• If Snowball had not been run off and was made leader
instead of Napoleon, what do you think would have
happened on Animal Farm? Support your idea!
Warm Up #9
SENIOR PROJECT
Due today: #9
Due Next Class: #10
Animal
Farm
George Orwell
• Answer the following questions:
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1. Why are the animals directed to meet?
2. What type of animal is Old Major and how old is he?
3. What political philosophies are revealed by Old Major’s dream?
4. What “rules” does Old Major want to establish when the animals have conquered the
world?
5. What kind of person is Mr. Jones? Why don’t the animals like living on his farm?
6. Describe Napoleon and Snowball. How are they similar? How are they different?
7. What are the basic principles of Animalism? How do the animals respond?
8. What is Sugarcandy Mountain?
9. What incident(s) incite the rebellion?
10. What new skill do the pigs teach themselves? What is the result of their newly acquired
skill?
11. Identify the Seven Commandments. Why are they established?
12. Why are the animals happier than they have ever been?
13. Describe Old Benjamin. What is the significance of his “cryptic” comments?
14. Which animals are the best educated? To what degree are the other animals educated?
15. What are Napoleon’s feelings towards education? Whom does Napoleon educate
privately?
16. What is Squealer’s explanation of why the pigs must be given special food? How do
the other animals react?
Reading Questions Ch. 1-3
• 1. How do the humans from the other farms feel about the rebellion and Animal
Farm?
• 2. Who does Snowball study in order to learn about man’s military strategy? How
does this affect his plans?
• 3. What kind of leader does Snowball turn out to be? Give some examples to
support your response.
• 4. How do the animals celebrate their victory in the Battle of the Cowshed?
• 5. What happens to Mollie? Explain.
• 6. Compare Snowball’s and Napoleon’s techniques for gathering support.
• 7. How do Napoleon and Snowball differ in their ideas of defense of the farm?
• 8. What happens to Snowball the night he announces his plan for the windmill?
• 9. What does Napoleon take away from the animals? How do the animals
respond?
• 10. What does Squealer threaten may happen if the pigs are not given leadership?
• 11. What two mottos does Boxer adopt?
• 12. How does Squealer justify Napoleon’s decision to build the windmill?
Reading Questions Ch. 4 & 5
• Answer the following questions:
• 1. What problems do the animals run into in building the windmill? How are these
problems solved?
• 2. Why does it become necessary to trade with the humans?
• 3. What happens when an animal begins to express doubt or concern with
Napoleon’s decisions? Why is this important?
• 4. How does Squealer justify Napoleon’s decision to trade with humans?
• 5. To where do the pigs move? How are these new arrangements justified?
• 6. How does Napoleon react to the destruction of the windmill? Whom does he
blame? Why does he do this?
• 7. How does Napoleon try to hide the poor conditions of Animal Farm?
• 8. Why does Napoleon order that the hens’ eggs be sold? What happens when the
hens rebel?
• 9. What is Snowball rumored to be doing during the winter and spring months? How
does Squealer distort the details of the Battle of the Cowshed? How does this work
in Napoleon’s favor?
• 10. Why do the animals confess to being traitors? How do the animals react to the
executions?
• 11. Why does Napoleon order the animals to stop singing “Beasts of England?” How
does he justify this change?
Reading Questions Ch. 6-7
• Orwell uses animals in his novel to symbolize human
beings, and in doing so, he chose the animal character
with great thought. For the following animals describe the
stereotypical characteristics normally associated with
each animal and then extend your description to what a
human might be like if he was compared to that animal.
Animal
Animal Characteristics
Human Characteristics
Pig
Fat, sloppy, dirty, pink, boisterous, Fat, selfish, rude, lazy, loud,
squeals, lazy, pushy
egotistical, whiny, bossy
Dog
Horse
Rat
Donkey
Raven
Goat
Symbols in Animal Farm
• Born as Eric Blair in Bengal, India in 1903 and moved to England in
1904.
• Went to Eton and later served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.
• Blair became a socialist, speaking openly against the excesses of
governments east and west and fighting briefly for the socialist cause
during the Spanish Civil War(1936 to 1939)
• Orwell’s stint in a Trotskyist (Leon Trotsky followers) battalion
influenced his plans for a critique of totalitarian communism.
• HATED totalitarianism and Communism
• When writing, used the pen name of George Orwell, so if his writing
failed, no one would know.
• Lived among the poor of London and Paris and wrote about their lives
• Died of tuberculosis January 21, 1950
George Orwell Biography
• Orwell believed that the Soviet Union was
not a positive representation of the
possibilities of socialist society.
• Orwell could not turn a blind eye to the
cruelties and hypocrisies of Soviet
Communist Party, which had overturned
the semi-feudal system of the tsars only to
replace it with the dictatorial reign of
Joseph Stalin.
• Orwell became a sharp critic of both
capitalism and communism, and is
remembered chiefly as an advocate of
freedom and a committed opponent of
communist oppression.
Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1917
• Socialism seemed the only remedy for the invidious problem
of poverty, a political and economic philosophy arguing that
only when the state controls the means of production and
distribution will all members of a nation share its profits and
rewards. HAVE AND SHARE ALIKE.
• Unlike capitalism, where a nation’s production/distribution is
privately owned and controlled, socialism argues that only
government regulation of a nation's economy can close the gap
between the rich and the poor. GOVERNMENT OWNS AND
EVERYONE SHARES.
Socialism: Political and
Economic Philosophy
• In Das Kapital (Capital), Karl Marx
(German philosopher) advanced an
economically predetermined interpretation
of human history.
• Marx argued that society would naturally evolve—from a
monarchy and aristocracy, to capitalism, and finally into
communism, in a system which all property would be held in
common.
• Capitalist oppressed poor workers would have their dignity
restored, and all people would live as equals.
• Marx followed with The Communist Manifesto, an impassioned
call to action that urged, “Workers of the world, unite!”
The Revolution
(and betrayal)
• In February 1917, Tsar Nicholas II, the tsar (monarch) of Russia, abdicated and the
socialist Alexander Kerensky became premier. On November 7 , Kerensky was
ousted.
• Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Russian Revolution, became chief commissar.
As wars raged on virtually every Russian front, Lenin’s chief allies began
jockeying for power in the newly formed state; the most influential included
Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Gregory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev.
• Trotsky and Stalin emerged as the most likely heirs to Lenin’s vast power. Trotsky
was a popular and charismatic leader, famous for his impassioned speeches, while
the taciturn Stalin preferred to consolidate his power behind the scenes.
• After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin orchestrated an alliance against Trotsky. Stalin
became the unquestioned dictator of the Soviet Union and had Trotsky expelled
from the Communist Party and finally from Russia altogether in 1936. Trotsky
fled to Mexico, where he was assassinated on Stalin’s orders in 1940.
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Joseph Stalin (OR Josip Tito, Mao Tsetung, Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet, and
Slobodan Milosevic)
Napoleon seems most similar to the
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Napoleon generally represents the
political tyrants that have emerged
throughout human history.
Named after the early-eighteenth-century
French general Napoleon, who betrayed
the democratic principles on which he
rode to power, becoming a despot just
like the aristocrats.
Both the fictional Napoleon and historical
dictators use lying and bullying tactics.
Napolean
Snowball
• As a parallel for Leon
Trotsky, Snowball appears
as an idealist who throws
himself heart and soul into
the spread Animalism
worldwide and to improve
Animal Farm’s
infrastructure.
• Relying only on the force
of his own logic and
rhetorical skill to gain his
influence, he proves no
match for Napoleon’s
show of brute force.
Enemy of the People
In 1934, Stalin’s ally Serge Kirov was
assassinated in Leningrad, prompting Stalin to commence his infamous
purges of the Communist Party.
Holding “show trials”—trials whose outcomes he and his allies had already
decided Stalin had his opponents officially labeled as “enemies of the
people,” involved Trotskyist or anti-Stalinist conspiracies with a sentence
that guaranteed immediate execution. Just by a mere mention Trotsky’s
name with yours would ensure your immediate elimination from the
Communist Party.
As the Soviet government’s economic planning faltered and failed, Russia
suffered under a surge of violence, fear, and starvation. Stalin used
Trotsky as a common national enemy and thus a source of
negative unity. Trotsky was a frightening specter used to
conjure horrifying eventualities, in comparison with which
the current misery paled.
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In the Russia of 1917, it appeared that Karl Marx’s
dreams were to become reality. The tsar abdicated the
throne that was in the family for 300 years and a
intellectual revolutionary had seized power in the
name of the Communist Party.
The new regime took land and industry from private
control and centralized them under government
supervision. Restoring Russia to pre-WWI prosperity
and modernizing infrastructure and adding electricity
to rural areas.
After Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin and Leon
Trotsky had a power struggle for position in the
newly formed Soviet Union.
Stalin, a crafty and manipulative politician, soon
banished Trotsky, an idealistic proponent of
international communism.
Stalin then began to consolidate his power with brutal
intensity, killing or imprisoning his perceived political
enemies and overseeing the purge of approximately
twenty million Soviet citizens.
Leaders in and out
• Animal Farm was written as an attack on a specific
government, but its general themes of oppression,
suffering, and injustice have far broader application. In
modern times, we have come to see Orwell’s book as a
powerful attack on any political, rhetorical, or military
power that seeks to control human beings unjustly.
• Where in the world is this happening now?
Themes beyond the text
• Russian society in the early twentieth century was
bipolar: a tiny minority controlled most of the country’s
wealth, while the vast majority of the country’s
inhabitants were impoverished and oppressed peasants.
• Communism arose in Russia when the nation’s workers
and peasants, assisted by a class of concerned
intellectuals known as the intelligentsia, rebelled against
and overwhelmed the wealthy and powerful class of
capitalists and aristocrats. They hoped to establish a
socialist utopia based on the principles of the German
economic and political philosopher Karl Marx.
Sound familiar?
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Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD.
• To the animals, they created a utopia in which they ruled
themselves and everything they did benefitted the whole
of Animal Farm. In groups of 5 create a fictional utopia of
your own. Include the following:
• the governmental system: you may use existing systems, or
create your own.
• the commandments (laws): include here personal freedoms
protected and things outlawed.
• the class system: explain how many there are and how they
are determined.
• the main export: choose the one thing your country is
known for creating and providing, this will be your main
source of income.
• a map: can be based off a real land mass or made up.
READING
Read chapters 8-10
and keep dialectical
journals. I want to
see an example of
each of the examples
from the right for
each chapter. The
summarize step
should occur at the
end of each chapter.
• Question- write questions about the
story, characters, setting, events, what
you don’t understand, and what you
need clarified.
• Predict- what events seem to
foreshadow something to come, what
are you expecting next.
• Connect- try to relate to something in
the story either to yourself, the world,
or other texts.
• Reflect- what do you like, not like,
what is giving you clues to the theme
or meaning.
• Summarize- briefly summarize the
main events of the chapter.
HOMEWORK
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Senior Project #10
Animal Farm Ch. 8-10 w/notes, finish reading questions
Be working on your outside reading project.