Dreams, Hopes and Plans Flashcards
Introduction
Orwell demonstrates the capacity of hopes and dreams to galvanise and harness efforts in order to effect change,
however, allegorically portrays how dreams and hopes
can be used as a tool through which to manipulate and to encourage submission, deference and compliance.
Orwell demonstrates the transformational and significant power of ‘hope’ as throughout the novella, it is used as a mechanism through which to sustain and control the animals:
while they believe that they are able to achieve something greater than their current circumstances, they are encouraged to continue contributing towards the ‘hope’ of their future.
It is arguable however that hope and dreams are exposed to have a more sinister element as the animals, despite their prolonged suffering and exploitation, continue to
hope for a better future despite this increasingly appearing unrealistic and unattainable.
In addition to this, the simplicity of the solution presents dreams as being easily achieved, with no real awareness of the challenges and difficulties that might be experienced; as such, the animals are unable to recognise and challenge circumstances where plans do not manifest as they were intended and expected to.
PG 1
Old Major’s promise of a world premised on the equality of the animals, the removal of man and the eradication of tyranny is fallible
there is a sense of their idealistic world being impossible to achieve – it is this dream that informs and provides the underlying vision that drives the action of the revolution.
Orwell highlights the arguably idealistic, premised on an unattainable utopia that is not grounded in reality.
As such, the unrealistic and unachievable nature of the dreams that he posits are projects of a future that cannot be fully be realised.
It is arguable that the animals are not involved in the creation of the ‘dream’ for the farm: Old Major imposes his own dream on the animals rather than involving them in a process whereby they are too able to contribute to the future vision for the farm.
As such, the animals once again remain excluded from the vision for the farm.
PG 1 Quotes
Chapter 1: “strange dream”; “It was a dream of the earth as it will be when Man has vanished”; “man is the root cause of hunger”; “consumes without producing”; “man is the only real enemy”; “Remove man”; “Man is tyrant”; “future generation shall struggle”; “no animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he’s a year old”; “no animal is free”; “misery and slavery”
Chapter 1:
“And the fruitful fields of England Shall be trod by beasts alone.” /
“Cruel whips no more shall crack.” /
“For that day we all must labour, Though we die before it
break” [sense of foreboding of the achievability of the animals’ dreams prior to the end of their lives]
Chapter 1: “Golden future time” (utopia);
“answer to all our problems”;
“perfect unity”;
“perfect comradeship”;
“And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray”;
“I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I
have acquired.”
Chapter 1: “Even the stupidest of them had already picked up the tune and a few of the words”;
“the whole farm burst out into Beasts of England in tremendous unison”
PG 2
Orwell highlights that irrespective of the nature of the noble intentions that might inform the foundation of plans, dreams and hopes,
there remains the risk of the corruption of these ideals, particularly if they remain elusive, ill-defined and lack necessary detail.
Through the allegory of ‘Animal Farm’, the pigs, through the leadership of Napoleon, promise the achievement of a world premised on equality however there is a sense of inevitability of the corruption of these promises.
His idealisms would only exist in a utopia or ‘golden future time’.
The unattainability of the dreams posited by Old Major, through the description of a utopia, leads to a manipulation and control of the animals by the leadership of the farm.
The reliance on the leadership of the farm is transposed from Mr Jones, to the pigs, and as such, the animals rely on others to effect these dreams, rather on their own efforts.
The lack of specificity and detail included in the Seven Commandments meant that there always remained a risk of regression back to the system that the animals initially sought to displace.
PG 2 Quotes
Chapter 3: “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of
selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples.”
Chapter 8: “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.” Somehow or other,
the last two words had slipped out of the animals’ memory” [Following the executions of
Chapter 7]
Chapter 5: “Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility…He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?” – Through highlighting the burdensome nature of leadership, Squealer is able to encourage submission through highlighting the potential inadequacies that the animals might demonstrate through taking control of the farm themselves.
Chapter 5: “If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right.” [Boxer]
Chapter 9: “Once again all rations were reduced, except those of the pigs and the dogs. A too rigid equality in rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism.”
PG 3
Orwell demonstrates how dreams might be used to encourage submission and a lack of questioning, as the achievement of these dreams appear to be of the greatest importance, rather than the means and mechanisms through which to achieve them.
Orwell highlights the development of a culture of submission through the consistent and repeated use of hope to undermine any elements of dissatisfaction, confusion or rebellion.
Orwell communicates the potential of dreams and hope having the potential to quell and suppress any real retaliation or opposition, through the sense of working for the greater good.
Although one disaster after another hits Animal Farm, the animals never lose hope that someday their vision of a collective future will come true.
The introduction and perpetuation of the possibility of Sugarcandy Mountain is used to justify the animals’ existence – a sense that while their lives might be short, brutish and difficult on ‘Animal Farm’, the hope of a more peaceful and fruitful existence exists.
PG 3 Quotes
Chapter 3:
“His answer to every problem, every setback, was “I will work harder!”
“Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations, the quarrelling and biting and jealousy which had been normal features of life in the old days had almost disappeared. Nobody shirked−or almost nobody.”
Chapter 4
“No sentimentality, comrade!” cried Snowball from whose wounds the blood was still dripping. “War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.” [following Boxer’s concern and guilt at the prospect of having taken a life, human or otherwise]
Chapter 6
“All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything that they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.”
Chapter 6
“Throughout the spring and summer they worked a sixty−hour week” [a sense that the toil and endeavour is endless]; “If they had no more food than they had had in Jones’s day, at least they did not have less.”; “Once again the animals were conscious of a vague uneasiness. Never to have any dealings with human beings, never to engage in trade, never to make use of money−had not these been among the earliest resolutions passed at that first triumphant Meeting after Jones was expelled?”
Chapter 7
“Beasts of England was the song of the Rebellion. But the Rebellion is now completed. The execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final act. The enemy both external and internal has been defeated. In Beasts of England we expressed our longing for a better society in days to come. But that society has now been established. Clearly this song has no longer any purpose…So Beasts of England was heard no more. “.
Beasts of England is replaced with another song: “Animal Farm, Animal Farm, Never through me shalt thou come to harm!” (Chapter 7)
Chapter 9
“Beasts of England was the song of the Rebellion. But the Rebellion is now completed. The execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final act. The enemy both external and internal has been defeated. In Beasts of England we expressed our longing for a better society in days to come. But that society has now been established. Clearly this song has no longer any purpose…So Beasts of England was heard no more. “. Beasts of England is replaced with another song: “Animal Farm, Animal Farm, Never through me shalt thou come to harm!” (Chapter 7)
Chapter 10
Benjamin stated that “hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life. And yet the animals never gave up hope. More, they
never lost, even for an instant, their sense of honour and privilege in being members of Animal Farm. The Republic of the Animals which Major had foretold, when the green
fields of England should be untrodden by human feet, was still believed in. Some day it was coming: it might not be soon, it might not be with in the lifetime of any animal now
living, but still it was coming. Even the tune of Beasts of England was perhaps hummed secretly here and there: at any rate, it was a fact that every animal on the farm knew it,
though no one would have dared to sing it aloud. It might be that their lives were hard and that not all of their hopes had been fulfilled; but they were conscious that they were
not as other animals. If they went hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical human beings; if they worked hard, at least they worked for themselves. No creature among
them went upon two legs. No creature called any other creature “Master.” All animals were equal.”
Chapter 10
“There had also been a very strange custom, whose origin was unknown, of marching every Sunday morning past a boar’s skull which was nailed to a post in the garden. This, too, would be suppressed, and the skull had already been buried.”
Conclusion
Orwell also highlights the fallibility of a utopia, through its potential to become easily corrupted into a totalitarian nightmare. [The idea of a utopia, existing as “no place.” A
Utopia is an ideal society in which the social, political, and economic evils afflicting human kind have been wiped out].
