Does the rest of the story show the fulfilment of the ideals and aims expressed in Old Major's Speech?

Does the rest of the story show the fulfilment of the ideals and

Aim expressed in his speech?

Give a full commentary on what takes place.

Personally I do not agree that Old Major’s ideals and aims were achieved by the other Pigs and animals. The pigs are shown to take control from the very beginning making up rules and then changing them to suit themselves even before the speech the pigs have taken the front seats in the meeting. The ideals and aims are peace, unity, equality, fraternity, fairness and justice. These are the concepts behind the animal commandments (Listed previously in this essay).

The pigs have already learnt reading, writing and language to get ahead of the other animals allowing them to change the rules without confrontation. Language is fundamental to the pigs gaining power. The exclusion of the pigs from day to day work on the farm marks the beginnings of power for the pigs. This is no longer going to carry along with Old Major’s ideals of a classless society. The pigs resemble management in a place of work, which again violates Old Major’s rules “remember that also in fighting against man we must not come to resemble him.” There is not perfect unity between the animals because of the pigs telling the other animals what to do and when to do it. This does not unite them it drives them apart because deep down they know that they have a leader. The idea of fraternity has gone completely out of the window because the pigs are fighting for money, alcohol and power; whilst the other animals are fighting for peace, unity, equality, fraternity, fairness and justice. The other animals are therefore trying to indirectly fulfil the ideals and aims of Old Major. This is one of the most optimistic points of the allegory when the animal commandments “the unalterable law by which all the animals on Animal Farm must live for ever after” are printed up on the wall at the end of the barn. But the pigs have used language once again to gain power over the other animals who are limited by lack of knowledge, understanding and language.

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Then during the rest of the book the pigs take more and more control making everything suit them. They corrupt the “unalterable law” altering the commandments e.g. pigs milk the cows and steal their milk “the animals look at the milk with considerable interest.” Napoleon puts himself in front of the buckets and it disappears into his own mash. The other way he ensures his power is in the building of the windmill making it the focal point of everyone’s attention making them work so hard on this they do not care about anything else and if they do they are punished brutally; allowing him to get on with his other devious plans to gain money and power. They work as hard as they can believing that they will only work a three-day workday and each stall will have hot and cold-water, electricity and a light. This is their ideology a vision of their “promised land”.

When the windmill is ruined Napoleon decides that it is to be rebuilt again this time with walls thicker so that no man could knock it down. The same thing goes on again only this time they can use the debris from where the rocks smashed. During all this the seven commandments are being changed and because the other animals are too scared and too stupid; they notice that something has changed but they just go along with it being okay because it is all under Napoleon’s rule. If the animals start protesting Napoleon uses Snowball as a scapegoat shifting all the bad onto him. According to Napoleon Snowball is the route of all evil. He also uses Mr Jones as another scapegoat he says, “do you want Jones and his men back”. The animals have now lost the little judgement and reality they had. Napoleon has now started a business relationship with Pilkington and Frederic, engaging in trade. Now if an animal committed any sort of crime or made any slight mistake they were executed in a brutal manner. The extent of the brutality is amazing affecting the reader in a sickening way.

Now Napoleon has his own security, he has dogs like secret agent watching everything as his personal slaves. The dogs will do absolutely anything for Napoleon e.g. attack the other pigs. The hens make confessions of thinking of Snowball e.g. in their dreams. Then any confessors are brutally slaughtered. The animals are upset looking on the destruction of the windmill but huddle together and see the best in things, they always see everything in the best light. Clover then whilst huddling together “even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones.” They unify themselves whilst in this mood and sing “Beasts of England.” Then Napoleon bans the song from all the animals they are not even allowed to refer to it and all the sheep get taken out into the field and get taught to say “Four legs good, two legs better.” Instead of the original commandment of “Four legs good, two legs bad.”

There are a lot of mysterious things happening but the animals are totally oblivious to all of it. E.g. Boxer going to the vet on the “Knacker Wagon” whereas he was really going to the hounds. Sold for meat, sold for money, sold for alcohol. The commandment is changed from no animal is allowed to drink alcohol; to no animal is to drink alcohol in excess. Muriel the goat then notices that “there was yet another of them which the animals remembered wrong.”

The pigs are now seriously involved with the other farms and humans around in the area. Acting like them, walking on two legs, drinking alcohol in excess and even playing cards. In the last chapter of the book the animals can hear noise from the farmhouse so they go too see what is going on. As they look on through the window they see men and pigs sat around the table. By this point they are finding it very difficult if not impossible to tell the difference between pig and man. It ends with Orwell drawing attention to the cheating at cards, “Napoleon and Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously”. Orwell is making the point that each is corrupt as the other.

Therefore Orwell has made it clear that if you set out to do something you can. Even using someone else’s ideology to get your own way.

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

sydneyhopcroft

7th of Mar 2012

Quality of writing

The Quality of Written Communication (QWC) here is average. There are no glaring misuses of grammar and the spelling is relatively accurate (there are no moments where a low QWC is consistent enough to compromise the meaning of the answer, but it would be best in the future for candidates to proof-read their answer for such errors, so to make sure they hand in the best possible work when they close the exam booklet/hand in their coursework.

Level of analysis

Where the candidate has achieved a higher recognition in their analytical skills is in realising the context of the novel and what each of the characters and motifs represents as a part of Animalism. To push this further though, the candidate might also comment briefly on how the events and characters of the novel represents the events and important political figures in the Russian Revolution of 1917 (Marx as Old Major; Trotsky as Snowball; Lenin as Squealer; Stalin as Napoleon, etc.). This contextual appreciation would've fortified the answer but does not always directly address the question, so if the candidate is pressed for time or is not attempting to achieve higher than a high B grade then context of this level may not be required in their answer. I like the commentary on the pigs changing the rules of Animalism and the way they manipulate language in order to re-align their power so they permanently oppress the other animals, as it shows a good understanding of the fundamental qualities of the pigs and their representation as Communist leaders, though again, further detail could be provided at this part, perhaps with the candidate commenting on the abandonment of Snowball in a better light than what is shown here. For instance, how does the abandonment of Snowball show the demise of Old Major's original plans for Animalism? How is this representational or symbolic of what the Communist Russian leaders Stalin and Lenin were doing in 1917? This kind of analysis is where the real marks are - those that separate the A/A* grade student from the C/B students. It shows a deep-set understanding of novel and it's socio-political agenda and examiners love to see this depth of consideration given to the question. One big irk with this essay is the apparently rushed conclusion. Conclusion absolutely cannot consist of one measly line by itself. Conclusions, by definition, conclude or summarise the previous points made in the main analytical body of text and then draw a final observation (objective, usually) in direct response to the question having considered all the facts explored. The conclusion here is simply not acceptable and appears to introduce a new idea that would be better left unwritten, as it now suggests more was meant to be written but the candidate ran out of time.

Response to question

This is a question orientating around the ideology of the fictional political viewpoint of Animalism and how successful the animals of 'Animal Farm' are at achieving this policy. Old Major presented the ideology and when he died the younger animal set about trying to bring about a revolution by which the laws of Animalism were soon brought into action. This answer comments quite broadly on the use of Animalism and it's effectivity in achieving what the Old Major wanted. However, there are some parts of the essay where not enough detail provided to elicit marks for impressive insight as the analysis given is very superficial and barely scrapes the surface of proper analysis - it feels very fixed to simply recalling the events fo the novel. This is something that must be avoided at all costs as there are absolutely no marks to be achieved if candidates do this.

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