Two Sides To The Story

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday September 27, 2008

Bruce Elder, Harriet Veitch

Animal Farm by George Orwell

FOR

Drawing on the great allegoric tradition of using animals to reveal profound truths about human foibles, Orwell wrote this brilliant and enduring satire.

It has been popular to see Animal Farm as an attack on Soviet-style communism but that interpretation gives the book a transient appeal. By keeping the story and the characters generic, Orwell created a timeless fable. Thus Napoleon, the boar who takes power and uses his dogs to ensure that the other animals behave, can be seen as Stalin and the secret police, Augusto Pinochet and his death squads or even Robert Mugabe and his war veterans. The same applies to Squealer, who is every spin doctor from Goebbels to Karl Rove. Boxer the horse is a symbol of decency and trust in an increasingly corrupt world.

The greatness of Animal Farm is in the way it involves the reader emotionally so that there is a sense of moral outrage at the behaviour of Napoleon and deep despair at the fate of Boxer. Bruce Elder

AGAINST

Oh, right, animals stand in for people. Fascinating? Not.

Maybe Stalin was a pig - or rather, yes, Stalin was a pig, but does making him one in a book make anything any clearer? Orwell had every reason to dislike the Soviet regime and had every right to rail against it but did it have to be with cutesy talking animals? Why didn't he just state his point and not trick up the message with beasts and birds and passing people?

And just what is the point? The book was published in 1945 - did we not know by then that totalitarian regimes are bad? That being beastly to people is a no-no? By 1945, the Soviet Union had already shown how bad it was and the Nazis were on their way out.

Eastern bloc communism still had a way to go and the US isn't looking too good these days. But has Animal Farm changed any of this? Not likely.

Talking animals are fine for children but Napoleon and the rest are just ridiculous for adults. Stick to Babe and forget this heavy-handed attempt at satire. Harriet Veitch

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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