Reading Notes: Animal Farm

Finally finished reading this classic dystopian novel recommended by countless people. Author George Orville tells a poignantly satirical political fable in a short, succinct animal fairy tale. Different people can have different interpretations of this book, and what happened in Animal Farm has been played out to different degrees in different time and space. Some people say that this book is a secret shot of the Soviet Union during the Stalin period. I think it is more appropriate to criticize totalitarianism, and centralization can happen in any society, whether it is under the banner of socialism or a democratic country. The so-called absolute power leads to corruption, absolute power leads to absolute corruption, or, in other words, absolute power leads to absolute corruption. Looking at the author's life experience, he was born in England and later served in Burma. The oppressive scenes he saw in Burma made him begin to reflect on colonialism, then accepted and recognized socialist ideas, and then experienced in the Spanish Civil War. It made him deeply realize the horror of totalitarianism, and his subsequent "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" are also classic masterpieces criticizing totalitarianism. Reading the author's preface, it can be seen that Orville has always believed in socialism, but he believes that socialism under totalitarianism is not real socialism, so is there real socialism in the world? At least I, who grew up listening to socialism, was very skeptical.

The story of "Animal Farm" is very simple. The animals of the farm, led by clever pigs, successfully carried out a "revolution", drove out the human farmers who were oppressing them, and became the owner of the farm themselves and announced that they would build a A new society where all animals are equal. At first it seemed that everything was fine, however, the leaders of the revolution, those smart pigs gradually established a new totalitarian on the manor, becoming more dictatorial rulers than the original human farmers, and even the pigs themselves have "evolved" "It's time to live the same way as humans and build alliances with humans, and many of the animals below seem to have not yet understood how everything happened. "Animals look at pigs on an equal footing with humans, and then look at humans, and realize that they can no longer tell which is a pig and which is a human."

Probably everyone who has lived in China for a long time will find the scene inexplicably familiar after reading it (of course I have not experienced the era of the Soviet Union and have never been to North Korea, otherwise the feeling may be more profound). For example, no matter what bad things or disasters happened, everyone, under the leadership of the leader Napoleon, agreed that it was caused by the betrayal Snowball and the human beings outside to destroy the animal farm. Think about the ubiquitous "Collaborate with external forces" and "Imperialism will never die." For example, the pig Squealer who is in charge of propaganda always keeps reporting good numbers to everyone, indicating that everything is getting better and better, but in fact, the animals do not understand this problem at all and do not know how to think. , and even what happened in the past is constantly being revised so that more and more people have become very vague about what happened, like our history textbooks and statistics that don't know how much to believe? There is also the ironic "Seven Commandments" that were made as laws when the "revolution" had just succeeded. These seven laws were written in capital letters on the side wall of the barn, and then followed by the leader Napoleon's The "Seven Commandments" need to be continuously shortened and revised, and finally it becomes "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", I remember watching an animation version of the up master's commentary before using "Constitution" to describe it, It's so fitting.

Some people have summed up several elements of a dictatorship in this book, which are roughly as follows: First, the worship of leaders must be established. Everything the leader says is right. All achievements require the great leadership of the leader, and the leader must not expose too much because of this. It is easy to expose flaws; secondly, there must be armed guards like those ferocious hounds and a powerful propaganda machine like the pig named Quezra to keep brainwashing everyone; thirdly, a few simple and faithful fools will do the job. Example for everyone to learn plus a large crowd who are easily blindly obeyed without thinking ability; finally, establish an enemy, whether he really exists or not, transfer all hatred to that enemy, and attribute all suffering to that enemy The enemy's fault, in order to establish a strong cohesion. After reading this book, in fact, everyone should think about what role they played in Animal Farm, and it is estimated that the pigs will not be able to take turns. Many people think that they can see through it, but they are unwilling to say it, just like the donkey named Benjamin. In fact, such a so-called "understander" may live more miserably, compared to the first fleeing for materialism and vanity. The manor's mare, Molly, was happier. Xie Anqi's "Your Happiness" sings "How many scars in the world are too deep to know", "If you think about it, you will be blessed and thin sand will blow into your eyes, so you don't have to notice it", "You may be easier than me to satisfy you. Happier and numb than I am." However, if everyone gave up thinking and willingly accepted a numb life, what hope would there be for such a society? Therefore, we still need more people to read books such as "Animal Farm" to reflect on our lives. At least, don't let yourself be as diligent as that horse named Boxer and still work for the centralization of power. "Selfless dedication" fools, of course, don't do the same blind obedience people as those sheep who only shout "four legs are good and two legs are bad".