Snowball was another of the pigs who became a leader. He is described as a “more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but not considered to have the same depth of character.” Snowball was the pig who came up with all of the ideas for improving the farm. He organised the animal’s tactics for when the humans attacked the farm in the Battle of the Cowshed. He read some of Mr Jones’ DIY books and had plenty ideas about building a windmill. Napoleon was jealous of Snowball’s ideas and when it looked like Snowball was winning over the animals, Napoleon ran him off the farm with his new army of dogs, the equivalent of Stalin’s ruthless KGB. Snowball represented Leon Trotsky. At the beginning of the revolution, there was a struggle for power between Stalin and Trotsky. In 1927, Trotsky was deported. After that, any problems he faced, Stalin would always blame them on Trotsky.
The last of the three pigs was Squealer. Squealer was never really a very important person in himself, but the different lies and rumours that he spread around the farm were crucial in Napoleon’s campaign to become leader. Squealer represented propaganda. Most of the things he said were untrue. For example, when the animals wanted an explanation for Snowball being run off the farm, Squealer said that Snowball was an enemy and was working against the other animals. He said that at the Battle of the Cowshed he had even plotted for the humans to win. Of course, this was ridiculous, but as with any form of propaganda, it is repeated and repeated and given across to the public so convincingly, that they cannot do anything but believe it. It was said that Squealer could “turn black into white”. This was probably the most important factor of Napoleon rising to power. Whenever the animals had any doubts about anything, Squealer was quick to reassure them and convince them that everything was fine.
There were lots of other animals on the farm apart from the pigs, but probably only two that were very important – Benjamin and Boxer.
Benjamin was a donkey. It is written that he:
“seemed quite unchanged since the Rebellion. He did his work in the same slow obstinate way as he had done in Jones’ time, never shirking, and never volunteering for extra work either. About the Rebellion and its results he would express no opinion.”
Benjamin represented the sceptical people both inside and outside Russia. They weren’t sure that the revolution would change anything. They realised that a crazy leader could call himself a communist. They also knew that communism wouldn’t work while there were power-hungry leaders. Benjamin was one of the very few animals who could read well, but he never practised it. The only time he read anything aloud was when he read the side of the van in which Boxer was being taken away. He read it so that he would save his friend, but any other time he refused.
Boxer was a horse, a huge carthorse. He was very strong – “as strong as any two ordinary horses put together”. He had a white stripe down his nose, which is said to have given him a somewhat stupid appearance. In fact, Boxer was not of first rate intelligence, but is said that he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous attitude to work.
Boxer was a very likeable character. He never said a bad word against anybody, never wished harm on anybody, and was genuinely upset when he thought that he’d killed a farm boy in the Battle of the Cowshed. He followed Snowball and Napoleon faithfully, always believing what they said. However, when Squealer informed the animals that Snowball had been a traitor, Boxer found it hard to believe. He asked questions and seemed to annoy Squealer. He had two mottos: “I will work harder” and “Napoleon is always right”. He was dedicated to his work when building the windmill. He collapsed while helping in the building of it. Clover and Benjamin told him to slow down and not to work as hard. Boxer believed that he was destined for a peaceful retirement after his working days were over. Napoleon told the animals that Boxer was going into town to be treated by a vet, when in fact, he had sold Boxer to the knacker’s yard. Napoleon had killed his most faithful subject, who had never doubted him. The money Napoleon received from selling Boxer was spent on beer for the pigs. Boxer represented the dedicated communist followers. They believed everything Stalin said because he was a “Communist”. Many still remained loyal after it was clear that Stalin was a tyrant, but he betrayed them all when he eventually killed them.
Apart from Mr Jones, there are only two other human characters. They are the owners of the two neighbouring farms – Mr Frederick and Mr Pilkington. These two men represented the leaders of both England and Germany at the height of the revolution – Hitler and Churchill. Hitler was Mr. Frederick, a “tough, shrewd man, perpetually involved in lawsuits and with a name for driving hard bargains.” Mr Pilkington, an “easy-going gentleman farmer”, represented Winston Churchill. These two men never agreed with each other and refused to be involved in any way with the other one.
Later in the story, Napoleon plays each farmer off against the other, by choosing to sell a pile of timber to one farmer, then changing his mind and deciding to sell it to the other. In the end, he chose to sell it to Mr Frederick (Hitler). Money was sent to the farm and the timber was sent to Frederick’s farm. It turned out, however, that the notes were forgeries and Napoleon had been tricked. This action represented the Nazi-Soviet Pact at the beginning of the Second World War, where Russia and Nazi Germany made an agreement which was later broken by Hitler.
Gulliver’s Travels
Gulliver's Travels is written completely differently from Animal Farm, but its aim is the same – to point out certain things which the author believes should not be happening.
The author of Gulliver's Travels was Jonathan Swift. Unlike George Orwell, Swift was not unhappy with one particular event. He was unhappy with everything which was happening in England at the time. The book was written in 1726. In the book, Swift criticised everything about human nature. Like Orwell, however, he does not do it directly. He uses satire. For satire to work, the person or thing being satirised has to be important, fashionable or powerful in some way.
The criticism of England was so bad that Swift did not put his own name to the book. The completed novel was found on the ground outside the door of a publisher. The book was in the form of a travel book, where the narrator, Lemuel Gulliver, claimed to be writing about his journeys to “several remote nations of the world”. Swift mocked and ridiculed the people and societies that he found in those make-believe, distant places, but what he was really doing was criticising England in the 1720s.
From the very beginning it is easy to see that the book was not written in the twentieth century. The language is quite different, quite formal. The sentences are very long and Swift often goes into lots of detail about the tiniest things. There are also clues in the writing which tell us that this is not a modern piece of writing. For example, when Gulliver sets off on his first journey, he writes that
“Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labour and ill food. The rest were in a very weak condition”.
Lilliput
The ship is caught in a storm and destroyed. Gulliver manages to get onto shore, but collapses on the beach. When he awakes, he finds that he is tied down with lots of tiny ropes.
“I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir for, as I happened to be on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner”.
He discovers that there are lots of little people standing around him. They are very shocked at first, and think that he is a monster, but after a while, they construct a vessel to carry him to the main city of Lilliput. Gulliver meets the Emperor of Lilliput:
“His Imperial Majesty spoke often to me, and I returned answers, but neither of us could understand a syllable”.
In all of the countries Gulliver visits, he cannot at first understand the language. This is a part of the satire. By writing that Gulliver cannot understand the languages, Swift is really saying that speeches by important people are often gibberish and pompous. The ordinary person cannot understand them.
The people of Lilliput are tiny. They are only 15cm tall. Gulliver is kept in Lilliput as a prisoner. He is not allowed to stay in the main city, for fear of him squashing the residents. After a while of captivity, he is given freedom, but only on certain conditions. The conditions are that:
- He cannot leave Lilliput without the Emperor’s permission.
- He cannot enter the city without two hours warning.
- He can only walk on the high roads and cannot lie down in meadows or fields.
- As he walks, he must take care not to trample on any of the Lilliputians.
- If a message needs to be delivered, Gulliver is obliged to pick up the messenger and take him to his destination.
- He must be the Lilliputians’ ally against their enemies.
- He must help build buildings.
- He must explore the entire island and report his findings to the Emperor.
The Lilliputians have one great enemy – the empire of Blefuscu. Gulliver finds out that many of the residents of Blefuscu used to once reside in Lilliput, but because of a silly squabble, they were forced to leave. The argument was over eggs and how to crack them! The normal way in Lilliput to crack eggs was to crack the large end. Lilliput’s Emperor’s grandfather, when he was a child, cracked an egg the normal way, and cut his finger. Afterwards, he ordered that the practice should be stopped, and that from then onwards, eggs should be broken at the smaller end. Many people resented this law and rebelled against it. These rebels fled Lilliput to live in Blefuscu, and ever since, there has been a terrible war between the two empires.
This argument is ridiculous. Swift knew that when he wrote it. It is another swipe at England in the 1720s. For centuries, England had been at war with France for one reason or another. Swift was illustrating how silly and childish, to someone with a view of the whole situation, these reasons are. The argument over which end to crack your eggs is obviously a great exaggeration of Swift’s thoughts, but it got the message across.
In chapter 5 of Gulliver’s voyage to Lilliput, there is a fire in the palace. All of the Lilliputians try to put out the fire with their tiny buckets of water, but it was no use. Gulliver did the only thing he could think of, and urinated on the palace, putting out the fire. Immediately after, people were grateful that he’d managed to put out the fire. However, later on, Gulliver learns that the Emperor of Lilliput plans to use that action against him when he plots to kill him. This was Swift’s way of showing his thoughts on gratitude from people in power. He believed that people in a position of power, such as the Emperor of Lilliput, were always ungrateful for things which other people did for them. If Gulliver had left the palace, there would probably have been quite a few casualties. However, he used his initiative and put the fire out, maybe not conventionally, but it did the job just the same. The Emperor was not happy with that, and made it look as if Gulliver had done something wrong. This act, along with a few others, was intended to ensure that Gulliver would be killed. Gulliver discovered their plans, however, and escaped to Blefuscu.
By chance, Gulliver is picked up in the sea by an English ship. The crew believe him to be crazy when they hear of his tales of little people, but when he produces some cattle that he had in his pocket, they believe him. This is another clue to the fact that this book was not written recently. In those days, the 17th and 18th centuries, people blamed everything on madness. Gulliver may have been ranting because he was tired, hungry, thirsty etc, but straightaway, the crew blamed it on madness.
When he returns home, Gulliver is pleased to see his family, but he has “itchy feet” – he cannot wait to go on another voyage.
“I stayed but two months with my wife and family; for my insatiable desire of seeing foreign countries would suffer me no longer”.
Brobdingnag
After two months of being back home in England with his family, Gulliver is off again. He didn’t know where he was going, except that he was going to explore foreign lands.
About one year after setting sail from England, they see land. The captain sends a longboat ashore to try and find fresh water. Gulliver, keen to explore the new land, goes with them. Once on shore, the men set off in search of water, while Gulliver wanders off. He wanders about for a while, then decides to return back down to the boat. He sees his fellow shipmates rowing away in the boat, followed by a huge creature. Gulliver turns around and runs for his life.
He is walking through a field of corn, the corn being nearly forty feet high, when he sees more of these creatures. Gulliver tries to hide himself in the corn, when several more of the creatures appear with reaping-hooks. The creatures start moving towards Gulliver, but are unable to see him. Gulliver, fearful of being squashed, cries out as loud as he can. One of the creatures hears his cry and looks down. He lifts Gulliver up so that he can have a better look at him. Gulliver is very frightened, both of what the creature might do to him, and because he is so high up from the ground.
“For I apprehended every moment that he would dash me against the ground, as we usually do any little hateful animal which we have a mind to destroy”.
Gulliver is taken to the farmer’s house, where he is given food.
“…a servant brought in dinner. It was only one substantial dish of meat in a dish of about twenty-four feet in diameter. The wife minced a bit of meat, then crumbled some bread, and placed it before me”.
In Brobdingnag, everything is the opposite of Lilliput. Gulliver is now in a reversed role. In Lilliput he was a giant. In Brobdingnag he is tiny and unimportant. He is treated as a plaything. Being small also helps Gulliver to see the world differently. Any faults or defects are magnified and made much more obvious than in Lilliput. In Gulliver’s first voyage, to Lilliput, Swift made it clear in his writing that Lilliput was meant to be England. Gulliver was huge and so could see everything that was going on, and so was able to criticise Lilliput as he saw fit. In Brobdingnag Gulliver is the tiny one. When he is taken to the royal palace, he meets the King and Queen. He has long discussions with the King about England, and the King is disgusted by what he hears:
“He was perfectly astonished with the historical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century, protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, factions, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice or ambition could produce”.
This sentence summed up Swift’s feelings about England, and really, if you look back at England’s history with a cynical eye, you will see that it is true. Hopefully, if Swift re-wrote the book now, in the 21st century, he would see things differently. There are still things going on that shouldn’t be, but things have definitely improved since Swift’s time.
Swift doesn’t really give a proper description of the people of Brobdingnag. At first he cannot understand their language, but the farmer’s daughter helps him. Gulliver calls her his glumdalclitch, or “little nurse”. Glumdalclitch helps Gulliver to learn the language, and accompanies him to the palace when the Queen buys him from the farmer. Probably the best description of the people of Brobdingnag is when Gulliver describes the Maids of Honour at the palace. The maids treat him as a plaything. He describes his disgust at the way they treat him:
“They would often strip me naked from top to toe and lay me at full length in their bosoms; wherewith I was much disgusted; because, to say the truth, a very offensive smell came from their skins… That which gave me most uneasiness among these Maids of Honour, when my nurse carried me to visit them, was to see them use me without any matter of ceremony, like a creature who had no sort of conscience. For they would strip themselves to the skin, and put on their smocks in my presence, while I was placed on their toilet directly before their naked bodies, which, I am sure, to me was very far from being a tempting sight, or from giving me any other emotions than those of horror and disgust”.
In this description, it is hard to know whether Swift is disgusted with women, or if he is using them to show his disgust of vanity and the illusion of physical beauty. Women generally take more care in their appearance than men, so they would have been the obvious choice if Swift were doing the latter. Other than that, there is no description of the people of Brobdingnag.
Gulliver’s departure from Brobdingnag is quite peculiar and relies completely on chance. He is carried about the country in a small box. Gulliver pretends to be ill and says that he needs some fresh air. The page carrying the box sets it down on some rocks and then goes off wandering. Then, an eagle swoops down and grabs the box in its beak. It carries Gulliver across the sea, but then is shot. Gulliver’s box falls down into the sea. By chance, he is discovered by an English ship, and is hoisted up onto the deck. Gulliver forgets that the people are of his own size, and tells one of the crew to put his finger in the ring at the top of the box and pull the lid off. Again, the crew thinks him mad, but again Gulliver has little objects that prove that he is sane. This time, he has a comb and a ring.
Once Gulliver is back home, everything seems strange. He imagines himself to be in Lilliput again, where the house and people are tiny, for he is used to the size of the inhabitants of Brobdingnag. He shouts instead of talks, thinking that the people can still not hear him in his normal voice. He comments that his wife and children have starved themselves to nothing, when in reality they are well fed. Gulliver cannot see people if they kneel or sit down, “having been so long used to stand with my head and eyes erect to above sixty foot”. His wife asks him not to go to sea any more, but Gulliver knows that if another opportunity comes his way, he will take it.
Laputa
Gulliver had not been at home more than ten days when a captain came to see him about going to sea once more. Gulliver was offered the opportunity to have a role on the ship which was equal to that of the captain, and double his normal wage.