Pre-Reading: The Introduction (by Kyle)

The "Introduction" to the novel brought up a few good questions and themes of Animal Farm. It talks a lot about how the novel was released in the same month as when the atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and how the two were related, and not related for that matter. It expressed the power of the bomb as a weapon as compared to the pen (as in for writing) as a weapon. George Orwell was very much able to write a piece powerful enough to have as great of an impact on the world as perhaps, the atomic bombs would have. Both the bombs and the novel had similar, yet different targets, and both of them greatly impacted the world and are still talked about in today's age. The "Introduction" also talks quite a bit about a recurring theme in Orwell's novels, especially Animal Farm; that "every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or inderectly, against totalitarianism. (xviii)" and "their failure to protest against the world they lived in. (xix)" The purpose of this novel was for Orwell to protest against the world he lived in, which involved his disagreement with totalitarianism. The big question that the "Introduction" also asks is if Animal Farm is truly a fairy-story like the original subtitle suggests; after all, the book doesn't have a happy ending and it doesn't have any sort of magic in it (besides the talking animals). The "Introduction" suggests that it may not have many of the elements that fairy-stories do, however, it must have a few in order for it to be categorized in such a way.