Day 137: Animal farm

Since I spend the whole day studying, I don’t have anything interesting to tell (I already mentioned that I go to the library…). So today I’m going to share a passage from Animal Farm by George Orwell, a fable that explains the Russian Revolution and the subsequent establishment of the communist regime—although it also works to describe other processes throughout history (and even in the present).

The book tells the story of a farm (Jones’s Farm), where the animals are unhappy with the way they are treated by humans and organise a revolution, led by the pigs, to drive them out. Once they succeed, they begin a new life with many projects, always guided by a set of commandments that are absolutely inviolable. But the pigs seize power and start to become corrupt, imitating humans and breaking the commandments.

It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse and took up their residence there. Again the animals seemed to remember that a resolution against this had been passed in the early days, and again Squealer was able to convince them that this was not the case. It was absolutely necessary, he said, that the pigs, who were the brains of the farm, should have a quiet place to work in. It was also more suited to the dignity of the Leader (for of late he had taken to speaking of Napoleon under that title) to live in a house than in a mere sty. Nevertheless, some of the animals were disturbed when they heard that the pigs not only took their meals in the kitchen and used the drawing-room as a recreation room, but also slept in the beds. Boxer passed it off as usual, with “Napoleon is always right!” but Clover, who thought she remembered a definite ruling against beds, went to the end of the barn and tried to puzzle out the Seven Commandments, which were inscribed there. Finding herself unable to read more than individual letters, she fetched Muriel.

“Muriel,” she said, “read me the Fourth Commandment. Doesn’t it say something about never sleeping in a bed?”

With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out. “It says, ‘No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.’”

Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have been so.

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