Animal Farm
Fear
By Chloe, Paulina, and Jordan.
Explain what ‘fear’ and ‘living in fear’
mean.
Fear is a term used to describe someone being
scared of something or someone. It also
means being worried, afraid or in concern,
but all these meanings mean the same thing.
If you live in fear you live in a permanent state
of being in fear, like in Animal Farm most of
the animals are living in fear, at first of Mr.
Jones but at the end of Napoleon.
In what ways is fear shown in Animal
Farm?
Fear is shown in Animal Farm a lot. The quote that
shows this is ‘It isn’t true!’ repeated Mollie, but she
could not look at Clover in the face, and the next
moment she took her heels and galloped away into
the field. This shows us that this is a guilty fear of
Mollie when Clover catches an enemy stroking her
muzzle. It also suggests that Mollie is going against a
commandment ‘Four legs good, two legs bad.’ It
suggests that Mollie is breaking what is known as a
‘law’ in Animal Farm.
Which characters do you think live in fear on
Animal Farm? What were they fearful of and
why?
In Animal Farm, the animals that live in fear are all of
them, as they live in fear of Mr Jones. They live in fear as
they are whipped, starved and taken of their rights and
then finally killed. ‘You Boxer, the very day that those
great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will send
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 around their necks and drowns them in the
nearest pond. This suggests that Jones has no respect for
his animals as all he does is uses them to his advantage,
hardly feeds them and then finally kills them, this is why
they fear him.
Which characters do you think live in fear on
Animal Farm? What were they fearful of and
why?
But, when the animals rebelled and Napoleon the pig
took over animal farm, he started out as ‘all animals are
equal’. But as time went on he became just like Jones,
killing the animals and making them work harder for less
food, so they begin to fear him just like they had feared
Jones.
His commandment also changed from ‘all animals are
equal’ to ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are
more equal than others’. This shows that Napoleon has
turned into Jones treating the animals like slaves. This
also shows that Napoleon had no respect for his
comrades.
How do you think those in power on Animal Farm
used fear to their advantage?
In Animal Farm, those in charge use fear to their advantage, as
they can blackmail the other animals so they don’t rebel
against them. ‘Napoleon demanded whether any other animal
had something to confess. Three hens came forward and said
they had a dream and had told them to disobey Napoleons
orders. They were immediately slaughtered. A sheep came
forward and admitted to urinating in the drinking pool, and a
goose came forward and admitted to having secreted six ears
of corn during the last years harvest and eaten it in the night.
He too was slaughtered’. This shows that Napoleon was
scaring the other animals and using fear to say that if you go
against me you will be killed. This is bad because Napoleon’s
commandment was ‘no other animal shall kill another animal’.
But then he changed it to ‘no animal shall kill another animal
without cause’. Napoleon killing and changing his
commandment is why all of the animals except the pigs are
scared of him.
How do you think the book would have turned
out if some of the animals weren’t fearful?
‘Animal Farm’ is a fable written by George Orwell. If the
animals weren’t fearful and were all brave and stood up for
each other then Orwell wouldn’t have got the message across
about rebellion and communism and how it doesn’t work.
Bravery is shown in the quote ‘As the human beings
approached the farm buildings, Snowball launched his first
attack’. This shows us that Snowball isn’t afraid of attacking
the humans as he has the courage to rebel, whereas some
animals would hesitate. Presumably, if the animals didn’t fear
Napoleon then they too would rebel – which means that the
book would have turned out differently, perhaps showing
communism working. However, this doesn’t happen, fear
represses further rebellion.