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British Literature Videos 176 videos
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Animal Farm 80324 Views
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Description:
How do you insult the Soviet Union and get away with it? Make them animals. (No one will ever know.) That was George Orwell's plan, and it worked. He was able to insult Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky, all while masking them as barn animals—which really is an insult in itself. Would you like to be compared to a pig?
Transcript
- 00:02
“Moo” says the cow. “Baa” says the sheep.
- 00:14
“Believe my Communist propaganda”
- 00:18
says the pig. George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a satirical
- 00:21
novella
- 00:22
that uses animals to represent ideas
Full Transcript
- 00:24
central to the Russian Revolution. With this device, Orwell demonstrates the
- 00:28
great value of metaphors.
- 00:30
More or less, each animal represents a specific player in the Russian Revolution.
- 00:35
Old Major is both
- 00:36
Karl Marx and
- 00:37
Vladimir Lenin. Napoleon is an allegory for
- 00:39
Joseph Stalin. Snowball channels
- 00:42
Leon Trotsky. So it begs the big question:
- 00:45
why did Orwell choose animals as characters instead of
- 00:48
…humans? Our old pals Marx,
- 00:51
Lenin,
- 00:51
Stalin, and
- 00:52
Trotsky are a LOT more interesting than a bunch of barnyard animals, aren’t they?
- 00:56
We here at Shmoop don’t think so. Orwell’s metaphorical use of animals is
- 01:00
precisely what makes Animal Farm such an interesting book.
- 01:03
By using animals, Orwell was able to make his book interesting to both young and old
- 01:08
alike. Because seriously, who doesn’t love animals?
- 01:12
For real… Just one more. Really, how can anyone resist
- 01:15
these <<in baby voice>> fuzzy wuzzy wittle animals?
- 01:19
Orwell’s use of animals also gives his writing much more power.
- 01:24
Orwell smart!
- 01:26
Hulk angry! Using animals gives Orwell the ability to
- 01:30
criticize the Soviet Union and its leaders without directly endangering himself.
- 01:35
Pigs bad;
- 01:36
Humans good. Especially Soviet humans! Orwell also gives himself the freedom to let
- 01:42
the animals perform primitive actions
- 01:43
that a human would never, ever, ever perform. Like murdering their own kind…
- 01:49
…or abusing power and oppressing lower classes…
- 01:52
…or using the media to trick and manipulate the population.
- 01:56
Wait…
- 01:57
what? Orwell was able to successfully emphasize
- 02:00
and exaggerate mankind’s uglier attributes. What better way to show that man is a pig
- 02:05
than…
- 02:06
to make him one? There’s some food for thought.
- 02:09
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
- 02:10
YouTube blurb:
- 02:10
Who let the pigs out? Oink… oink… oink oink. What’s the deal with all of these
- 02:10
animals running amok – and in a work of classic literature, no less? Isn’t this
- 02:10
a children’s book? Something’s fishy here…
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