ANIMAL FARM: A Liberal Review
The
only undeniable opportunity the farm animals receive is 'denial'. Denial of
consciousness is the worst of it all. And how can we assert a denial of
consciousness is only limited to the era of communism in Russia, or to
communism itself? When a television news broadcast promulgates a story that in
itself is a sheer manipulation of what had originally taken place, aren't they
denying the right of the common man to be conscious about the original event?
Disinformation is one of the major sources for information in our time. Call it
postmodern cultural reality. Everyone goes through loads of disinformation or
bullshit on a daily basis. From schools to government offices, from homes to
multinational corporations, we have learnt to lie and worst, to live with lies.
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Grand
ideals stir rebellion in a farm land called Manor Farm. The farm is owned by
the human being called Mr. Jones. He is a man with no fundamental values other
than drinking and shirking. One day a boar named Major has a dream. He shares
the dream with all other animals in the farm. During the gathering that was
convened in the barn Major shares his insights about an ideal society in which
every animal is equal and free. Major remembers, almost miraculously, a song
that he had heard a young child. The song is titled The Beasts of England and
it full of optimism and revolutionary ideas for animal freedom.
I
started reading Animal Farm with a prejudice that I incurred through my
academic career as a teacher of English Literature. I mean, the allegory stuff.
The matter of solidified criticism in the book is the communist totalitarianism
in Europe. However, this view received a serious self-analysis as I reached
Chapter-3. I realized that George Orwell has created a marvel of literary art
with his animals that ran a farm in England. The animals spoke English too, and
like many other instances like hoisting a flag or singing an anthem, it didn't
feel odd. The "fairy tale" model has worked immensely for Mr. Orwell.
A Fairy Story is the subtitle of Animal Farm,and aptly so. This subtitle
not just gives a space for philosophical discussions, but it also renders to
the story technical perfection. How efficiently George Orwell represented human
realities using animals is the key factor any student of writing might find
fascinating and useful in this book.
Animal
Farm allegorizes
many cultural stereotypes and not just political systems. A novella in size, Animal
Farmmade George Orwell popular. George Orwell had written books such as Burmese
Days (1934), Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to
Wigen Pier (1937) and Coming Up for Air, before Animal Farm.
Orwell's life changed, as a writer, with the publication of Animal Farm. Another
book that followed asserted his popularity. This book was titled Nineteen
Eighty-Four (1949).
Animal
Farmends
with the shattering of hopes and irredeemable desperation. The leaders of the
revolution, drained of all the ideological zeal appear to be profit mongering
megalomaniacs. They become "too practical", to use a terminology from
popular culture. Animal Farmends with an apt scene that exemplifies
this.
"The
creatures from outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from
pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
This
scene narrates a confusion. No confusion, however, can be felt as a reader.
It's crystal clear that the leadership of the animals have compromised. They no
longer resemble the folk that started it all through the Rebellion. Yes, a
rebellion with a capital R.
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Three
philosophical quantum moments mark the body of the Animal Farmwith
transcendental wisdom. I am not sure if Orwell had any intention to tell a
story that was oriented in higher consciousness and the awareness of the
Source. These three philosophical quantum moments help us tune into an
unforgettable wavelength of higher consciousness through the story of animals
that play human roles. These three quantum moments appear as follows: 1.
Rebellion 2. The seven commandments 3. Banquet with humans.
The
Rebellion with a capital R serves the distinct purpose of establishing the
harmony with an awareness that comes to Major through a dream-experience.
Remember that this book is nothing else but animals pretending to run a world
of humans. Plus, it's an allegory. This means, once we succeed in seeing
through the maze of meaning in Animal Farm these concepts and nuggets of
awareness can be assimilated into our personal lives too. This, I believe is
the great historical value of Animal Farm. One receives the visionary
idea about a political system that is going nowhere, but to the doom of its
inhabitants, and at the same time can see through the meaning, the essence of
human spiritual experience. Animal Farm, in this regard, is a deeply
spiritual book. The best example for this experience is the scene of Major
giving the lecture to the animals in the barn about an ideal society. The
society resembles Thomas Moore's Utopia and Carl Marx's socialist state. However,
the spiritual side of the book tells us to look into this scene and see why all
those inhabitants find Major's concept of ideal society inviting. A harmony is
at play here.
The
animals of the farm find themselves aligned with Promised Land that until then
only existed in Major’s head. In Animal
Farm, this Promised Land seems to be within the territory of Manor Farm. Only
they have to bring it into life through their active participation. By giving
the animals an anthem, Major extols the role of imagining a society where all
animals are equal. Major has clearly attained a glance at his higher
consciousness. It is from there he receives the dream as well as the anthem
song, which he himself affirms to be lost in the chaos of childhood memories. Major
represents any individual deriving his or her knowledge from one’s conscience. And
conscience, as Dr. Viktor E Frankl points out connects our physical self with
higher self. The farm animals feel the resonance with their needs and the
dreams shared by Major.
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The
Seven Commandments are written on the wall of the barn where Major first spoke
of the dream of a society sustained in equality. This happens after the
Rebellion. The Rebellion is a decisive moment that acts like a bridge between a
dream and its manifestation into reality. As a result, the excited animals of
the farm rename the farm as Animal Farm and assemble under the seven
commandments.
First
commandment reads: “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.” Engraved in the
first commandment is the commitment the animals make towards building their new
society—destroying humans. At one point, the animals start addressing the way
of life they dream for themselves as “animalism”. Battling humans is the
central treatise of animalism.
Gradually,
these set of maxims undergo subtle changes. Although the rest of the farm
animals notice the change, they are unable to place their finger on the
problem. As the time passes, the seven commandments that served as the semiotic
map in preserving the ideal society dreamed by Major, the boar, undergoes
manipulation and abandonment. The pigs appear as the ruling class, with Napoleon,
a boar as their head. The pinnacle of manipulation appears as the seventh
commandment that originally read: “All animals are equal,” is transfigured into
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This scene
evidently portrays the death of a realm imagined and attempted by the animals. Animals
in this book are not merely animals; they are allegorical figures. This brings
the thematic significance of seven commandments and the equality concept closer
to human experience. The idea of a grand social order based on justice and
equality is pure energy waiting to burst through and manifest into physicality.
The manipulation of the seven commandments is the intervention of self-centered
thinking and corruption blemishing the original idea.
Eventually,
the banquet with humans transforms the pigs into human-like, at least in the
eyes of the observing animals. This event shuts the doors and puts the seal on
the ideal notion of a society where everyone is equal. None of the animals in
the farm feel aligned with the new notion that humans are better and that
animals should work with them in order to progress. Napoleon announces some
staggering changes in the running of the farm as well. Here is the time to
unveil the spiritual lesson engraved in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
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The pure
creative energy that originates from the Source of all Being appears through
Major and his dream. However, in its application, the animals fail to access
the levels of success they dreamed the project would bring. The result would
have been different if the animals had remained truly aligned throughout with
the Divine creative energy that creates thoughts and manifests itself through
dreams. In other words, instead of letting the Diving creative energy taking
control of them, the ruling class of the animal farm takes control of the destiny
of the farm animals. Perhaps, the ideal society was just a dream. But one is
not sure. Each moment, every one of us covets to take hold of our own ideal worlds.
The truth is no one can have it until we let our higher self resonates with the
Source energy, call it god, Krishna, or Allah. Only our complete resonance with
that energy can let the creation happen with the dreams we had manifested into
the physical reality.
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