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Eugene's blog (Two)
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Total 6

It was inevitable to post 2 posts on Eugene's blog
because there were only 5 people

Entry #7

Q. Are there any settings in this novel which you have found to be beautiful? Or disturbing? Or memorable? Describe these settings and comment on why they were meaningful to you.

A. Personally, the animal farm, which is the only setting, was memorable to me, not because it is beautiful, but it represents something else. I think in this novel, the Manor Farm represents the world, because it has everything in it. It has all kinds of animals, which symbolizes many types of people, food, water, and land. The Manor Farm is literally a miniature version of the world.
This setting was particularly interesting to me because I think the writer described the world well. Probably because of academics, my primary interest right now is writing skills, I feel that this author is surely a great writer. It seems that he blindly selected, and made a farm as a setting, but I think there is something behind it. The farm in the novel is thoroughly designed, and has deep thoughts in it. I think the author; George Orwell tried to illustrate many kinds of people by describing most of the animals one by one. The pigs represent the intelligent people. Molly and Clover are related to people who do physical labor, and the specialization of animals represents the specialization in the world.
I think this book is filled with symbolism. It even starts from the purpose of this novel, which is to criticize the communists. The farm represents the world or a specific nation, and Animalism directly relates to communism. Animals relate to people living in the world or the nation, and the fall of the farm is the fall of communism. Because I am not a good writer, who could create such metaphors and symbolism on paper, I admire writers who could write such things, and that is why I really liked the setting of this novel. Of course, I like the overall story too. The story is interesting, fresh, and makes us think.

Entry #6

Q. Please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you. Why is this passage meaningful? Please type it into one of your entries and comment about what you think about the passage.

The passage I chose is from the exposition of the novel Animal farm. This is the front part of Major’s speech, inspiring the animals for independence.

"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
"But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep-and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word-Man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.
"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilises it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin. You cows that I see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk have you given during this last year? And what has happened to that milk which should have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies. And you hens, how many eggs have you laid in this last year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens? The rest have all gone to market to bring in money for Jones and his men. And you, Clover, where are those four foals you bore, who should have been the support and pleasure of your old age? Each was sold at a year old-you will never see one of them again. In return for your four confinements and all your labour in the fields, what have you ever had except your bare rations and a stall?
"And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed to reach their natural span. For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve years old and have had over four hundred children. Such is the natural life of a pig. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end. You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year. To that horror we all must come-cows, pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate. You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond.

A. The passage I chose goes kind of off from the theme of this novel. The main point of this passage is how the humans treated the animals. The part after this speech directly inspires the animals to rise up, but this part talks about the bad deeds about human being. As I was reading this passage, I felt somewhat sorry for the animals. I have always thought that animals are dumb and stupid so that they can’t think of these things, and I have never imagined being an animal who could think like a person. However, when I read this passage, which is pretty much a point of view from an animal after the process of personification, I started to think about the animals that are being abused and killed.

Although this is not straightly related to the theme of this novel, I felt sorry for the animals when I read this passage. Each word Major spoke was touching to me, because I knew such abusing was implemented, but I didn’t know that it was “real” in terms of seriousness. I think this passage gave me a stronger impression because it was spoken to convince others. My personal thoughts about this passage are “touching,” “well written,” and “desperate.” The final thought that came up to my mind is, since I can’t do anything to stop the killing of animals, I should at least always thank for the animals that were sacrificed by human’s foolishness. Of course, if I could stop this kind of abusing, I would stop it without hesitation.

Entry #5

Q. Entry of your choice: Create a synopsis for another ending for this novel so that it will have an opposite theme.

A. First, to explain about the question I created, I wanted to make a happy ending. This story ends with the fall of the animal farm. When I stopped in the middle of this book I imagined the animal farm prospering. Yet, it didn’t. As the story proceeded, Napoleon started to cheat over other animals, and break the rules of Animalism. So, based on the figure I have imagined, I have decided to make a synopsis (plot) of the animal farm which succeeds.

The exposition of my story is the same from the original. The animals rebel and kick Mr. Jones out of the Manor Farm. It is the same until Snowball was kicked out. They also make the idea of Animalism too. However, the story changes right before the animals vote for their leader.

Despite all the cheating of Napoleon, Snowball wins the vote and becomes the leader of the Animal Farm. Unlike Napoleon, Snowball was generous enough to leave Napoleon inside the Animal Farm as a member, but Napoleon leaves the farm by himself. He believes that the farm will fail with Snowball as a leader. After leaving the farm, Snowball governs the farm wisely. Until Mr. Jones calls the police to retreat the farm, the animals live in peace without doubt about their farm. After a while, Mr. Jones tries to return to the animal farm with force using the police. When the police comes, the animals in the farm panic, but soon, they start to follow Snowball’s order again. Snowball makes the animals to become obedient as normal animals, so that the police would think Mr. Jones as a crazy man, and eventually, their plan work. And the night Mr. Jones come back, they rebel again and exile Mr. Jones out of the Animal Farm. From that time, Mr. Jones doesn’t make an attempt to retrieve his farm, and the Animal Farm lives happily ever after. Though Napoleon returns with more tempting speech skills and ideas in the middle of the stories, the animals do not get brainwashed because they get educated in the farm under Snowball’s policy.

Because I wrote the opposite ending of the story animal farm, this story pretty much became a novel that praises the greatness of democracy. Personally, I didn’t like my writing after I finished writing because this story feels so hackneyed. It is like a cliché, which is too obvious. By writing this synopsis, I learned a lesson that whenever I have to change the ending of a story, I shouldn’t blindly make it the opposite because the story can get boring and changing the theme doesn’t always turn out well in all stories.

Entry #4

Q. What is the main theme of this novel? Why is this theme important to a teenager living in 2008?

A. To find the theme of this novel, I did the four-step analysis of finding the theme, which is the Title, Character/Conflict, Climax, and Resolution.

To start with, the title of my novel is “Animal Farm.” This is a somewhat awkward title because when we think of animal, we have ideas such as “food, friend, idiotic, labor force, and exploitation.” The title literally means a farm owned by animals or a farm that domesticates animals. Because a farm that domesticates animal is too common, we need to consider the title as a farm owned by animals. It feels quite awkward to imagine a farm owned by animals. So wee need to find why the animal farm was made and what it means.

The next step is character/conflict. The characters in this novel are mostly animals that each represents something in the human world. Napoleon, which is a pig and a leader, represents a dictator in our world. The novel illustrates pigs as smart animals, and usually dictators are intelligent people who could speak well so that they could convert people to one’s side, and intellectual enough to control a nation. Other animals, the cats, birds, horses, dogs, and chicken are civilians in the nation. The difference of the animals and their roles represent specializations. In this story the pigs and other animals each take roles and create their own farm which represents a nation. This represents a group that goes off from the rest of the world.

The climax of this novel is when the six pigs and six human meet and play. This novel, I think doesn’t have a distinct falling action or resolution that could be separated from the climax. The climax is playing poker and finding out that each side are cheating the same way and the resolution and falling action is when the animals watch the pigs and human fight. I think this climax represents the fight between two ideas.

In the resolution of this novel, animals just merely watch their leaders fight with human. I think this represents the people finding their leaders all cheat for power and wealth.

The theme, I think, of this novel is the cons of communism. Probably it is because that I know the author’s intention, this book seems obvious that it is written for democrats criticizing communists. Yet, this doesn’t connect to us. As a teenager living in 2008, I think this idea relates to us that no one can stand up of someone and rule equally. Therefore, we shouldn’t feel superiority over others who lack in tangible abilities such as intelligence, and we shouldn’t promote someone as a leader. Therefore, we don’t have to feel inferiority over other people.

Entry #3

Q. Are there are any current situations in the world that relate to the novel? What are they, and how do they relate? Does the novel shed any light on how current situations could be resolved or "fixed"?

A. First of all, the story "Animal Farm," written by George Orwell was written in 1945 to criticize the Soviet Union. Before we know the fact that this novel was written to criticize, it may be hard to recognize it, but after we know the purpose of this book, we can clearly see the resemblance between the situation of Animal Farm and Soviet Union. Starting with the idea, they both have an ideal theory called "Animalism" and "Communism." Animalism is an idea created in the animal farm. It emphasizes equality between animals and hostility against the human, which represents democrats. Communism is a social idea, which claims equal distribution of wealth within everyone. Both of these sound great, but they both fail in close future.

Currently, there are only a few communist nations left. China is currently in the process of changing to democracy and capitalism. However, North Korea, which is our close neighbor, is still adhering to the fallen idea. The setting and characters of Animal Farm have a somewhat direct correlation. Kim Jung IL can be considered as Napoleon, the sole leader of the Animal farms, and other animals who suffer from harsh labor and starvation are people living in North Korea.

Frankly, this novel shows no hope to the solution. At the end of this novel, six pigs and six people meet and play poker. Then, Napoleon and Pilkington start fighting with each other because two Aces of Spades came out at the same time. This represents the fight between communist ideas and other ideas. I think playing poker and having two Aces of Spades means they both have cheated and doing the wrong things to the people in their nation. Thus, this novel just shows the ending of communism, not the solution. Yet, it has an implicit solution, which is snowball. The novel mentions about snowball a few times after he is banned from the animal farm. I think this represents that if the animals didn’t ban Snowball, the animal farm would have had a better ending.

Entry #2

Q. What is the mood of this novel? Do you find this novel saddens you in any way? Why?

A. I don’t think this novel has a specific overall mood. The mood of this novel changes over time. It is like a decrescendo in music, which means become gradually smaller. At the beginning, the animals have no doubt in their new idea and their farm. Thus, they show great enthusiasm in their actions, and consequently, the mood is very bright. However, starting from where snowball is banned and Napoleon started to trick other animals and break rules, animals start to doubt their ideas. So, the overall farm loses energy and this automatically affects the mood. As time flows, the mood gets more and more depressed. The animals start to question themselves more about whether they are doing the right thing, and the mood becomes the most shocking and depressing in the part where the six human and six pig leaders fight. As we read that part, we can easily imagine the animals appalled, looking at their leader pigs fighting with men. It is also easy to imagine the atmosphere. It will feel quite dumb to stand at that moment and watch the fight.

Do you find this novel saddening you in any way? Yes, because of the story. It is not really the mood that saddens me. The story flows, I get sad because of it, and the mood follows the story line so it could illustrate the scene appropriately. As I stated a few times before in other entries, I don’t like the ending of this story. Of course, the work itself is written very well, but the story is not so touching to me. I really expected a happy ending resulted by overcoming all the temptation of corruption, but it didn’t. Napoleon started Animalism, and he was the first to break it. He started cheating over other animals for his own wealth, which is food, and tricked other stupid animals. This made me sad because it showed me the corruption of a very competitive being. I feel worse when I see an intelligent being surrendering against corruption and temptations. Therefore, this novel makes me somewhat sad, but it is not caused by the mood.

Entry #1

Q. What is the climax of this novel? What happens? How do the events of this novel make you feel?

A. I think the climax of this novel is the part where two spade aces come out at the same time when the six human and six pigs play poker. I consider this as the climax because it directly and obviously shows what the author is ultimately trying to say: The inefficiency of communism and corruption of its leaders. From the author’s point of view, meeting and playing poker is making “friendship” with other nations. However, when they play poker, two spade aces come out at the same time, which is impossible. This means that the leaders were cheating in the game in the same way. Then, the leaders start fighting with each other, and they all get mixed up. I think this is a satire of communism that the leaders will start with an ideal ideology, but they all become corrupt at the end, and only seek for their wealth.
Frankly, as I read this part of the novel, I found it both bitter and funny. First, I felt bitter because I expected a happy ending in this story, but it didn’t. This part is when the utopia of this story suddenly becomes a dystopia. I also realized that just finding the truth may turn the world into a dystopia, and sometimes, it would be better to not know the truth, because when people’s belief gets shattered, they all may panic.
While reading this part, I also found this part funny, because this part told me that “Ideas are just ideas and dreams are just dreams. Truth is different from it.” This part wasn’t really funny, but it made me despondent. I think the ending of this novel is written well, but I felt sort of ashamed because it just showed that the animal farm was nothing, but just a stupid dream. I wished everything to turn out well, because I was somewhat counting on it.