Entry for March 18, 2008

Animal Farm

George Orwell strikes a strong sarcasm on the human society set up with this short 128 page novel. It turns out that few animals group together for a Rebellion against the oppressive Human master. They win and start a whole new animal owned farm. They do well till the vices creep in, farm gets broken into stratas which have nothing but friction between them. Leaders are killed, pretenders rise. Workers are sucked of everything then slaughtered, brutally, Animals are misguided and given meaningless dreams of a Sugarcandy mountain rather than fulsome meals. Mob even of animals is shown to be short tempered but forgetful, they forget everything sacrifices, oppression, deception and guilt all they remember is the Sugarcandy mountain, this fiction is enough to let them cling on dreams and live as directed by the privileged few. Rulers rob them of everything. There are indeed rounds of sporadic protests, but they are silenced either by force or by cunning and clever arguments. Commandments are amended to suit the whims of those at the top. Oppressed go poorer, rulers go richer till the point either takes it as their destiny. Then religion kicks in to justify the imbalance. Generation come and go, some fight others forget or forgive but society takes a normal course to degradation and a new ruler comes forth Money. From there on every lifeform, every belonging and every value is labeled with an MRP. They start indulging in trade of things along with values and principles. Money that was created to facilitate transaction, starts facilitating a hell more, most of which is not very pleasant. Still they are happy to drive faster, till they are ahead of others even when they know fully well that the road ends in a dead end.To overlook the chaos they indulge in frenetic activity. Happy to be busy rather than being aware of the worthlessness of these seemingly worthy pursuits. Leaders are seen to blatantly admit "All men are equal but some are more equal than others". Isn't this turn of events pretty similar to what happens in a Human Farm, and indeed the novel ends with a fight between animals rulers and men in which it seems tough to distinguish one from the other.