Proloque

Today I’m going to write a report in English. That’s a big assignment to me. So I try to prepare meself to write only English and when my parents ask me something, I can only answer in English.

The book I’ve read was Animal farm, written by George Orwell. A few years ago I’ve seen the movie on youtube, and after reading the book, I feel like waching it again.

The book was nice to read, because of the vocabulaire next to the lines. And I think that it is a beatiful story, also very informative. Now it’s time to write my report, I hope you enjoy reading it.

Data of Animal farm

George Orwell, Animal farm. (International School Publiactions) Roermond, 1990.

Expectations of the story

A few years ago i’ve saw the movie of Animal farm. My father said that I had to know the story so i would get the history about Stalin better. But, when you see the title of the book, you think; ‘Oh, this is such a nice story as the stories in French class.’ But that is not true. So I did expect a lovely storie about a pig named Snowball that was a very nice pig, who eat whole day and stamp in the mud. But when you get to know the story of horrible leadership and mean majorpigs, you get in the world of punnishment for the good and innocent ones, and victory and wealt for the bad en mean ones.

So i did know what the story was goning to tell, but the book was much more extended.

But before the movie I was expecting such other things then all the miserable mastery.

Summary of the book

Mister Jones lives on a farm. He is a farmer, mostly a drunk farmer. He doesn’t care for the animals on the farm. So, on a day the animals expel the farmer from his inherent farm. The animals named this day: The Rebellion. This revolution was already planned by an old pig, Minor, who died sincerly. He told the animals about being equal; every animal is similar upon an other animals, but also silliar on humans.

After the Rebellion they called the farm: Animal farm. They are intend to rule the farm themselves. So, there are twoo leaders chosen, the pigs Snowball and Napoleon. They settle up seven commandments, like ‘Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy’ or ‘All animals are equal’. Allmost every animal helps to make sure that the farm can stand. But there are some others who don’t like the new ruels and new jobs. And slowly there are originate different groups of animals, the group who works hard to build a real animal farm and a group who’s in disagreement with the leading pigs. And they shirk, like the old donkey Benjamin.

This was good for a while, but bit-by-bit Snowball and Napoleon are more argueing and the pigs and dogs who follow Napoleon are doing important. They treat the other animals not as equal. The fights between Snowball and Napoleon become more and more heavy, untill Napoleon remove Snowball from the farm.

Ever since that day the pigs and dogs were leading the farm. But they are ignore the commandments and sleep in beds and wear clothes. And then they change the commandsments, so ‘All animals are equal’ changed in ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal’. They mean that the pigs and dogs are ‘better’ than the other animals.

Napoleon become more and more worst, he became ruthless. And the other animals had to work harder and harder, while the food was terrible less.

Snowball had, in the time that he was one of the leaders of the farm, built a huige windmill. But when there is something wrong with te windmill, Snowball still receive dept. Napoleon calls him a treater, so the other animals had to believe that. And Napoleon also blames the other animals of espionage or robbery. The dogs are punnish and killing animals under the management of Napoleon.

In this way the animals lose there believe in there leader, except the hardworking horse Boxer. He still goes on, work himself in to the dead. Because when he get very tired, Napoleon sent him to the abbatoir.

The pigs are wearing clothes, sleep in beds, and are hanging about with human! This was never the concept from ‘Animal farm’. But thats the way it is going to be forever. The farm gets his old name back, ‘Manor farm’. And the motto ‘All animals are equal’ changed in ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal’ was the way of life. 

Characters

Majorcharacters

Snowball is a pig. At het beginning of the farm he was leading the farm with Napoleon.

Snowball is the idealitic character in the book. He just want to build a good and beautiful farm. So he set up a windmill, so the animals have warm cages and warm water. And he taught the animals to read and write. But when Napoleon had other ideas about leadership, Snowball was expeled of the farm.

Napoleon is the other leading pig. You can say that he was the ‘mean’ one. He like to have some other rules on the farm, so he changed a lot on the farm. He has a kind of army of dogs arround him so that he won’t get hurt. He changes the rules in his own way, so he can sleep in beds, wear clothes and drink alcohol. He is just misusing his leadership.

Mr Jones was the old farmer. He was always drunk and didn’t care for his animals, he let them work for him. When the animal take over the power, he plans, together with other farmers, a way to attack the farm.

Old Major is the first pig who was the boss of the animals. Things were changing completely when he gets out. He is the one who said that they had to demostrate, to start a revolution. He was a nice old pigs who taught the animals to think on your fellow man.

Other maincharacters Boxer is the hard working horse. His motto was ‘I will work harder’. He worked himself in to his dead. But the sad thing is; nobody has got something left of all his hard work.

Benjamin is a donkey. And you know what they say about donkeys, they are very recalcitrant. He don’t like the fact that the farm has no farmer, but he also didn’t like the farmer. He is the ‘rebel’ of the farm.

The writer

Animal farm is written by George Orwell. This isn’t his real name, because he have changed his name in to his pseudonym-name. His real name is Eric Arthur Blair.

Eric grew up in Henley-on-Thames, England. But he wasn’t born there. His father and his mother first lived in Bengal. That’s the place where Eric was born in 1903. His parent lived there because his fatherwas a Customs official in the Indian Civil Service. They moved to England so the childeren would have a good education.

Eric was 11 when he won a price with his poem in the local paper of Eastbourne, the price was a scolarship for Eton. This was a very good sequal after the boardingschool in Eastbourne. But Eric doesn’t like school at al! About the education from Eton he says: ‘I did no work there and learned very little.’

When he was studying on Eton he wrote poems, short stories and plays and he founded a school newspaper.

After school Eric joined the civil service, he was sent to Burma as policeman. But he didn’t like beiing in the Indian Imperal Police Force. So he resigned from the IIPF en he returned back to England. There be decided to live in London. On this way he became interest in the social conditions of the poor and outcasts.

But then he moved to Paris, had some jobs like dishwasher and kitchenhand. In 1933 his first book with his pseudonym-naam (George Orwell) came out. It was called Down and Out in Paris and London. He taught for a while, on a boys’ school. He notist that he was ill. He had an illness from which he suffered off and on for the rest of his life, thats why he proceed writing.

He published a new book, Burmese Days. It goes about his civil service time in Burma.

George married the Irisch Eileen O’Shaughnessy, and in the same year he published an other book, Keep the Aspidistra Flying. In the maintime he worked in a bookshop. Because he gived up writing poetry and decide to settle down with his wife.

But he did wrote a book about living in the conditions of the industrial part of North-England.

In 1937 George want to fight in the war from the elected Spanish government and Franco’s fascist troops. This experiance in Spain make a stong opponent of Stalinist Communism of George. When he was back home he published Homage to Catalonia, where he tells about his expericances en feelings in the war.

The Second World War broke out and George had been rejected for active military service because of his health. So he joined the BBC’s Fast Eastern Service. But two years later he went home and write Animal farm. And then he and his wife adopted a baby who they named Richard Horatio Blair.

Unfortunately he divorced Eileen and married his second wife, Sonia Brownell. But he died three months later.

My opinion

Reading the story i get a little bit stad. I didn’t like the pigs and the dogs who were onder the domination of Napoleon. They were so mean and they kill the other animals for nothing. The story was telling me about our own humanity; expelling the good people and the ‘bad’ people are dominating, and by that reason things get more and more worse. Animal farm goes about how people are reacting when they have lost the general control. First it goes well, but lately the wrong man are ruling.

The story was a little bit sad and I thought by myself that those things really happen. Look to the wars, you can see that some people make very wrong decisions. And the ordinairy people are suffering while the bosses are just wasting money.

So, Animal farm did let me think about how life is on earth. Mostly people who only think of themselfs. That’s not a good thing, but hey, we are just people. And when there is a man who says: ‘This isn’t fair’, we will let him dissapear. Because sharing with all the people is suicide. Now I’ve got a new vision on humans, but why should I make a whole scène of my point? When I would say that things have to change, it will neven goning to happen, because I will mess up lifes of the moneyed man.

Epilogue

The book was not that easy to read, but I’ve had lots of help from the vocabulaire which stand besides the tekst. That was really helpfull. I did actually enjoyed making this report.  I don’t speak English well, for that reason the grammar will suck. When I speak or write English to friends abroad my sentences are mostly filled with words as ‘gonna’ and ‘cya’. Or I speak Dutch-English for fun, but thats the worst English you can immagine.

But I do like to read English books, and that’s ofcourse a good thing. And I watch Harry Potter mostly English, without subtitles, but that’s because I already know what the are going to say. So this really was a hard thing to do, but I enjoyed making it.

Sources

I’ve only used my Animal farm-book, there was a lot of information about George Orwell in the book.