Education
Animal Farm Episode #4 - The conclusion of Orwell's satirical expose on the true nature of totalitarianism! Hi, I’m Christy Shriver. And I’m Garry Shriver and this is the How to love lit podcast. Today we will wrap up our discussion of George Orwell’s timeless warning against totalitarianism through the novella Animal Farm. In Week One, we met Orwell and looked at his life and how his ideas were formulated over a lifetime lived split between the continent of Europe and the countries of India and Burma. We explored how his understanding the ‘have’s vs the have nots came not through a study of theory only, but also through a lived both as a “have’ and as a “have not” and a sympathy for those who are born, through no fault of their own, in a world lacking what we today call ‘privilege”/. That’s right- in the second episode we met the characters on the Manor Farm. We talked about who they were on the farm and who they represented in real life if we looked at this book as a direct allegory to the country of Russia as it transformed into the ussr at the beginning of the twentieth century. In episode 2 we delved into quite a bit of Russian history and discussed the Russian Revolution, Stalin and Trotsky or Napoleon and Snowball to use Animal Farm words. Last week we expanded our discussion into a much larger discussion as we broadened our understanding of Orwell’s novel to being not just be about the Soviet Union. We looked specifically at the rise of power of a tyrant; we analyzed specifically how Napoloen rose to power on Animal Farm. We highlighted the most obvious types of propaganda used on Animal Farm and how Squealer (the propaganda pig) was able to revise history, edit circumstances, intimidate and ultimately flat out lie about reality leaving the entire farm in a state of cognitive dissonance. Yes, and today we are going extend this thematic application one step farther. Beyond just an exposure of propaganda techniques- what is Orwell saying about human nature and who is responsible for the rise of tyranny- and I want to define tyranny as cruel, unreasonable or arbitrary use of power and control- but not just in governments- anywhere. We are going to do this by breaking down the last three chapters of the book with a discussion of how to interpret the entire book once the last page has been read. However, before we do, I do want to talk about what we’re doing next week because I’m kind of excited about that. I also want to talk about the song we’re playing on the beginning of the animal farm podcast series. Yes- I think we should talk about that song- because you absolutely insisted we play it. What is the name of this song and what is it about? Katyusha is a song that really takes me back to my Kazakhstan experience. When I was there it was played everywhere, and we even learned it in school- although I’m embarrassed to say, that’s all left my brain. The song is actually a WW2 patriotic song written in 1938 and was used to inspire people to serve and defend the homeland. I love it because it has a fun catchy melody and it’s kind of a romantic song. It’s about a girl name Katysha standing, singing and watching her true love go to the war. The idea is that the soldier will protect the Motherland remembering he’s protecting this girl and that she will be waiting for him. If you want to put it in Animal Farm terms- it’s big Brave Boxer swearing to take care of Clover and all the other animals on the farm. Can you sing it? I think we’ve established that we’re not doing a singing podcast, especially not one in Russian. But that brings me to next week- next week, I had originally thought about talking about orwell’s other short works, like some of his essays or short stories, but I have had a change of mind. Instead what I would like to do is feature one of the great Russian writers of short fixtion and that is Anton Chekov. I feel like because Orwell is so hard on Russia, it’s easy to think that Russia as a culture is defined by communism – but it’s not. Communisim existed in Russia for a period of time, but their history and culture is very very rich and very deep. The literary tradition alone is comprised of many men (yes, and I must admit mostly men) who’s brilliance, insight, poetic expression and phisolophic insight enlighten people of all ages and actually…. Many of their words confound most of us- but not Chekov- he’s actually manageable and easily relatable. So, next week, I want to take a nod to a great Russian writer, one of the father’s of the short story genre, Anton Chekov. We will look at just a couple of stories- just for funsies and briefly talk about a few things in general that a person should bear in mind when reading any short story but specifically two that I will pick out form his large collection between now and then. Does that sound interesting? That does, I must admit, I’ve heard a lot about the great Russian writers: Dostoyesky, Tolstoy , Pushkin, Solzhenitsyn and so forth, but beyond just a name, I don’t know that I know a whole lot about the body of work they represent. Okay- now back to the farm? Indeed, back to the farm…and it’s a gloomy day on the farm…as will be every day on this farm…for ever and ever- although they don’t know it yet. I mentioned in the last episode that there were two ways of looking at this book from the perspective of plot and character. Way number one is to think about this book as being about Napoleon and his rise to power. Last week, we somewhat took that approach. We looked at his takeover of the farm, his expulsion of Snowball- being the climax, his subsequent use of the dogs, Squealer and propaganda in general. We addressed the ways, he was able to take over the farm and subjugate the animals. And although that is one way to look at it, and it is actually an interesting way, in my mind it is not the BEST way to look at Animal, at least thematically. And let me tell you why? You see, when we look at this book in about Napoleon we give Napoleon the power to take over the world. Through this lens, and we’re Boxer. (which we are)- we’re dumb and helpless, so to speak,. All we really can do is watch. HOWEVER, if that were our case in real life- if as people are are dumb, helpful and nothing but victims, why even bother writing a book- there’s nothing to be done- as we know from Frederick Douglass- the best kind of slave is a dumb brute. But that is not Orwell’s intention- He’s not trying to tell us that the sum of human experience is to be a dumb brute subjected to be ruled by smart pig-like overpowering tyrants that we can do nothing about. This book is a warning. The implied question in the book is how did Napoleon get to be Napoleon and how to never let napoleon get to be napoleon. If this book is about the common man, than this book is about Boxer- because we’re boxer. We’re the average people who have the power if we would exert it to keep Napoleon and all the pigs of the world- at bay. So, in a moral sense, perhaps, we MUST look at the book as if we were Boxer. And in a moral sense this book can be more about politics- because the world is much bigger than geo-political unites vying for larger and larger dominions. That’s right, and for the most part, the post WW2 dynamics of world power is quickly fleeting. Our world is not a cold war world with two super-powers like it was for most of the 20th century- but human nature is the same. There will always be, no matter what the political structure, a power game to be played between humans where one human or group of humans views themselves as better for whatever reason, be it because of birth location, money, physical appearance, intelligence, historical legacy, musical talent, athletic prowess or even acting ability. And that’s just the larger community sense- these power struggles exist at the family level or between a community as small as two people. The universality of Boxer suggests that anyone who is willing to give someone else unquestioned loyalty and blind service WILL BE, by very definition, exploited to the degree they allow this to occur. Freud - Neichze Ugh- so what you are saying, is that- there is a sense that what has happened on Animal Farm is Boxer’s fault? No, I’m not saying it’s his fault, because one person’s treachery is not another person’s fault- but I am saying, Boxer could have and should at least tried to stop the tyranny before it got to the point where he could no longer save himself. Okay- with that in mind- let’s open the book up, to chapter 8. If you recall, by the end of chapter 7, the animals are starving. The pigs are taking the eggs from the chickens and selling them to the outside world, napoleon had given himself a medal for something he had not done but was pretending to have done but worse of all they were murdering animals on the farm who disagreed with the way things were being done. Over the course of time slowly but surely all of the commandments were being altered and extended. “The sixth commandmant” which had originally read no animal shall kill any other animal had been changed to no animal shall kill any other animal without cause. And what Orwell is careful to point out is that and I quote, ‘though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was felt that the killings which had taken place did not square with this.” And we see the range of animals present on the farm- in some sense this expresses the range of different people and potential responses to tyranny in real life. We’ve mentioned Boxer before. In this case, he’s really stupid. He’s uneducated. He’s a really great guy. He’s totally loveable. He’s a hard worker. He’s exactly the kind of person a tyrant wants. He’s perfect. He’s loyal. He’s unquestioning. He’s hardworking. He knows his place and stays in it. He is 100% easy to control. Then there’s Clover, who really is not much better. - Clover asks for clarification from time to time, but does not verbally challenge anything- she just accepts what is being told. She wants to support Boxer. Her Relationships are important (I’m not sure gender is a point Orwell cares about, btw, so don’t read our modern gender-politics into this book). Clover does not have any Napoleon is right mantras, but there is submission. That takes us to Benjamin. She asks Benjamin to read- he flat out refuses. And of course, we know Orwell is talking about the Russian intellegencia, but in a broader sense this represents people who know what’s going on and just simply refuse to get involved. He says, “he refused to meddle in such matters”. He won’t even discuss it. Garry, can you comment on that? This is one way to bring on a tyrant, that’s for sure- just claim to be the sort of person that doesn’t get involved. And lots of us like to fall in this category because perhaps it feels safe to say, “I’m not a political person. I don’t invite controversy. It doesn’t really matter. I’m neutral.” All these positions are wrapped up into the apathetic Benjamin who concludes his non-involvement argument with the line, “You’ve never seen a dead donkey”- the kind of cynicism that suggests that everything is just always going to be the same. However magnanimous a view that may seem at first, Orwell seems to suggest that it’s faulty, lazy and that it’s even a dangerous position- and as we’re going to see in a minute- there will come a time when even Benjamin cannot take the moral high ground or the road of neutrality any more. And that brings me to Muriel the goat- Muriel is an interesting character to me and in some ways the one I find to be the most identifiable. There is absolutely no doubt, that the power of language to distort reality is a key theme in this book- and by chapter 8 this is clearly evident to the reader- the satire is heightening with every chapter- and the dramatic irony is beyond obvious. First of all, back to Muriel- Muriel can read. She’s not stupid like Boxer who can’t get past the letter C or even clover who reads slightly better. So, why isn’t Muriel catching all of the manipulation by the pigs? And one comment on the animals passivity. Solomon Asch – at first pass looks like a study on conformity and the power of the situation but one it really reveals is the power of disorientation. The animals are displaying classic social disorientation. And to further answer that, I do want comment a little bit about the concept of tone. Now, the word tone means the same thing as the word ‘attitude”- if you mom says, don’t take the tone with mean- wht she’s disapproving of is your attitude. Now how do writers convey tone- it’s not through voice intonation like we do with our voices. It’s with word choice- the words that I choose to describe things tells you my attitude toward what I’m describing. So, if I say, that lovely darling child, hopefully you can tell that I like the child. Sometimes what you DON’T say can convey tone. If you as me, if you should date a particular girl, you may say, “well, she’s nice and well-read”, that may be saying something in and of itself- what is it that I didn’t say. In this book, we see Orwell being quite clever with his tone. Orwell’s narrator is extremely plain spoken from the very beginning. Look how he begins the story, “Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hennosues for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.” This is very very straightforward and clear. Look how this compares to the way Squealer talks- here in chapter 8, On Sunday mornings Squealer, holding down a long strip of paper with his trotter, would read out to them lists of figure proving that the production of every class of foodstuff had increased by two hundred percent, three hundred percent, or five hundred percent.” Then look at the next line, “the animals saw no reason to disbelieve him, especially as they could no longer remembner clearly what conditions had been like before the Rebellion.” Here’s where I’m going with all of this- and in this sense- Orwell did give away his theme in the first line of the story- although, you’d have to read the entire book to go back and catch it- it’s in the distortion of language that people’s reality can be shifted. The animals have four fatal flaws- and it is through these flaws that they invite victimization. And yes- I think that’s where the animals or WE, the common man, if we’re going to take it out of the context of the story and apply it to our lives are indeed responsible for propping up tyrannies and inviting victimization upon ourselves 1) we allow ourselves to be linguistically and cognitively stupid either by an inability to learn, a laziness to think through things on our own, or maybe just being too distracted to pay attention- I’m not sure which is going on or which is worse= but every reader at this point should be angry- listen to how orwell’s phrases it “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.” Somehow or other, the last two words had slipped out of the animals memory.” How does that happen? Secondly, the animals are extremely gullible in accepting what they are told at face value. From the very beginning of the book, the pigs use circumlocution (speaking in circles), unintelligible jargon, manipulative distortions of phrases to not only confuse the animals but to literally to use Orwell’s phrase as he described Squealer in the beginning ‘He was a brilliant talker . . . he could turn black into white". 3) third- there is this historical amnesia going on all the time. The animals don’t remember and since they are told different versions of reality all the time, over time what they are TOLD has happened becomes truth. And so by chapter 8, we are told that ‘it had become common to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, “Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade, napoleon” I have laid five eggs in six days.” And it’s how we culminate in chapter 8, where Napoleon is given credit for happiness they don’t actually experience and food they literally don’t have. Any reader at this point is outraged- as Orwell cleverly manipulates the tone of the book to make us hate Napoleon. 4) And lastly- what some have termed the ‘politics of sacrifice”- the idea is you are too invested to feel like you can get out so you just keep investing more. This is a think with stock-investing too or gambling, btw- you buy $1000 of stock at $100 a share, it goes down to $2 a share, and instead of realizing your’re an idiot and getting out you buy another $1000- and let the stock go to absolute $0. You just don’t want to face the reality that you got taken, so you invest more- we see Boxer doing this, and we see napoleon encouraging it. The word “sacrifice” is used over and over again as the animals are asked to get more deeply invested into the “success” of animal farm or the “success” of the windmill. But, they’re not investing- they are being used and abused. There will never be any return on this investment. There will never be a retirement. There will never be rest. And ultimately when Boxer falls, instead of taking him to the doctor. Squealer calls the glue-maker. By this point in the story, we really do feel sad for the animals. One thing I wanted to interject here that I read in an article about Orwell himself and that I pointed out in a previous episode is Orwell really is an animal lover. And his expression of the mistreatment of animals is heartfelt. I think it really comes across here. He feels compassion for all animals, and he uses this to make us feel compassion for these animals. They are starving and the one responsible for them is cruel. I agree, we fee for all the animals from the big horses who are overworking down to the hens who are literally giving away their babies, and these same hens who are giving away their children while at the same time giving Napoleon credit for laying eggs, at one point in the summer, it says, ‘In the middle of the summer the animals were alarmed to hear that three hens had come forward and confessed that, inspired by Snowball, they had en that they were involved into a plot to murder napoleon. They were executed immediately.” No one cares about the eggs, the chickens, any of them. True, which brings me to another point about totalitarian rulers, I think we see Orwell making. They tend to be extremely paranoid as well as egomaniacal people. They know they are treacherous and appear to be paranoid their treachery will come back to haunt them but at the same time- insist on elaborate praise at all time. Napoelon has basicvally vanished from public view by this oint, 2) he lives separately from the other pigs, he has four dogs that guard even, his bed at night and a pig named Pinkeye to taste his food, he eats out of the crown derby, he has the poem on the barn, his picture is painted up on the side of the barn, he has the gun fired on his birthday, he requires that everyone call him by these absurd titles like ‘Protector of the Sheep fold’ and he even names the windmill after himself. And thus begins what Khrushchev titled “the cult of personality” - Khrushchev comes to power after the death of Stalin and will renounce the purges and executions and coin the phrase cult of personality. This involves making the authoritarian omni present in the mind of the subjects. And all wise and all compassionate. The same technique was used in China and North Korea. Back to the poem in chapter 8. Which brings me back to my initial point about the manipulation of language- because this chapter is dark, the animals are starving, the windmill gets blown up, Napoleon gets ripped off by Frederick with bank notes that have been forged – but by the end of it the battle, Squealer has claimed it a victory- but everything is so bad even Boxer must say, “what vitory?”. They have had a parade, renamed the battle the battle of cowshed, given napoleon a medal, and at the end, all the pigs have gotten drunk off of whiskey, Squealer has fallen off a ladder while changing the commandment to say, ‘no animal shall drink alcohol to excess” – and Muriel although she can read the new commandment does not have the presence of mind to questions its veracity. And that is how tyranny is created. By chapter nine Squealer according to Orwell, has “difficulty in proving to the other animals that they were not in reality short of food” while at the same time finding it necessary to make a “readjustment of rations”- and notice how Orwell points out to the reader that this term is used instead of a reduction. It’s like he wants to make sure Squealer isn’t brainwashing the reader as he’s brainwashing the animals with his magical use of numbers; And magical is the right word, page 98-99 “Reading out the figures…”. It ends with the phrase , ‘the animals believed every word of it…. And they were glad to believe so…Besides, in those days they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference, as Squealer di dnot fail to point out.” There are other details we could point out- Napoleon is siring a lot of little piglets, he’s holding elections with only himself at the candidate, he declares the farm a Republic, just the USSR was a republic, which very foreign to the American concept of a republic. he’s revised the story of the Battle of the Cowshed where now Snowball was leading the human forces, brought back Moses and feeding moses a gill of beer every day while he spreads stories about Sugarcandy mountaing, but none of that is as bad what happens to Boxer when he falls and can’t get up. And this is the climax, and where the theme culminates in some sense as well. The idea being, IF you are ignorant, if you are lazy with your language, IF you do not guard against gullibility and revision of history THEN when you fall…you will be taken to the knackers…and by that point no one can help you. Boxer was never seen again..and to make the reader as angry as possible, napoleon not only sold his body in exchange for whiskey- but the animals were too blind to even see it. Although we shouldn’t be surprised, we as readers, love Boxer, because Orwell loves Boxer. His tone towards Boxer is nothing but endearing..and the non-emotional and detached way Orwell describes his death is cold, it’s heartless, its angering and the fact that napoleon goes around calling himna ‘friend”, claiming to be with him in him in his last hours and hijacking his memory with ‘Long live Comrade Napoleon”- leaves us with not just a sense of astonishment and betrayal but utter rage. To which Orwell, is telling the reader- this is what will become of You, my gullible friend, if you let these pigs in your life. Yes- because by the last chapter, we are living in a cartoon, even by Orwell’s fairy tale standards. Apparently, there’s a time break between chapter 9-10. “Years passed.’ That’s true. Orwell’s tone has changed again. There is a comical element to it. By this point, our emotions have been exhausted. We will accept anything. We almost no longer feel sorry for the animals, they have the lives they brought on themselves. If you are that dumb, perhaps you get what you deserve….because the story ends with the animals wearing clothes, walking around on their back feed and if that wasn’t ridiculous enough they are playing cards with the other humans and cheating. Of course, there is a bit of literal allegory going on here. The card game at the novel's end parallels the Tehran Conference (November 28 – December 1, 1943), where Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D Roosevelt met to discuss the ways to forge a lasting peace after the war — a peace that Orwell mocks by having Napoleon and Pilkington flatter each other and then betray their duplicitous natures by cheating in the card game. As a side I want to say one thing about the Russia dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He was a true believer in the USSR and a decorated WW@ hero. But by February 1945 (three months before the wars end) he was imprisoned and sent to the gulags. Orwell is prophesying about Stalin's horrors and within less than two years Solzhenitsyn was living proof that Orwell was right. Yes- the most famous line in all of the book is of course read by Benjamin- it is the only commandmant on the wall- all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others- What left is there to say. By this point in the book, we all understand it exactly. Black has been made white and white has been made black- to quote Squealer. The final line- and the creatures look from the pigs to the men back to the pigs, but already it was impossible to say which was which- comes as no surprise to anyone- we leave the book really…speechless….further irony…a book about language…leaves us with nothing to say...but we all know what he means. And that concludes one of the most insightful observations into one of the most tragic phenomena of the 20th century. As we know stalin’s model has been replicated around the world many times over. Is there was ever a book that should be shared, it’s this one. Orwell’s work will always stand as a warning. Text your friends a link to our