Monday, September 27, 2010

Chapter 8

This was a pretty eventful chapter, as it included another battle, the repeated destruction of the windmill, and the influence that Napoleon has over the other animals increases.
I am just disgusted with the pigs. It is like one thing after another, they keep changing the commandments and bending them in their favor. And their experimentation with alcohol will obviously lead to them spending more and more money on it. Also, Napoleon being called 'Leader' and being treated like a king sickens me, because even though he is a lying scoundrel, there is nothing anyone can do without getting their throats ripped out by his dogs. This infuriates me so much, and it is very difficult to put the book down as it is getting nearer the end and the pigs participate in more and more treacherous deeds for their own benefit. They just use the animals as the humans did, and I think they know this, which is why they keep adopting more human techniques and habits.
I can definitely see a resemblance between this book and the World Wars. You have your terrible dictators that do whatever they want with no consequences, Napoleon being a perfect imitation of Stalin and his labor regime. The killing of the animals that confessed to working with Snowball mirrors the exiling and killing of any of those in Russia who were suspected of being traitors or disloyal to the government. The only difference is that Stalin's regime resulted in some economic success, whereas Animal Farm is in poorer conditions than ever as they struggle to rebuild the windmill for the third time. Also, though Stalin and other dictators of the World Wars met justice at one point or another, I know from the preface and introduction that Napoleon will most likely not meet justice, and continue to become more and more corrupt as he gains more power.

1 comment:

  1. I love how you talk about the resemblance between the novel and Stalin's regime. I agree with a lot of your reasoning, however, I believe that Stalin's regime and the Animal Farm are a lot alike in regards to economic success because both started out economically successful, but eventually, both of them fall apart into a crazy mess that took years to clean up (just throwing my opinion out there). So far, Orwell is doing an excellent job at convincing the reader of how bad the Stalin regime's system is. Although he may have added some dramatic effect to different aspects of the story in the interest of the reader, the author still has a lot of evidence to back up his point.

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