11-19-21

I was in high school the first time I heard of a book called Animal Farm. I couldn’t tell you which teacher mentioned it, if it was history class or English, my memory is vague. I only remember thinking, “A book about Animals, that sounds stupid.” And so, I didn’t read it until years later when I was living in Korea. When I read it, I knew nothing about the Russian Revolution. I still marvel about how little I actually learned in history throughout my years in school. The Russian Revolution was a hugely important event that took place in the early part of the century in which I was born, but my teachers spoke not a whisper about it in school. Russia was practically neglected in my textbooks. I had no idea that Russia even played as vital a role in the Allied victory in World War II — some might argue a greater role in Europe — as America. Perhaps it’s because we were still embroiled in Cold War. Russia, or rather, The Soviet Union, was our enemy and my teachers never had a positive word to say about them. Their neglect was my loss. I’d like to think I’ve filled in some of the holes myself — both in the non-fiction and historical fiction I’ve read. But it is still disturbing how much my school left out.

When I read Animal Farm, sometime in my twenties, I was still ignorant of the Russian Revolution, but having grown up in the Cold War, I was familiar with how miserable life was in the Soviet Union for the average person. Though, I am also aware that some of what I had been taught in school had been inflated with the propaganda of the time. As a result, I sort of understood the novel, but not really.

Now, twenty years later, I re-read it, not by choice but because my son asked me to. One afternoon, he was rummaging through the bins in the basement that are filled with novels I’ve read and collected through the years. He came across Animal Farm and asked me what it was about. I gave him a brief summary, expecting him to dismiss it as, “That’s boring.” But he didn’t. Instead, he asked me if we could read it in school. Well, why not? It’s a classic. And even though it’s not on many — if any sixth grade curriculums — well, what have we read that is.

This time around, life plus my role as teacher, prepared me to better understand the novel. Since my youth, I’ve read a great deal. I know about Marx, and the Russian Revolution, along with a fair amount more regarding the Soviet Union. I got the metaphors and analogies. The trick would be conveying it all to G3. But he wasn’t going into this blind. He already had more background knowledge about Russia at 11 than I had at 23. Still, we skipped to the chapter in his textbook about the Russian Revolution. Man was it horrible. Even when American textbooks include the content they hardly mention anything important. As we read the chapter, my son complained about all they left out. So, I did my best to add what I could remember.

We read the novel together, on average spreading each chapter over two days. I wanted to read it with him — taking turns reading the paragraphs — so that I could breakdown the allegory and make sure he understood which animals represented which historical figure and which events matched the ones in history. He seemed to find the story more engaging than I expected. And while we read, he started drawing parallels not only between the Soviet Union and Animal Farm, but between Animal Farm and Trump. This eventually evolved into a paper topic. And it was uncanny how a book written about a dictatorship that existed before my son was born, could speak so knowingly about a modern day American administration.

Liars in Literature and Modern History

Animal Farm by George Orwell, is a terrible book…if you have high hopes for society and think that the world will one day be beautiful. But, if you believe the world is crumbling due to all the business men and world leaders who are hungry for money and power, then this is your dream book. The book is about farm animals who are unhappy under the control of their owner, Jones. They overthrow him and set up their own government. Then the pigs take charge. The three main pigs are Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer. Due to the book being an allegory for the Russian revolution, there are a lot of metaphors relating to that event. But instead of comparing the book to Communistic Russia, I will compare the book to an arguably worse government — modern day America.

In Animal Farm, Squealer is a pig who relays un-truthful facts. One example is on page 79 when Squealer says that Snowball sold himself to Pinchfield and is plotting to attack Animal Farm. Of course this isn’t true. Squealer just wants to provoke fear in the animals so they will want Napoleon to protect them. This will make the animals want him as leader. Another example is when Squealer said that Snowball knocked down the windmill after the storm. He did this because he did not want the animals to think Napoleon didn’t do the calculations correctly for the width of the windmill. In America, Fox News is like Squealer. It spreads lies spewed by Trump. One lie in particular is when Trump said that COVID doesn’t exist and if it did it would go away easily. He was obviously wrong.

In Animal Farm and in America, the leaders, Napoleon and Trump, have none of their own ideas. In real life, Trump says Make America Great Again, but he didn’t. He made America go backwards. He made America more racist. He also said COVID was a hoax, which lead to hundreds of thousands of people dying. Plus, he shot down every idea a Democrat had. One example is how he watered down health care, but he didn’t have his own ideas to replace it. 

At first, Snowball and Napoleon are both leaders. But Snowball is the one with all the smart ideas because he is always reading. He proposes that they build a windmill because it would mean electricity, less work days, and more food. Napoleon was jealous that Snowball came up with the idea of the windmill. The windmill would make the animals want Snowball to be their leader and not Napoleon because Snowball had better ideas. Napoleon is bitter that he did not come up with the idea himself so he pees on the plans out of spite and because he is petty. 

In the end, Napoleon drives Snowball out and builds the windmill anyway, claiming it was his idea in the first place. Napoleon ordered the windmill to be constructed because the outside world would think it was his idea and would acknowledge him as a fit leader. (In the four years orange drip face bad hair day was president, he said many, many stupid things. But one massive, giant, colossus dumb thing he said was that windmills cause cancer and that coal is better. First of all, coal is not even remotely clean. Have you seen the dust and your hands after you touch it. Secondly, coal actually causes cancer because smoke in the lung equals lung cancer.)

Napoleon and Trump both deliver one liners. This means that they both manipulate people/animals by continually repeating one line. Napoleon has the sheep always bleat, “Four legs good, two legs bad,” when there might be mixed feelings about an issue. This pretty much shuts all the animals up. Trump has many one liners. “Make America Great Again,” “Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden,’’ and “Covid is a hoax’’ are just a few. Trump says, “Make America Great Again” so people think he is making it better. He says, “Hunter Biden” to distract people from the bad things he did and to make people think that Hunter Biden is a criminal. He says, “Covid Is a Hoax” because he doesn’t care about people dying from Covid. 

Both leaders use fear to gain support. This is because the people/animals may cower to that leader for protection. In Animal Farm, Napoleon makes it out that Snowball is taking revenge on Napoleon when a bad things happens on the farm. He does this because Napoleon wants to make it sound as if he is the better leader and that Snowball was just in it for the power. Trump provokes fear by saying Muslims are here to kill us and Mexicans are here to take our jobs. All the uneducated believe him and want him to protect them so that they retain their rights and privileges.

Well that’s the end. If you haven’t read the book, it is very good.