Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Question #6_ Animal Farm


*Please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you.
*Why is this passage meaningful?
*Please type it into one of your entries and comment on what you think about the passage.


"All animals are equal
But some animals are more equal
Than others"

This passage was really significant to me. It is a single commandment left on the wall of the farm at the end of the book. The commandment kept changing, but almost nobody, except for the leaders, knew because they couldn’t read caused by lack of education. When I first read this passage, I didn’t really get what it meant. Equal is equal, how can you be “more” equal? It didn’t make sense at all. However, as I kept on thinking and made connection to the Soviet Union that this book was symbolizing, I started to nod without noticing. What is the ideal of communism? What’s so different from democracy? It is being EQUAL, however is it really? They distribute money equally, government assign people’s job, and everything is decided by the government so no one can fight against it. When a person is poor, everybody else is poor, and when a person is rich, everybody else is rich, equally. Then what about the people in the high position of the government? Aren’t they always better than these people controlled by them? Aren’t they ALWAYS rich? Don’t THEY decide for others? Isn’t that power and unequal? This is exactly what this quote means. In this book Animal Farm, same things are happening. There are always leaders and they get anything they want while others don’t. Napoleons, one of the pig leaders, always brings around dogs to get control of others.

“Common animals are equal
But animals with power and dictatorship are more equal
Then the rest”

I would change the quote like this.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey~~
I personally love that passage. The entire passage was about being unequal in while attempting to make it sound equal! :D
Anyways, great job on making a connection to the Soviet Union to this passage. I completely agree with the relationship between the passage and the beliefs of the USSR because that is probably a connection that George Orwell had in mind.
However, I think that Orwell was simply crticizing the hypocrisy and irony of communism in general with this clever quote. His message was made very clearly, don't you think? :)

Have a great Lunar Break!

Christina said...

I have chosen the same passage that you have chosen. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" It was really interesting to compare the seven commandments and the one single sentence (“All animals...) when I read this passage I was confused like you. What does it means something is more equal?! I had same question when I read that passage. This passage showed how the Animal Farm changes after the revolution. However I like the way you asked the question that you don’t understand. Also I like the passage end of the paragraph that you have changed.

African Globe Trotters. said...

Bravo! The best quote! Most significant choice. Mrs Mc.