Animal Farm

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend

3. No animal shall wear clothes

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed

5. No animal shall drink alcohol

6. No animal shall kill any other animal

7. All animals are equal

Author's Note: Out of all the possibilities for writing prompts in Animal Farm, I decided to take the typical "put yourself in place of this character" and chose a character that most people wouldn't think too much about.  After doing this piece I'm pretty sure that somewhere we all have an inner Mollie.

 You are a beautiful white horse.  Your master favors you and loves to show you off.  He puts pretty ribbons in your hair and lets you pull his carriage.  You have friends too, but they don't understand the way the master shows his love. One day, your friend Napoleon decides to overthrow your master and send him running away from the farm.  Although this may be a success to them, it has a different meaning to you.  Some animals may think that without an owner they will have freedom and less work, but you can only put through your mind that your ribbons and grooming are gone...forever.

You are now trapped on this farm, assigned to do work you had never done before.  First, you slowly slack off or hide, just to test what you can get away with.  After a while, you know you cannot live a life of hiding for too long.  If you want your pretty mane back you will have to find a new lifestyle, and fast.  Soon you realize that there is one option that has been open to you for a while now.  When Napoleon started trading with neighboring farmers, you decide that they really can't be any scarier than Napoleon himself.  

So one day you trot over to a young man working with the corn.  You wave your hair in the wind a bit, and your plan works.  As you trot closer to the fence you see him walk closer as well.  He pets your mane and feeds you an apple and in a moment you see a new life flash before your eyes-- a life that is much better than your current one-- and you know this is where you want to spend the rest of your days.  You back up a few steps and flip your head to the left, and the man understands your hint.  He moves to the side and lets his arms out toward you, palms facing the sky.  Then, without hesitation, you jump.

Author's Note:  This is my response to chapters 7 &8 of Animal Farm.  Please comment on how your thoughts on the chapters differed from mine. 

You sneak around with your partner through the crowded streets of the city.  Store after store, door after door, which one is the right one?  Ahhh!  Finally, when find the right one, you see that it's locked.  Door shut, blinds drawn, lights off, locked. You smile back at your partner who is staring at the door handle with greedy eyes.  Pointing your finger down, you show your "secret symbol" that tells him to act casual.  After about two minutes of waiting you quickly pick the lock on the door and run in.  You slam the door behind you and then head straight for the counter, the jewlery counter.  Shoving  gold after silver after diamond into your bag you stop to listen. Nothing...you hear the wind.  All in a minute, your partner is rushing out the door and you are in the hands of a large security guard.  This is the end, you were caught in the act.


Caught in the act; a phrase used when describing people sneaking around, spying, doing something embarassing, or committing a crime.  I would describe the way squealer was found changing commandments as caught in the act.  He may not have been jewlery stealing, but he definitely wasn't doing the right thing.  Squealer was just lucky that the farm animals didn't have the intelligence level to recognize it.  Things like this that may happen in the real world are easily stopped with the brains we have being put to work, but if squealer could get away with this simple task, imagine what he will do next. 

Author's note: I am not going to be at book club today but I decided to post a piece on Animal Farm anyway.  I will use a different style than my previous two, because I feel I have been using too much repetition.


Is man slaughter the same as horse slaughter?  Everything has a reason, of course, but if man slaughter is illegal then there is something to be said about what Napoleon has done to Boxer.  It's bad enough that boxer was in pain, but there are simpler, and more peaceful ways to put him out of his misery than shipping him off to be dissected. Imagine having no control of your death, for some people this is truly a scary thought.  


Another thing that disturbed me about Boxer's death is that this book is based on the Russian Revolution.  Confused?  Well this means that each character is based on a person who once lived.  In my mind, Napoleon was Stalin, but I still do not know who Boxer could be.  This means in my mind that at some point in time there was someone killing off others for their own personal  benefit.  An act like this is  terribly wrong and gives me just  a peak at what the Russian Revolution was like.

Author's Note: Here is a my final piece for the book Animal Farm.  I wrote about another one of his books as well called 1984.  I decided to write about his view of the world and tried to translate the message he tried to send us.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.  -George Orwell

When most people read Animal Farm, they think that George Orwell was writing about the past.  They may also think that his book 1984, a depressing view of the future, is just a few thoughts jumbled up in his head.  But they were wrong, his thoughts were warnings to people like us today.  George Orwell is a much stronger, smarter, and more mysterious man than he may seem.

Subliminal messages were used in the book,1984, in a rehabilitation center to retrain the minds of prisoners.  Subliminal messages are messages that play with the mind, companies trying to make you buy products, or people trying to get you to do wrong.  Things like including an unseen picture in the background, repeatedly flashing a series of lights and words, or playing a track backwards can have effects on people leaving them confused or in a dangerous mental state. George Orwell was sending us a message of warning.  Even though his book was fictional some of his creations are still used today.  

George Orwell's book, Animal Farm, is filled with warnings as well.  He saw what happened when  Communism was adopted by the Russians, and he tried to warn us about how it could end up.  Winston Churchill thought the same way.  So did many other great leaders who eventually developed democracies and republics.  Unfortunately there are also leaders whose brains aren't as big as they speak of them to be.  In the UK there is a force trying to bring back Communism.  They have named it "The People's Labor Party" and judging by the research I've done, it is a new form of Communism.  George Orwell was a smart man, and growing up going through Communism, Imperialism, a bit of Socialism he knew what our future held, and in his view it wasn't good.  So he wrote about it.  Creating opinions, inspiring journalists, warning common people about what is yet to come.