Boekverslag George Orwell

Info over dit verslag

Geschreven door:	anoniem [meer]
Kwaliteit:
Waardering:
Taal:	Engels
Woorden:	634
Opvragingen:	17

Hulpmiddeltjes

Openen in tekstverwerker

Printen

Emailen

Waardering

Gemiddelde waardering: 2 uit 5 (5 stemmen)

Heb je er iets aan gehad? Geef zelf je waardering:
Erg goed bruikbaar
Goed bruikbaar
Bruikbaar
Een beetje bruikbaar
Niks aan gehad

Titels van George Orwell

• A hanging (0)

  1931

• Animal farm (50)

  1945

• Burmese days (1)

  1934

• Down and Out in Paris and London (0)

  1933

• Nineteen eighty-four / 1984 (31)

  1949

• Shooting an elephant (0)

  1950

"Stalin, it sure was an animal"

'Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend' It's one of the seven commandments of the Animalism, a political direction, an ideology, which George Orwell, author of for example '1984', his 'Animal Farm' is about. In the story The Major, an old pig, tells the other animals of Mr. Jones' farm, about his dreams and about what future will give. He tells them about animals ruling the world. Not being ruled by people,  but taking care of themselves, having their own eggs, milk, straw, not being slaughtered.

When The Major dies not even one week after telling his story, the other animals see it as their duty to prepare the revolution. The smart pigs, leaded by Snowball and Napoleon, arrange everything for the overtaking. And one day, when the animals hadn't been fed for two days, because Mr. Jones was drunk again, the animals attack their boss. They take over the farm.

Snowball and Napoleon become the new leaders of the farm. They set up a list with the seven commandments, which all said that people are bad, and that no animal is allowed to do typical human-things, like sleeping in beds, drink alcoholic drinks and wearing clothes. 'All animals are equal' and 'no animal shall kill any other animal' are two other important commandments.

The first year the farm produces much more than when it was ruled by humans, but when Snowball, the inventive and good-willing one of the two leaders, thinks of a windmill, which will have to produce electricity, Napoleon sends his guards - a couple of huge, strong dogs, which he 'stole' from their mother directly after they were born, letting them grow up all alone with him, without letting them see somebody else - Those guards take care of Snowball. They make him leave the farm.
The other animals are shocked, but when Squealer tells them some lies about Snowball being on the human-side, they believe him. From now on, Napoleon is the real leader. Everybody does what he wants.

The pigs are abusing their powers. They change the commandments all the time, and are making themselves unequal to the others. 'They've got brains, so they are better.' They sleep in beds, they drink alcoholic drinks, and all the animals accept this. The ones who don't are being killed. The animals, except for the pigs, have to work all they long, getting even less food than they got when humans were ruling them. In the last chapter the pigs are even walking on two feet, carrying whips, for making sure the other animals will work. The pigs have turned into real human as the last sentences of the book say. It's when six men and six pigs are sitting at a table, playing cards and the other animals are watching them through a window. 'The creatures 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.'

In this modern fable, a parallel is drawn with a dictatorial state, obviously Russia. Major, Napoleon and Snowball, the pigs, are Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky. What Orwell, who was born in Bengal in 1903, wanted to point out is that power inevitably corrupts and that revolutions inevitably fail of their purpose. People are always abusing powers; the new masters will always be corrupted by their new power. At the end of the story everything is even worse than it was when Mr. Jones was ruling the farm.
Eric Hugh Blair, which is his real name, was very fond of animals. The fact he, the usually pessimistically thinking person, used animals for playing the story makes it, sometimes even a funny satire and not a bitter one.