LA #2- Animal Farm

1. This novel begins with farm animals wanting to revolt against human control.  This rebelliousness is started by a boar named Old Major that gives a speech to all the farm animals.  They devise a plan to overtake the farm and gain control of it.   Their plan works, they drove away all human contorl, and all is well for a while on the farm.  However, a particular pig Napoleon becomes power hungry, and suddenly his whole objective is to have complete power over the other animals.  He succeeds in brainwashing the animals, and becomes a tyrant, keeping a few pigs in his circle to justify and carry out his every ideal.  The rest of the animals are neglected by him, being overworked with little food.  As time passes by, the animals start to become more and more human like.  By the end of the novel, when the animals see Napoleon and his minions dining with his human neighbor, they cannot tell the difference between the humans and animals.
2. The theme of this novel is the corruption of power.  While the pigs may have had good intention in the beginning, their desires soon changed.  When someone is given total power, it never ends well.  Napoleon become ignorant to anyone else, only doing things that benefitted himself, and that would keep him in power.
3. The author's tone is pessimistic.  This is demonstrated throughout the novel with the constant misfortunes in the novel.  Examples include when Old Major dies, when the animals become extrememly unhappy and devalued, and when Napoleon kills anyone that defies him.
4.        ~Imagery
- "It was given out that the animals there practiced cannibalism, tortured one another with red-hot horseshoes, and had their females in common."
- "Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring."
- "The tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones."
      ~Diction
- easy to understand, not too formal:
- descriptive: "red- hot horseshoes"
- action words: " tortured"
       ~Allegory
- Napoloen represented Stalin
- Old Major represented Lenin
- Spuealer represented Russian propaganda
       ~Symbols
- the windmill: how overworked the animals were
- the barn: the center/beginning
      ~Repetition
- "Napoleon is always right."
- "I will work harder."
- the seven commandments