RoR: Forum

I never read Animal Farm but I just watched the DVD and was left wanting. In the book, did Orwell end it with a final uprising by the animals against the pigs? It left me with a feeling of a never-ending cycle:

1) people (or "animals") do well when left alone in a capitalistic society
2) power-lusting, egalitarian, surrogate decision-makers convince a large-enough minority to support a "new" benevolent despotism (where "they" get to be the despots)
3) suffering ensues (as it always will when an intellectual elite makes decisions for the masses)
4) the masses rise up and overthrow the altruist-championing tyrant-dictators
5) the cycle repeats

In our country, for instance, we did well until the mid 20th Century. Then, elitist power-brokers took over and starting destroying wealth and savings and currency, etc. (nationalizing things, inflating the currency, etc.) Now, suffering is upon us. ...

Are we doomed to keep going through this predictable cycle of events?

Ed

Post 1

Sunday, November 3, 2013 - 5:45am

Ed, as far as I know, two different animations exist. The one you saw seems to have been the "Trotskyite" version in which the animals rise up (as I recall the narration) "... one... last ...time..." with angry animal eyes.

In fact, the book ends with the animals looking in on the men and pigs and being able to tell one from the other and standing there confused and disheartened.

The book is better. You can get more from it. It helps to know the Bolshevik revolution, but the book is about all revolutions, really.

Post 2

Sunday, November 3, 2013 - 11:29am

Ed:

For sure, be careful of the remakes; there are some that totally turn around the meaning in the book.

In one remake, shown on TV about ten years ago, the final scene is of an American family in a bright, shiny station wagon, driving up to the ruins of the farm on a bright, sunny day. The implication is that, finally, America might have a chance at getting this 'socialism' thing right.

My son, having just read the book in Jr. High, noticed the difference in the endings right away. He was aghast...why did they so blatantly change the ending in the book? He at first marked it up just to hollywood happy ending-itis, but then recognized the political nature of the manipulation. It is blatant, heavy handed, and crude; the left is counting on the fact that few Americans will actually have read the whole book, and fewer still will have comprehended it. Part and parcel of their contempt for those they wish to rule over for their own good. These people are truly fucking sick in the head.

It was a confirmation of his introduction to the fact of American left wing propaganda in American media.

The movie ending on TV was totally unlike the ending in Orwell's book which provides no hope whatsoever of anyone anywhere ever geting this slop right...which is why there had to be a frantic rewrite and cleanup in Aisle 9...

Busted.

regards,
Fred

Post 3

Sunday, November 3, 2013 - 4:49pm