Title: Animal Farm, a Fairy Story.
Author: George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair).
Publisher: Penguin Books in association with Martin Secker
& Warburg.
ISBN: 0-1400-0838-1
Copyright: © the Estate of Eric Blair, 1945.
At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words
she (Muriel) was unable to find, she began to sing 'Beasts of England'.
The other animals sitting round her took it up, and sang it three times
over - very tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had
never sung it before.
They had just finished singing it for the thrid time when Squealer,
attended by two dogs, approached them with an air of having something
important to say. He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade
Napoleon, 'Beasts of England' has been abolished. From now onwards it
was forbidden to sing it.
The Animals were taken aback.
Animal Farm is a political satire. It is about ideals and revolt by
animals, their success in the fight against humans and the happenings
after that. There are idealists, revolutionaries, leaders, the faithful
and the traitors, plebeian etc. and there are ideals, there is betrayal,
helplessness, ignorance and sometimes, apathy too on the Animal Farm.
Excerpts ...
-
Then Snowball (for it was Snowball who was best at writing) took a
brush between the two knuckles of his trotter, painted out M A N O R
F A R M from the top bar of the gate and in its place painted A
N I M A L F A R M. This was to be the name of the farm from now
onwards.
-
The Commandments were written on the tarred wall in great white
letters that could be read thirty yards away. They ran thus:
THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.
-
But Clover, who thought she remembered a definite ruling against beds,
went to the end of the barn and tried and tried to puzzle out the
seven Commandments which were inscribed there. Finding herself unable
to read more than individual letters, she fetched Muriel.
'Muriel,' she said, 'read me the Fourth Commandment. Does it not
say about never sleeping in a bed?'
With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out.
'It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,'
she announced finally.
Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth
Commandment mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must
have been done so.
-
Clover asked Benjamin to read her the Sixth Commandment and when
Benjamin, as usual, said that he refused to meddle in such matters,
she fetched Muriel. Muriel read the Commandment for her. It ran, 'No
animal shall kill any other animal without cause.' Somehow or
other, the last two words had slipped out of the animals' memory.
But they saw now that the Commandment has not been violated; for
clearly there was a good reason for killing the traitors who had
leagued themselves with Snowball.
-
There was nothing there except a single Commandment. It ran:
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN
OTHERS
-
Napoleon was only now, for the first time announcing it - that the
name 'Animal Farm' has been abolished. Hence forward the farm was to
be known as the 'Manor Farm' - which, he believed, was its correct and
original name.
George Orwell captured all the elements of 'change' in the political
setting among the animals, all in a small and a very well written book.
From the first page to the very last, I could not but very clearly
'visualize' what the author was trying to convey. The book is humorous,
sad, thoughtful, ironic in its tone and much more, all at the same time.
No wonder this book is one of his best sellers and brought Orwell lot
of name and fame.
