Food rationing worsens on Animal Farm, but Napoleon stages things so that their human intermediary won't detect how hard up the animals are, and the outside world goes on believing the farm is doing well. The hens protest giving up 400 eggs a week in trade with humans and they are starved in return until they comply. A far worse fate befalls any animal suspected of colluding with the phantom menace Snowball: slaughter. And many animals are killed after being forced to make false confessions, all mauled to death by the guard dogs. The remaining animals are shocked and disillusioned. To add insult to injury, their freedom anthem Beasts of England is now abolished.
All animals are comrades, indeed. No animal should kill another animal. This is a brutal chapter, not that it is graphic in any way, but the simple, matter-of-fact prose that enhances the absurdity in the beginning now enhances the cold efficiency of this dark turn of events. The non-response from the animals to this callous disposal of life is all too real and all too chilling.
Does this story even have a hopeful, if not happy, ending? Surely, the dictatorship is unsustainable. I'm tempted to Google it up, but I'll just read on and see.
Discuss below.
Image Credit: "penguin.animal.farm.shepard.fairey", available under by-nc-as 2.0
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