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Example research essay topic: Orwell Message In Animal Farm - 1,455 words

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... class consciousness, which is expressed by John Newsinger, There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Orwell's sympathies are with the working class (the farm animals) in their revolutionary overthrow of Farmer Jones and establishment of a workers's tate (Animal Farm). What follows is the story of the betrayal of the Russian Revolution and rise of Stalinism, of a new privileged class, told as fable. The chosen form of the novel inevitably involves simplification but the extent to which this compromises its socialist politics is most debatable. His portrayal of the farm animals as so easily fooled by Napoleon and the pigs is the book's weakest spot; indeed, in much of Orwell's writing he stumbles over the question of working-class consciousness. Another way of controlling peoples minds, according to Orwell, is the religion, as he draws attention in Animal Farm, by the character of Moses, a tame raven described as being a spy, a tale bearer but also a clever talker.

At first Moses was loyal to Jones, just as the Russian Church had been to the Czarist Regime. Orwell showed how Moses tales of a heaven called "Sugarcandy Mountain" were useful to Jones as a way of keeping the animals in order - religion gave them hopes of a better life after they died and their belief made them more willing to accept their current harsh lives. Religion was contrary to the beliefs of Socialism and so the Church was heavily opposed after the revolution - hence Moses' disappearance. Moses return in Chapter IX represents the way in which Stalin allowed religion to re-establish itself in Russia as he realised that he could use it, just as Nicolas II had, as a way of pacifying the animals. Orwell showed religion to be a both a crutch for the animals to lean on when times were bad (gave them unrealistic hopes for the future), and also as a means of preventing rebellion against authority (whether it be Czarist or Communist). Orwell sees Socialism as an alternative of religions, which promise heaven with eternal happiness, I suggest that the real objective of Socialism is not happiness.

Happiness hitherto has been a by-product, and for all we know it may always remain so. The real objective of Socialism is human brotherhood. This is widely felt to be the case, though it is not usually said, or not said loudly enough. Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another. And they want that world as a first step. Where they go from there is not so certain, and the attempt to foresee it in detail merely confuses the issue.

Orwell's Animal Farm is certainly parallel to Russian political history except from one issue, the transformation of the Seven Commandments. There is no parallel to this in Russian political history. But Leo Tolstoy had observed a very similar perversion, in Russian religious history, as Leon recounts in his biography. What Tolstoy considered the essential precepts of the Sermon on the Mount had become almost their opposites in the mouths of Russian Orthodox clerics. The original 'Do not be angry' had become 'Do not be angry without a cause'. (15) The phrase 'without a cause' was, to Tolstoy, the key to an understanding of the perversion of scripture. Of course everyone who is angry justifies himself with a cause, however trivial or unjust, and therefore he guessed, correctly as he soon found, that the words were a later interpolation designed to devalue the original injunction.

Similarly the instructions not to promise anything on oath, not to resist evil by violence, and not to judge or go to law had all been overturned, and had become their opposites, when the church had sought accommodation with the civil power. This is one of the astonishing similarities between George Orwell and Leo Tolstoy. Actually, by changing the Seven Commandments, Orwell wants to give the message that, any society, which has leaders with absolute power, is ultimately doomed to failure due to the inevitability of leaders manipulating power for their own personal benefit. Orwell believes that people do not want to be equal due to their nature, just as Williams comment on Old Major: Old Major is seen as having good intentions but too much of a naive idealism to realise that not all animals share the same public-spirited ness that he has. As a result of this, early or later, all societies will expose the betrayal of their revolutions just as in Animal Farm, the two crucial elements of the book are its support for the overthrow of Farmer Jones and its indictment of the revolution's betrayal by the pigs. Once again it has to be emphasised that as far as Orwell was concerned the pigs had become as bad as, indistinguishable from, not worse than, the humans.

The famous last scene where the farm animals look in through the window and can no longer tell them apart was a satire of the Tehran Conference involving Stalin and his Western Allies. The main theme of the book is arguable, as a question appears: Is Orwell advising revolution or not? Katharine Byrne asks the same question: the fable ends with all the brave hopes in ruins. Virtue is crushed and wickedness triumphs. What went wrong?

Orwell lays out the story and asks us to look at it. He does not moralize. This is what happened, but we know it is not right. We are left morally indignant at the injustice suffered.

Are we to believe that this is the inevitable fate of rebellion? Or that other political systems are better than Stalinist communism? Williams answer to this question is, Orwell himself believed that revolution was not the answer - he believed that revolution was not a way of changing society: it was in fact merely a way of keeping it the same. Revolutions often have good intentions and provide new faces with a new rhetoric but soon it is hard to tell the new faces from the old. The answer according to Orwell was reform, not revolution: Reform really changes.

Orwell believed that The Left in Russia had been tricked into revolution by its enemies. John Newsinger has a different point of view, he thinks that: As for the notion that Animal Farm suggests that all revolutions are doomed to betrayal, well Orwell argued quite explicitly against that view elsewhere, condemning it as conservative. He certainly believed that all revolutions 'fail' but only because utopia was unobtainable. This did not mean they were not worthwhile and would not improve things, make the world better - though never perfect. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that he would have welcomed the revolutionary overthrow of the communist regimes. Actually, Orwell advises revolution as a last resort, if you dont have any chance except for overthrowing the government by using force.

Instead of it, permanent and radical reforms should be done; also the best way in improving a society is education. If you dont educate the people it is inevitable to see the last scene in Animal Farm, where the new leaders were the same with the old ones. Because the one who will keep the reforms are the new generations and if they are not taught the principles of the revolution they wont be able to keep the new state, which will lead it to be like the old one. The crucial point that we must not ignore is mans desire for power, which never allows a totally equal society All animals are equal but some animals are more equal... -, which is the main theme of both Orwell's Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, The corrupting influence of mans desire for power over his fellow man is one of the most major themes in both 'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty-four'. In 'Animal Farm' the revolution was betrayed by Napoleon in his quest for personal power and material benefit, and in 'Nineteen Eighty-four' Big Brother becomes the figurehead of an organisation whose sole goal is the acquisition and maintenance of political power. BIBLIOGRAPHY Why I Write/George Orwell Orwell's Political Messages in Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia and Nineteen Eighty-Four/Rhode Williams Not all Books are Created Equal: Orwell & his Animals at Fifty. / Katharine Byrne Animal Farm/George Orwell Orwell Now /Robert Pearce Animal Farm (Review) /John Newsinger Why Socialists Dont Believe in Fun? /George Orwell Orwell, Tolstoy and Animal Farm /Robert Pearce


Free research essays on topics related to: animal farm, george orwell, desire for power, nineteen eighty four, leo tolstoy

Research essay sample on Orwell Message In Animal Farm

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