We watched "Animal Farm The Movie" today.
HOMEWORK:
-Read Chapter 4
- Do Chapter 3 Questions
Chapter Three: Analysis
In Chapter Three we begin to see the first unmistakable signs that the Revolution will drift away from the common animals' ideals, which were more aligned with Old Major's vision of a classless society. The exclusion of the pigs from the farm labor marks the beginnings of the social stratification which would have been anathema to Old Major. The animals go along with these developments out of fear that without the pigs, Mr. Jones will return, though these fears are implanted by Squealer, who early on recognizes the value of fear in persuading the animals.
Chapter Three also establishes the division between Snowball and Napoleon. Snowball is clearly the "thinker" of the movement, developing the flag-raising ritual and symbolism and creating the elaborate system of committees. To the reader, much of Snowball's activity seems benign, and even benevolent, as in the education efforts and improvement-minded groups like the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep. These efforts establish Snowball as the symbolic descendant of Old Major's vision of animal life.
Napoleon, in contrast, becomes subtly malevolent in his interactions with the newborn puppies. Here, Orwell's use of perspective to create irony is significant. The scene (as is all of Animal Farm) is narrated from the unquestioning animals' point of view, and the narrator only remarks that Napoleon "kept [the puppies] in such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot their existence". The tone of Orwell's animal perspective is, as always, noncommittal and unremarkable, but the more-perceptive reader is instantly alerted by this suspicious behavior on Napoleon's part, and is cued for the bolder violations which Napoleon will commit in subsequent chapters.
In Chapter Three we begin to see the first unmistakable signs that the Revolution will drift away from the common animals' ideals, which were more aligned with Old Major's vision of a classless society. The exclusion of the pigs from the farm labor marks the beginnings of the social stratification which would have been anathema to Old Major. The animals go along with these developments out of fear that without the pigs, Mr. Jones will return, though these fears are implanted by Squealer, who early on recognizes the value of fear in persuading the animals.
Chapter Three also establishes the division between Snowball and Napoleon. Snowball is clearly the "thinker" of the movement, developing the flag-raising ritual and symbolism and creating the elaborate system of committees. To the reader, much of Snowball's activity seems benign, and even benevolent, as in the education efforts and improvement-minded groups like the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep. These efforts establish Snowball as the symbolic descendant of Old Major's vision of animal life.
Napoleon, in contrast, becomes subtly malevolent in his interactions with the newborn puppies. Here, Orwell's use of perspective to create irony is significant. The scene (as is all of Animal Farm) is narrated from the unquestioning animals' point of view, and the narrator only remarks that Napoleon "kept [the puppies] in such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot their existence". The tone of Orwell's animal perspective is, as always, noncommittal and unremarkable, but the more-perceptive reader is instantly alerted by this suspicious behavior on Napoleon's part, and is cued for the bolder violations which Napoleon will commit in subsequent chapters.
