Animal Farm

As sort of a last book to read this semester, I chose Animal Farm by George Orwell mostly because I never had the chance to study it when I was a sophomore. A fairly quick read, I was overall completely surprised with the relevancy that the story holds to human history. The most obvious tie is the rise of Communism. But Orwell explores deeper into the beginnings than just the rise- it takes a group of uneducated people (or animals in the case of this novel) and a very persuasive leader who is able to instill trust upon the followers. Once the leader has talked his way into a more authoritative position, he then adds a military regime in order to protect his "equal preachings" or just outright absurd laws from the public's potential backlash. As soon as the military (or rather threatening dogs in the book) is in place, the preacher of equality for everyone becomes a feared dictator and benefits from the reductions forced upon the public. So it seems as if history prevails in every equal-rights movement and that eventually the system becomes corrupt.

Reading this book made me realize that if a country (the average people inhabiting the region) is not educated enough to realize the rise of a dictator when it is occurring, it is almost easy for it to be engulfed in some type of scheme to benefit the few in power. At the end of the book, it was almost depressing to read that the pigs learned to walk on two legs to better fit in with the human race when the animals worked so hard to separate and better themselves from man. It seems that eventually things will return to their natural state before the up rise and revolt because although history repeats itself, it is nearly impossible to change.


-A. Pruett