Book recencion
Animal Farm
By George Orwell
The author George Orwell was born in 1903 in India, his real name was Eric Arthur Blair. He and his family moved to England in 1907. When he was young he often wrote in different college magazines.
From 1922 to 1927 George served with the Indian Police Force in Burma. That experience inspired his first novel, Burmese Days(1934). After that he moved to Paris, where he lived for two years. When he came back to England he didn´t have so much money and he worked as schoolteacher and as a bookshop assistant. At the same time he contributed reviews and article to a number of periodicals.
Later he started to work at different newspaper. As a literary editor of Tribune he regularly wrote about politics.
He wrote the book, Animal Farm, at the end of 1943 but it wasn’t published until 1945. The novel attacks on Stalin, at the time allied with Britain,which led to the book being refused by publisher after publisher.
Animal Farm was published in 1945,and together with Nineteen Eighty-four,published in1949, it brought him world-wide fame.
George Orwell died in London in January 1950. A few days before, Desmond MacCarthy had sent him a message of greeting in which he wrote: “You have made an indelible mark on English literature ... you are among the few memorable writer of your generation.”
The Story
The story takes place at a farm, called Manor Farm. The farmer Mr Jones, who has a drinking problem, doesn’t treat the animals very well. One day the oldest pig , called Major, sets a meeting in the barn for all the animals. Old Major talked about how bad the humans treated the animals and that they couldn´t accept that. He talked for a long while, he called the animals for “comrades”, and all the animals agree with him. He had also made a song for the animals. This was the first part of the song:
Beasts of England
Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time.
This was the first part of the song.
All the animals started to sing in choir. Mr Jones who had gone to bed for the night heard the noise and took his rifle and went to the barn to se what was going on. He fell and accidentally fired a shot that hit old Major. The Major died and all the animals agreed that they all should follow his words.
An evening, when Mr Jones went to the bar instead of giving the animals food, they decided make “revolution”. They attacked Mr Jones and made him flee and abandond the house.
Mr Jones fled to the village but at the beginning the people din`t want to help him.
The animals started to work themselves at the farm. They wrote the seven commandments they had at the wall:
- Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
- Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend
- No animals shall wear clothes.
- No animals shall sleep in a bed.
- No animals shall drink alcohol.
- No animals shall kill any other animal.
- All animals are equal.
The pigs, who after a while started to learn reading and writing, begun to take over things more and more. They took the new born babies from their parents and put them in a special training school and they also begun to take all the milk and the apples for themselves. After a while the other animals started to wonder. The pigs manage to convince the other animals that they needed the milk more then them.
There was to pigs who had the command, Napoleon and Snowball, they were guarded by their dogs. They also took down the sign Manor Farm from the top of the gate and in it’s place painted Animal Farm.
One day the animals had a meeting about if they should build a windmill as usual Napoleon and Snowball was in disagreement. Napoleon made a sign to the dogs and they begun to chase Snowball out of the barn. Now Napoleon was alone on the throne.
And so the time goes on. Pigs are taking more and more power over the other animals and they also moves in to the house. The pigs also are guarded by a dog army. The pigs convince the animals, with TV-films, they had learn to do it. After a while they, the pigs, start to drink alcohol and make trades with humans, all thought they had promised not to do so. The pigs also started to change the commandments they have made, for example they added for example this: No animals shall sleep in a bed, with sheets.
The time went on and the animals worked extremely hard and were punished if they failed to do what Napoleon wanted.
One day Mr Jones sneaked up to the farm and destroyed their windmill, Napoleon blamed all to Snowball and accused the animals to be companions with Snowball and punished some animals whit death. More and more propaganda films were shown for the animals and all the bad things were blamed on Snowball.
One day Napoleon said that the revolution was over and their song had to be changed. The new song was a tribute to their great leader Napoleon.
As time went on and the animals had nearly lost all their hope for the future. One day the strongest horse Boxer fell down to the ground, exhausted, Boxer whom was a little bit of a favourite among the animals, was promised to be put in a hospital by Napoleon. The other day a truck came and took Boxer away, just as the truck left the farm the other animals saw that it said slaughter in the back of the truck. Napoleon denied that it was the slaughter´s truck.
Napoleon bought whisky with the money that he got from the slaughter. He also started to wear clothes.
The pigs and the humans, often led by Mr Pilkinton, started to meet more and more. They even started to play cards with each other and have drinks.
One day Napoleon told the animals that they would change back to the original name Manor Farm.
A lateevening the animals heard noises from the pigs building and they went to look what was going on. When they looked into the window they saw the pigs and a couple of humans playing cards, all of them were drunk. The animals outside looked from pigs to man and from man to pig, and from man to pig again: but already it was impossible to say who was who.
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