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I think all the animals have some sort of symbolism. The raven for instance. And Boxer is another good one. He is a picture of such powerful industry that he can support the weight of communism, but eventually, it wears him out. (getting a little ahead of myself there)
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Interesting thoughts, everyone!
As far as writing goes, I noticed that there was a lot of telling in the beginning, too, but as you said @daeus, I don’t think that it was necessarily a bad technique. As a reader, I was engaged the entire time. And that’s really all that matters, right? 😉
The characters are great. Each animal has a strikingly different personality. The pig characters are especially striking. Orwell describes them as the cleverest of the creatures, but they seem sort of…evil and power-hungry. I’ve never read this book, so I don’t know what happens (I’m just speculating, here), but in the beginning, the way Orwell describes the pigs leads the reader to believe they are selfish and out for themselves. @hannah-krynicki I think your idea about the pigs becoming dictators is right on. Did anyone else get that sense?
And am I making any sense? 😛The thing I noticed is that instead of starting the book with an action scene, he starts it with a crucial, but more introductory one. He does a good job with building up a sense of expectation for what is about to happen, which kicks off the rest of the book. This is probably how he gets away with so much info-dumping: you are waiting for the big reveal, so you keep reading.
@jadamae Good point. I definitely agree with you about that. 🙂
@gretald and @hannah-krynicki
I agree that the pigs seem power-hungry and may become dictators to the other animals.A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
In case anyone is wondering, the Raven stands for the Orthodox church. (At least according to my memory of a literary analysis I read for school last year)
Loving the discussion that’s going on here!
I’m gonna go back to what somebody said a little bit earlier about Orwell interjecting a lot of his opinion into the book itself. This is 100% true, and what I think is really interesting is that he does a great job of disguising what a lot of times might end up being one really long, out-of-place rant from one of the characters that is basically the author going “HERE ARE ALL OF MY THOUGHTS ON ALL OF THE THINGS AND WELL YEAH I HAVEN’T EVER HAD A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE BEFORE SO HERE GOES ALL OF THE RANTING I’VE EVER WANTED TO DO IN MY LIFE” (I can attest to having seen this done both in my work and in others before *sheepish grin*) inside of the story. It’s definitely not easy to do and I think he does a great job of it.
So here’s a question: Many would say that a story is either written by the author for the author or by the author for the audience. From the get-go, do y’all think that Orwell is telling the story for himself or for the audience (his readers).
Secondly, do y’all think that if you took away the very political/allegorical meaning of the story that is pretty much all out there from page one, it could stand on its own as a good story? Yay or nay, what makes a good story and what does Orwell do that makes it a good/bad story?
Also, be thinking about how Orwell is executing his call to action/sending his message as you read the book. Do you like/dislike his method and why or why not?
Just a few thoughts to chew on. 🙂
"When enemies attack your kingdom you don't flee you show them why it's your kingdom. With your lightsaber."
@spradlin Those are some great thoughts to chew on. 😉 I think that Orwell is telling the story for his readers, mostly. His main objective in writing this story seems to be to convince others of whatever points he’s trying to get across in his writing. It’s a little to early in the story to tell exactly what points he’s trying to prove. @Daeus @Hannah-Krynicki @ingridrd @jadamae @dbhgodreigns @spradlin Would you all agree with that or do you disagree? Why or why not?
Well, having read the story before, I know what his point (at least the one that ended up coming across) is and I would say he makes it very strongly.
It’s hard for me to imagine Animal Farm outside of its allegory. I guess if I had never heard of Communism, I would still think it was a great story, but that would just be me not noticing the allegory that is there.
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@spradlin Orwell is telling the story for his audience. If he was writing for himself, he would vent his own opinions a lot more- think of Victor Hugo’s dissertations in Les Miz. I also believe that he’s slowly working in an allegory. @daeus You’re right that a person who hadn’t heard of communism before would not recognize it, but I think he’s writing to a WWII audience who knows exactly what communism is, so there is no way those folks could have missed his meaning.
@dbhgodreigns Really? I did not know that a raven had any symbolic significance, though I did get the sense of religion from “Sugarcandy Mountain.” Thanks for sharing.Finally, @gretald, of course it’s too early to tell exactly what points he is making, because as Pixar says, “You won’t see what the story is about until you’re at the end of it.” It’ll be interesting to see how our guesses play out.
@gretald, @dbhgodreigns, and @hannah-krynicki
His main objective in writing this story seems to be to convince others of whatever points he’s trying to get across in his writing.
I agree that Orwell has some points to get across to the reader. We’ll find out what those points are pretty soon. 🙂
A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
Wow, so many great thoughts, I’m not really sure I have much to add. (I have already read the entire book so it’s pretty hard to narrow it down to just the first few chapters.)
I really like those question @spradlin. To answer one of them, if you do take away the political aspect of the book there really isn’t much there. I doubt it would stand on its own as a good story and it certainly would not be the classic it is today. One thing that Orwell has that could potentially make it a good story outside of its political aspect is his characters. Even if you didn’t understand or notice the significance of each of them, they are still well built, well rounded characters, and he does a great job at keeping up with their different personalities and making sure that the actions matched the character, which is something that can be difficult in characterization.Theater kid. Currently depressed because I can't stop listening to sad musicals.
I also noticed that Orwell did a good job with chapter breaks. The first chapter break ends the resolution on what is to be the conflict and also reminds us of the carelessness of the farmer who is the animal’s main enemy. The second chapter break is great because he ends it with one short line that totally changes everything from going perfectly to there being a strong feeling of doubt = conflict that needs resolved.
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It looks like the free version of Animal Farm has been removed both from iBooks and from our iCloud account. 🙁 Unless I find another copy somewhere, I may have to skip this discussion. (This is a great discussion, by the way. Good job, @everyone!) 🙂
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