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Friday, July 31, 2015

Spoilers! Animal Farm Ch. 5

What I've read: Ch 5

Mollie runs away to another farm. Napoleon and Snowball's disagreements over whether to build a windmill come to a head. Napoleon stages a coup and supplants Snowball as the leader. Snowball just barely escapes the privately trained death hounds Napoleon unleashes on him. A new, crueler order is coming--no more meetings or debates, pigs make decisions and others follow orders, food rationing and harder labor.

So, once again, a new pig takes over, successively making things worse for the common animal while giving more privileges to his own group. It's interesting to see art imitating life this plainly and effectively. I don't know if this kind of simple metaphor (e.g. pigs in power, the sheep say and do whatever the pigs want) would work nowadays, but if one found a particularly neat metaphor that mapped as brilliantly and cheekily as the one in Animal Farm, one might do very well for oneself, indeed.

Anyhow. Now, the full on lies and revisionist history begins, as Snowball is downgraded from war hero to a traitor, thief, and liar. Hard times ahead. Discuss below!

Image Credit: "penguin.animal.farm.shepard.fairey", available under by-nc-as 2.0

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