Animal Farm 动物农场 Chapter 1 第一章

This is a satirical novel by George Orwell. It infers that the communism way of life can be subject to abuses as like “All men are equal, but some are more equal.”

It is a story that we need to reflect upon on how we can build a fair society for all to live in harmony.

The best notes for students studying this piece of literature can be found from the website https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/animal-farm/. There are ten chapters in this story. Chapter 1 introduces to us the owner and operator of Manor Farm, Mr. Jones. He had become lazy and was often drunk. In this Chapter, we find Mr. Jones neglected in his duty to care for his farm and for the animals in the farm. One night, when he was drunk and asleep, the animals in the farm had a meeting when the Major spoke. Major was a twelve-year old pig and he was the bull and the oldest of the animals in the farm. He made a moving speech that stirred up the unity of all animals in the farm. He advocated a revolution against Mr. Jones and all human race. Read this Chapter from the ebook (from page 1 to page 4) http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011h.html

Chapter 1 Summary: Mr. Jones, the owner of Manor Farm, stumbled drunkenly to bed and forgot to secure his farm buildings properly. Of late, he had been neglecting his animals, often forgetting to feed them. As soon as Mr. Jones bedroom light went off, the farm animals convened a meeting and Old Major, a prize boar and the pillar of the animal community spoke. He had sensed of late that his life was coming to an end and before he went, he had a message for the animals.

He claimed that the lives of his fellow animals were “miserable, laborious, and short.” “Animals are born into this world as slaves,” he said, “and they worked incessantly from the time they can walk, fed only enough to keep breath in their bodies, and then slaughtered mercilessly when they are no longer useful.” He noted that the land upon which the animals live possessed enough resources to support many times the present population of animals to live in luxury and that there was no natural reason for the animals’ poverty and misery.

Old Major then related a dream that he had the previous night, of a world in which animals lived without the tyranny of men: free, happy, well fed, and treated with dignity. He urged the animals to do everything they could to make this dream a reality and exhorted them to overthrow the humans who purport to own them. The animals could succeed in their rebellion only if they first achieved a complete solidarity or “perfect comradeship” of all of the animals against the humans.

Analysis: George Orwell, the author, aims his satire at totalitarianism in all of its forms — communist, fascist, and capitalist. Animal Farm owes its structure largely to the events of the Russian Revolution as they unfolded between 1917 and 1944, when Orwell was writing the story. Much of what happens in the story symbolically parallels specific developments in the history of Russian communism, and several of the animal characters are based on either real participants in the Russian Revolution or amalgamations thereof.

By setting human problems in the animal kingdom, the writer achieved the distance necessary to see the absurdity in much of human behaviour — he or she could abstract a human situation into a clearly interpretable tale. By treating the development of totalitarian communism as a story taking place on a small scale, reducing the vast and complex history of the Russian Revolution to a short work describing and talking animals on a single farm, Orwell was able to portray his subject in extremely simple symbolic terms, presenting the moral lessons of the story with maximum clarity, objectivity, concision, and force.

Old Major’s dream presented the animals with a vision of utopia, an ideal world. The “golden future time” that the song “Beasts of England” prophesied was one in which animals would no longer be subjected to man’s cruel domination and would finally be able to enjoy the fruits of their own labours. The optimism of the lyrics galvanised the animals’ agitation, but unwavering belief in this lofty rhetoric, as soon becomes clear, prevented the common animals from realising the gap between reality and their envisioned utopia.

SOURCE: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animalfarm/section1/

Excerpt from Chapter 1: “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 labour would be our own. Almost overnight we could become rich and free. What then must we do? Why, work night and day, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, it might be in a week or in a hundred years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner or later justice will be done. Fix your eyes on that, comrades, throughout the short remainder of your lives! And above all, pass on this message of mine to those who come after you, so that future generations shall carry on the struggle until it is victorious.”

And then the song that all the animals sung, entitled ‘Beast of England’, sung to the tune of Clementine. https://youtu.be/2can9oWxYwQ

Vocabulary: cannibalism - noun - practice of eating one’s own kind (e.g. A human eating a human). cryptic - adjective - mysterious or obscure. eighteen hands - noun - measurement of the height of a horse, a hand is about four inches or 60 cm. ensconce - verb - settle comfortably. fluttering - adjective - flying unsteadily or hovering by flapping the wings quickly and lightly. gambol - verb - to skip about in play. hideous - adjective - ugly; unsightly; revolting. indefatigable - adjective - untiring. ignominious - adjective - shameful; dishonourable. knacker - noun - a person who buys and slaughters worn-out horses and sells their flesh as dog’s meat. paddock - noun -a small field or enclosure near a stable, in which horses are exercised. parasitical - adjective - like a parasite; gaining benefits from a host it injures. tushes - noun - tusks.

Questions to be answered:

(1) Name these animals found at Manor Farm: sow; boar; raven; dog; pigeon; mare; sheep; calf; hen; cow; horse; hen; goat; piglet; cat; rat; donkey.

(2) Fill in these blanks with the following words: Before; behind; enormous; figure; goat; lantern; majestic; Muriel; ordinary; perched; Pincher; raised; respected; small; straw; strip; themselves; very.

At one end of the big barn, on a sort of ______ platform, Major was already ensconced on his bed of straw, under a _______ which hung from a beam. He was twelve years old and had lately grown rather stout, but he was still a ________-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact that his tushes had never been cut. _________ long the other animals began to arrive and make ________ comfortable after their different fashions. First came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, and _______, and then the pigs, who settled down in the ______ immediately in front of the platform. The hens________ themselves on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, the sheep and cows lay down _______ the pigs and began to chew the cud. The two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking ______ slowly and setting down their vast, hairy hoofs with great care lest there should be some ______ animal concealed in the straw. Clover was a stout motherly mare approaching middle life, who had never quite got her ______ back after her fourth foal. Boxer was an ________ beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ________ horses put together. A white ________ down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was universally ___________ for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work. After the horses came __________, the white __________, and Benjamin, the donkey.

(3) Word Code puzzles (A) and (B) for Chapter 1: Find out which number represents which alphabet in the two grids given below. Clues for both grids: (1) Most words are from Animal Farm Chapter 1. (2) The longest word is COMMUNICATE. (3) The Code # 1 = E for Grid (A) and Code # 2 = E for Grid (B).

Grid (A): Longest word is COMMUNICATE. Code # 1 = “E”

Grid (B): Longest word is COMMUNICATE. Code # 1 = “E”

(4) Questions requiring written answers:

(a) What is Old Major’s dream?

(b) Imagine you are in Government. How would you set about designing a society where everyone is equal? Do we need to be ‘equal’ in wealth? or ‘equal’ in education? or ‘equal’ in opportunity?

(c) Where does this story take place?

(d) What do the animals think of Major’s speech?

(e) What do you think has happened to Mr. Jones?

Watch out for our notes and exercises on Chapter 2 coming soon.