‘ All the habits of Man are evil,’ or that’s what the boar wants you to think. Animal Farm, the book written back in 1945 by George Orwell, is a simple story about a group of animals, but the meaning behind the story is more complicated than a story set...
‘ All the habits of Man are evil,’ or that’s what the boar wants you to think. Animal Farm, the book written back in 1945 by George Orwell, is a simple story about a group of animals, but the meaning behind the story is more complicated than a story set on an animal farm. The story, which takes place in the early 1900s, plays on the overall events that led up to the Russian Revolution. It can be argued that the animals in the book only had themselves to blame for the failure of Animal Farm, and both sides bring good points to the table. In my opinion, the statement is neither true nor false. To one extent, the animals are to blame, but on another extent, they can’t blame themselves. The animals in Animal Farm, can view the failure of Animal Farm as their fault or not their fault because they should have learned from observation, they didn’t have the proper education, and it was bound to happen.
We have all grown up looking up to our parents and watching them make mistakes that we are told not to repeat. We are supposed to learn from the mistakes of others, but what happens if we end up repeating those mistakes? The consequences are usually not that extreme; however, when it comes to a society repeating the same mistakes that another society makes, then that can destroy a whole society, and it can even have deadly consequences. When Old Major came to his fellow comrades, he told them that they must not repeat or adopt the habits of the humans. ‘ No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade.’ The animals wanted to conquer man, and by doing so, they put into order that they should not be like man. Their idea of not adopting the traits of man was a smai1 move; however, the harder they tried distancing themselves from man, Napoleon and Squealer became closer to resembling man. They knew what they did not like about man, they knew how men treated one another, they knew what mistakes that man had made, but Napoleon and Squealer ended up making the same mistakes and treated the other animals as less than equals. They should have learned from the observation of man of what not to do.
Can you blame someone for not being educated if they did not know they were not educated? The animals in Animal Farm followed the words of Old Major, and then followed Napoleon and Squealer, who they thought was leading them to greatness. They did not know any better. They gave all their trust to the pigs and agreed with everything Old Major said. When they were not being treated right, they did not stand up for themselves because they were not educated to think for themselves. It was not until closer to the end when they saw Squealer stand on his hind legs, something that Old Major said was a human characteristic, that their society had become just what they thought they were successfully avoiding. They had reached such a point that it was hard for them to turn back, and they had become scared to rebuild after all this time.
They knew at the end that they were led on the wrong path but didn’t know what the right path was. Out of everyone, Napoleon and Squealer knew that they were following in man’s footsteps because they wanted to be like a man.
When any new thing comes along, it always has the chance of not succeeding. Most things end up failing before being successful. It’s almost true that you can’t completely be successful until you have faced failure. How does someone know what success is if they don’t know what failure is? When it came to Animal Farm, they were not very prepared to completely stray away from something they were so used to. They tooka huge leap when they should have taken baby steps. An old saying can be used when describing the reason behind the failure of Animal Farm, they bit off more than they could chew. If they really wanted to be successful, they should have had a better plan of action. It was always destined to fail from the very beginning.
Animal Farm is a well-written book, and it not only reflects the events leading up to the Russian Resolution but it always can be compared to everyday life and government. When a society changes for the worse, it’s not always the fault of the society as a whole or the fault of the leadership.In the case of the animals in the book, it was a two-way street when it came to the society as a whole and the leadership. Weak-minded and strong-minded alike can be corrupted to thinking one way, and weak-minded and strong-minded alike can control something in a dictatorship way. The animals in Animal Farm, can view the failure of Animal Farm as their fault or not their fault because they should have learned from observation, they didn’t t have the proper education, and it was bound to happen.
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