next one:

The questions asked in ways that Animal Farm could be used as a children's story and compare that to the adult messages. I think we're covering the adult messages quite well, but I'll add this in as a kids' perspective:

While kids will miss all the vital points, the story contains enough fun and animals to keep smaller children interested, although I would personally edit the story when reading it to kids, leaving out the massacre in the barnyard for starters! The story itself will appeal to kids simply because of the talking animals and the thought of a group of animals running their own farm.

Certainly, the first part of the book reads very like a fairytale and should be easily understood. Kids can be inspired by the revolution itself - if you want something badly enough and work at it hard enough, it can happen. It shows that risks are sometimes worth taking and it shows the comradeship possible when all are working to a common goal. As a child, I remember being utterly inspired by Boxer, and devastated when he dies - another lesson for kids: no matter how big and strong we are, we are all finite in capacity.

Kids can delight in the achievements of the farm, be dismayed by the betrayal of Frederick and wonder at the silliness of Mollie and Moses.

Children will see the story vastly differently from an adult audience as they will concentrate on the by-play of interaction between the animals without understanding or knowing where it's going. Even without knowledge of the Russian revolution and the USSR, the book can be an excellent read for anyone.

Orwell's prose is not easy for little kids to read, so I've always read it to children so I can edit as we go.