Reflection in the Mirror

Author's Note: This response is to Animal Farm, by George Orwell. This novel is very creepy but makes you think. This peice is about what I feel the author was trying to say and how I feel about this novel.


Everything starts with opinions. Whether they are good, or bad, they can shape the way an event plays out. Opinions can be dangerous, and when they consume you, you might do things that affect not just your life, but others around you. Ignorance only adds to the risk, and to defeat the enemy can be just as dangerous as losing, for the power that is presented to the winner isn’t all pure. To rebel against something that is wrong is the right thing to do, but what happens when the thing that you fought becomes you?

What comes to mind when the word pig enters it? Dirty, low, and for lack of better word, gross. In this case, the literal sense doesn’t just apply, because the way the pigs act in this novel follow these characteristics perfectly. It didn’t start that way though, the enemy was clearly Mr. Jones, and all their anger was forced upon him. The only reason Old Major suggested the rebellion might have been that he knew he wouldn’t be there to witness it. While ignorant, the pig was smart, because he never had to observe the horrible events that took place after.

Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer made a promise to the whole farm that it would be totally run by animals, but that was a lie. By the end of the novel, the animals cannot even tell a pig and a human apart. Whether one likes it or not, everything changes when they are put into power. The only hope that the farm would be okay was Snowball, who departed soon after Jones. I sometimes wonder if Napoleon was aware of the man he was becoming. Did he lay in his stripped-sheet bed at night and tremble at the thought right before he drifted off? If that were true, it might have been worse, knowing he did nothing to change himself.

Anyone could notice the change in the farm from the beginning and end, especially the pigs. What shook me the most was the changing of the seventh commandment, from All animals are equal, to, All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. This is low, even for an animal. Napoleon could have changed it because he assumes all the farm animals were too dull to figure it out, or his pure ignorance controlled him to do this. They even sank to wearing clothes and standing on two feet, I am confused by when Napoleon stopped thinking of man as an enemy and started to think of them as “comrades”.

To become something their not is everyone’s fear, but what type of person lets this happen to them? It might seem innocent in the beginning, but things like this can go way out of hand. No one can control what someone has become when its too late. Monsters aren’t just the ones out of story books, they’re in everyday life, they are people that let this get to them. Opinions are a strong and useful tool, but there is a fine line between using them for good, and for evil.