March holiday lecture

Dear Sec 2 Express girls,

Some of you missed the March holiday lecture for various reasons. Here is what was covered. Of course you've missed out on the explanation and Q & A, but you have to find that out from your friends who've attended the lecture.


Setting
Manor farm, England

Tone
•At the beginning à miserable and indignant
•In the middle à motivated, positive
•At the end à same as at the beginning. The animals work just as hard as they had before Napoleon took over. Life under Napoleon and Jones ends up being the same


Point of view
•3rd person
•Narrator is not a character in the novel, but tells readers what the characters are thinking


Who/ what does Orwell criticize through his novel?
1. Totalitarianism
-After the Russians overthrew the Czar, this was the main political system
-Similarly, in Animal Farm, even though the animals overthrow Jones, the pigs become exactly like Jones, to the point where at the end, the animals cannot distinguish between the humans and the pigs

2. Power hungry people (e.g. pigs)
-Start off as one of the group and work for the good of everyone, but slowly get more greedy and selfish

3. Ignorant blind followers
- Who do not question or even realise the injustices


Understanding Irony

What is irony?
•Irony results when there is a contradiction between what an audience would expect and what really happens.

2 types:
1.Situational irony
-We think one thing will happen but an unexpected twist occurs
-We think that the animals will have a perfect world when they rule the farm. The unexpected twist is that there is eventually a perfect world, but only for the pigs. The other animals are still miserable.

2.Dramatic irony
-The readers know something that the characters in the book do not know
-We know that Squealer has been changing the commandments but the animals don’t know this
-We know that Boxer was slaughtered but the animals think that he died in the veterinary clinic, despite supposedly given medicine


Effect and purpose of irony:
1. Comic
•to entertain and amuse the reader

2. Moral
•to make a serious moral judgement or point
•to put across social and political messages à for e.g., what is the political message that Orwell wants to put across?


Understanding Satire

What is satire?
•A critique or attack of an individual, group, or idea by exaggerating faults and revealing hypocrisies.
•Dramatic irony is often used when we want to satirise. E.g. We see the hypocrisy that the animals don't and therefore understand that the book is deeply critical of the pigs.


•Who or what do you think Orwell is satirising in the novel? (Hint: think of who the pigs represent)
- The Russian Revolution and the Russian leaders like Stalin and Trotsky (note that the whole novel is a satire)

•Why is he satirising them?
- to point out the weaknesses and imperfections of the human condition


Themes in Animal Farm

1.Dictatorship and totalitarianism (pg 8)
-How dictators rise to power and maintain it
-Dictatorship: a type of government in which absolute and overbearing power is held by a dictator (tyrant)
-Totalitarianism: a system in which a govt is so powerful that it controls its people totally and suppresses all discussion of opposing views

2.Power and politics or Power and corruption
-Even a supposedly good system like communism can be corrupted by selfishness and the desire for power

3.Appearance vs reality
-The pigs appear to care for the welfare of the farm and animals but are only interested in their own benefit
-This is similar to the Russian leaders.