Following the suggestion of V. I am reading Animal Farm. A couple of times I have mentioned it to a couple of friends in a couple of different situations and, curiously, both replied in the same manner: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others".
Throughout the story, as the spirit of the original Revolution becomes more and more corrupted and deserted, the initial Commandments are adulterated. This is certainly one of the sharper, self-exposed splinters of Orwell's message. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that, throughout the story, in so many occasions, the distortions of Squealer can't be argued because of lack of memory: the animals cannot remember exactly what happened, cannot remember the truth. Against the evident efforts to re-write the history, memory stands out as the most powerful weapon for such a task. Given my very weak memory to render remembrance to offences in past, this remark is a truly revealing point.
Perhaps, the savvy of pundits can put into perspective what the Soviet Union and the whole Communism world meant; how the cult of personality, the exalting of the shear force and the leveling dictatorship of the masses came together to write an outrageous passage of history. Orwell has his own reasons to write the story and, obviously, as he himself explained, had a very specific purpose. However, in my view, if Animal Farm is today in the hot-spot for the new generations is not to fight the old battle of the old ideals, nor to take any side for the Socialist against any form of extremism _either right or left. In my view, Animal Farm is the praise of the individual against collectivism, any kind of collectivism. The developments of the story and the evolution of the animals' behavior are quite familiar to all and all of us can, for sure, put the novel in parallelism with prosaic stories of our daily life. To me, this is the actual message of Animal Farm for us: the independence of mind has a prize.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Throughout the story, as the spirit of the original Revolution becomes more and more corrupted and deserted, the initial Commandments are adulterated. This is certainly one of the sharper, self-exposed splinters of Orwell's message. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that, throughout the story, in so many occasions, the distortions of Squealer can't be argued because of lack of memory: the animals cannot remember exactly what happened, cannot remember the truth. Against the evident efforts to re-write the history, memory stands out as the most powerful weapon for such a task. Given my very weak memory to render remembrance to offences in past, this remark is a truly revealing point.
Perhaps, the savvy of pundits can put into perspective what the Soviet Union and the whole Communism world meant; how the cult of personality, the exalting of the shear force and the leveling dictatorship of the masses came together to write an outrageous passage of history. Orwell has his own reasons to write the story and, obviously, as he himself explained, had a very specific purpose. However, in my view, if Animal Farm is today in the hot-spot for the new generations is not to fight the old battle of the old ideals, nor to take any side for the Socialist against any form of extremism _either right or left. In my view, Animal Farm is the praise of the individual against collectivism, any kind of collectivism. The developments of the story and the evolution of the animals' behavior are quite familiar to all and all of us can, for sure, put the novel in parallelism with prosaic stories of our daily life. To me, this is the actual message of Animal Farm for us: the independence of mind has a prize.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
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