Animal Farm

If there is one point that Orwell makes with Animal Farm it is that Freedom can not be passively kept, but must be actively guarded. The doom of the animals of the Manor Farm finds them because (after winning their freedom) they delegate their responsibility to control of their own fate. Out of the need to feel safe, accepted, or provided for they indenture themselves to the government of the farm.

The Importance of Language

Orwell has been noted as a great lover of words, and he has written much about the power of rhetoric. In Animal Farm he endeavors to show how important words are to the preservation of Liberty and Freedom. His characters are nearly all passive citizens and Orwell writes nearly the whole story in the passive voice. The most common phrase is “It was noticed” never “one of the sheep noticed”; still more this missing subject in the sentence never does anything when something “was noticed”. Orwell is screaming that when you see something offensive, it is your duty to do something about it. He threatens that slavery awaits the passive citizen. The animals of the farm are also guilty of enduring fallacious reasoning which they are then pressured to accept. As an example the pigs claim that: science has proven it necessary to give the best things in life to pigs, that this will keep them rested enough and intelligent enough so they will be able manage the farm and prevent the return of the terrible farmer. No one asks the source of this so called science, much less does anyone challenge the pigs qualifications or right to rule. Orwell tells us that these fallacies of logic are usually right in front of us, in the case of the Manor Farm they are literally written on the wall.

The Totalitarian Mindset

Orwell intentionally set out to oppose Totalitarianism in writing Animal Farm. At the time the political ideology itself was considered a viable means of coping with the changes that Industrialism imposed on society at large. Totalitarianism is essentially a belief that the State is an all encompassing entity, and no aspect of one’s private life is outside its province. In Animal Farm, Orwell shows us how enticing the Totalitarian dream can be. The animals repeatedly refer to the Farm as “theirs” even though they take orders without question from the pigs. Among the many lessons Orwell teaches is the suggestion that the State cannot fill the role of giving man meaning. We are each responsible for ourselves, and if we fail to reach self-actualization we alone are to blame.

Both Animal Farm and Orwell’s more gloomy masterpiece 1984, have warnings written into their dystopian plots. These warnings are more relevant today than perhaps when Orwell first wrote them. We sit at the dawn of a new age, where technology has actually made the Totalitarian dream feasible. Consider healthcare as a particularly relevant issue. It is conceivable that with careful management of medical resources, and healthy behavior on the part of its citizens: the United States could assume the responsibility of providing quality healthcare to everyone. Sounds great right? Orwell might warn that it is the start to the government legislating what it considers ‘healthy behavior’.

Would we start to be seen as unpatriotic if we smoke, or drink, or don’t exercise? Could we be seen as traitors for wasting our nations resources by indulging in risky behavior? If we managed to succeed: how boring our lives would be, how massive our healthy and long living population. I for one prefer to leave the matter of my life to the same design which turns the planets. Animal Farm teaches us to not expect society to be utopian, we must rule our own lives or we are little better than slaves.