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Comparative Study Alice Murphy, Transition Year

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31 st May 2012. Stratford College, Rathgar, Dublin 6 Comparative Study Alice Murphy, Transition Year On the outside, George Orwell's two greatest novels, 'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty Four'' appear deceptively different. The former being an 80 page allegory with the words 'fairy story' in the title, and the latter a bleak dystopian novel of epic proportions (well, in comparison- being nearly three times the size). But in reality, Orwell, a political writer, was trying to get across the same point of how an ideal can be corrupted by dictatorship. In this essay, I'll explore both the differences and similarities between the two with regards to plot, main themes, characterisation and the author's overall writing style. The two books have completely different plots, to the casual observer. Animal Farm charts the decision by a pack of farm animals in England to overthrow the farmer's repressive regime. Old Major, an ancient boar, feeds the imaginations of the other animals, but dies before the revolution is complete. The inhabitants of the farm are then left running the farm collectively and it all seems idyllic, everyone striving in unison for equal share in food, bedding and work. But soon a power struggle erupts between Napoleon and Snowball, two younger pigs, resulting in Snowball being driven off the farm and Napoleon gradually changing the idealistic farm setting into another brutal, repressive regime mirroring that of Mr Jones the farmer. Nineteen Eighty-Four, in contrast, is about a man named Winston Smith, who lives in a crumbling London, which is part of Oceania. Oceania is a futuristic merging of North America and Britain (1984 was the future in 1949, when the book was published), where people's lives are strictly regulated and controlled, in the name of 'Big Brother', the omnipresent leader of Oceania. Every dingy little apartment has a telescreen- which can watch you as easily as you watch it, you never know which of your friends or family will be next to betray you to the thought police for committing thought crime or be declared criminals themselves and disappear entirely. This novel charts the gradual move towards rebellion of Winston against the Party, by engaging in one of the simplest of human acts. By falling in love. So neither plot seems particularly alike. But on a metaphorical level, both recounts the exact same story. The rise of Marx's communism (Old Major's Animalism; Oceania's Ingsoc), the revolution and implementation of these fantastic ideals in Russia (Animal Farm and Oceania), a power struggle between Josef Stalin (Napoleon and Big Brother) and Leon Trotsky (Snowball and Goldstein*) and the final changing of these glorious ideals into the oppressive, bleak realities seen in the end of Animal Farm and throughout Nineteen Eighty Four. In the end, the two books may seem terribly different in plot but on a deeper, more political, level they are very much alike. This is simply because Orwell was a political writer and he used his books as a medium through which to showcase his own political views. Forming my opinion based off the two books, I'd say that Orwell loved the idea of Communism but realised that when everyone's equal, there's more scope for corruption and dictatorship, which he hated above all else. As Napoleon so eloquently puts it "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." © Stratford College, 2012 31 st May 2012. Stratford College, Rathgar, Dublin 6 In terms of theme, the two books mirror each other almost exactly. Both have a strong underlying message telling us of the dangers of the totalitarianism that arose in the 20th century. Also, the two share a theme of language as a manipulative device. Animal Farm is very blatant in telling us which totalitarian dictatorship it is criticising. That is, the implementation of communism in the USSR (Russia from the early 1920s the the 1980s), which began as a glorious example of how the common people can rise up and govern themselves but eventually became a disgusting mockery of the ideals of Marx and Lenin, controlled by Stalin. In Animal Farm, we see the gradual decline of conditions for the farm animals, after the glory days at the beginning of the revolution. After first evicting Jones the farmer, the animals work together to gather in 'the greatest harvest ever seen' but after Napoleon takes over, they become as, if not more, malnourished and oppressed than under the control of the humans. Constantly, they have their rations decreased and the disparities between the strata which materialise in this new, farmyard, society. Particularly how animalism (communism), in its ravenous need for equality, leaves space for a dictator to slip in and turn the tables in his favour, shows Orwell's hatred of the inherent oxymoron which was Soviet Russia. In the world of Nineteen Eighty Four, the lines are almost blurred between whether Orwell is portraying fascist regimes in Italy, Germany and Spain or again concentrates solely on the USSR as in Animal Farm. The military obsession that the media seems to have, in the wars against Eurasia and Eastasia, point to the types of regime associated with the likes of Hitler in Germany, while the very name of the ideology that Oceania is purported to follow (Ingsoc- soc being short for socialism) point to the 'communist' farce that was Stalin's Russia. It truly highlights the theme of the dangers of totalitarianism because by the time Orwell had written this book in 1949, the horrors of these regimes had only recently come to light and to even appear vaguely reminiscent of wartime was to dredge up disturbing memories of the recent Second World War. In both, there is also a very interesting theme prevalent in both books of how language can be used as a manipulative device. In Nineteen Eighty Four, the people are forced to use 'newspeak', which is constantly being developed by the government with a view to eventually having no one able to say or even think anything anti-Party. An example being the slogan of the Ministry of Truth 'war is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.'. In Animal Farm, the pigs originally set out the 'seven commandments', which include rules such as 'all animals are equal'. These rules are then learnt off by the animals and lived by zealously. Soon enough, Napoleon begins to break these laws and eventually the animals find out that they were wrong and after all the commandment was 'all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'. This is a blatant oxymoron, as if all are equal, how can some be more equal than others? The pigs twist the law so they can create an upper echelon in a society where class isn't supposed to exist. And the others are convinced to go along with it. With regards to characterisation, the two are incredibly different but both hammer home the message that Orwell attempts to convey. © Stratford College, 2012 31 st May 2012. Stratford College, Rathgar, Dublin 6 In Animal Farm, he doesn't leave much time for beautiful, elaborate characters as it's an 80 page novella. But he manages to show us the plight of the workers symbolised by the main population of the farm by making us identify and pity the good hearted, gentle but rather dim witted inhabitants of the farm. An example of this is Boxer the draft horse. He steadily upholds the ideals of animalism set out by Old Major yet cannot even get past the letter 'd' in the alphabet when Snowball attempts to teach him. Boxer literally works himself to death in the name of Animal Farm, in particular when he almost single handedly builds the windmill, when in doubt repeating either of two mantras- 'I will work harder' or 'Napoleon is always right'. But poor Boxer hardly receives the hero's retirement promised. Napoleon, who Boxer so valiantly defends, sets his trained personal guard of dogs on him but in failing that, he organises him to be sent to the knackers yard to be boiled down into glue (the others are told that he died peacefully in his sleep). The animals do tend to fit into stereotypes. They are all a bit one dimensional, although we feel their pain, they lack real substance. Mollie is the typical pampered, egotistical, gently bred woman (mare, in this case). Napoleon is a tyrant, lacking any other real feelings or depth. Even Boxer, although I came to love him greatly, was only a stereotypical hard worker who gets manipulated. In contrast in Nineteen Eighty Four, the characterisation is much more elaborate. Our protagonist, Winston, has very human flaws- he allows himself to go with the flow in the 'two minutes' hate' and even cracks under the extreme pressure put on him in 'Room 101'. This makes him a highly realistic character and very easy to understand. When he goes through his ordeal in Room 101 and forsakes Julia, when he blindly decides to trust O'Brien and finally when we see him a broken man at the end, completely devoid of rebelliousness, I wanted to shout in his ear 'stop! You idiot!'. I wanted to laugh at his victories and revel in his joy. To cry at his pain and wallow with him in his despair. But this makes him into a fabulous character, in my opinion, made whole by his inherently human flaws which are slightly lacking in the fairly regimental animals of Animal Farm. The supporting cast of people, including Julia and O'Brien, are eerily human also.
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