Animal Farm Quotes

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Month: November 2013 Name: Mohammed Faris Khan Period: 3 Title: Animal Farm Author: George Orwell Date started/date completed: 11/20 - 11/25 Pages read: 54/54 (Book finished) Rating of book (1-10): 7/10 Describe a minor character/person in the book who had major importance. Explain: Major is an old, dying boar who stirs up a rebellion in the Manor Farm. He is regarded as the animals' leader prior to their rebellion, and he wishes to tell them how mankind is the source of all their problems: "Nearly the whole of the produce of our [labor] is stolen from us by human beings […] Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished [forever]" (2). Major also speaks of a strange…show more content…
Major dies soon afterwards, and is rarely mentioned (three times, to be exact) in the rest of the novel. Thus, Major can be deemed as a minor character, only appearing in the first chapter. However, his ideals play a very major role in the rest of the story. Major believes that mankind should be overthrown, in order to create a utopia in which farm animals will leave in peace without a master: "Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our [labor] would be our own […] Work night and day, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion!" (3). The elder's words are heeded by the farm animals, and they launch a successful rebellion: "Almost before they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had been successfully…show more content…
The main, and most evident, reason is to convey the fact that a government should not be too powerful, since power corrupts. As the story progresses, the pigs begin to take advantage of their leadership, and they slowly begin take away many of the animals' privileges so that they can enjoy their power. An early example of this is when the pigs reserve all of the farm's apples and milk for themselves, making up a clever excuse to fool the less intelligent animals: "The animals had assumed as a matter of course that these would be shared out equally; one day, however, the order went forth that all the windfalls were to be collected and brought to the harness-room for the use of the pigs […] The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too obvious. So it was agreed without further argument that the milk and the windfall apples (and also the main crop of apples when they ripened) should be reserved for the pigs alone" (14). As Napoleon the pig comes into power, he starts violating the very laws on which the "Animalistic" government was established. He orders the killing of any animals secretly associated with Snowball, his former political foe who he has deemed as a traitor by blaming him for random crimes, which violates one of the laws of the Seven Commandments: "A few days later, when the terror caused by the executions had died down, some of the animals remembered — or thought they
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