Humans since they began forming societies have concerned themselves with the thought and question of how we can perfect society into making it an ideal state. The word Utopia’s etymological roots go back to 1516 when Sir Thomas More used it in his book Utopia, which was a fictional work displaying an ideal society. George Orwell’s novel, Animals Farm, is a work that has a plot of animals attempting to develop a ideal society, but the work as a whole is dystopian, meaning it is making a case for the impossibility of an ideal or perfected society, since often time these societies forget to include the reality of human nature within their systems.
Animal Farm is about an old boar named Major who decides to break free from the rule of humans on the farm and then without the need for human interventions believes that life will be better, since humans only serve to oppress and control the other animals. His accusation against humankind is that “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits.” (Chapter 1, pg. 7).
The Major sees it as a problem that despite his having “enslaved” the animals, he give them the bare minimum and retains the fruits of their labor.
His basic premise is that, “All men are enemies. All animals are comrades." (Chapter 1, pg. 9).
The Major however, dies before his dream is every to be realized, and so three other pigs, Snowball, Napoleon and Squealer see his vision reach reality. And at first the farm does prosper, but eventually they are attacked again by the farmer, and despite that triumph find a power struggle ensuing between Napoleon and Snowball.
It is not necessarily the situaitons that happen of the windmill falling over, but it is how the blame is handed to Snowball and eventually he is run out of the farm. The instances that lead to the crumbling of this utopian society mirror themselves in the reality of political systems throughout the world. It is rarely the system that is at fault and more often the people who are operating the system.
This can be seen often in government, when an elected individual must try to appease a populace that does not always know what they want, or sometimes want conflicting things.
This idea of Utopia, avoids the reality that in any society people should strive for the best society they can have all the time knowing that it is impossible to achieve a perfect society or a Utopia. Part of the problem is that most Utopian societies desire an equality for all people, despite the fact that not all people are created equal. The central tenet of Animal Farm was that “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS" (Chapter 10, pg. 112). This is an illogical statement, but one that gets to the heart of why Utopian societies are cannot exist. Some people are more intelligent, more athletic, more attractive, more charismatics, etc., than other people. Obviously, they should be given the same opportunities as everyone else, but no one but the individual can ever be responsible for whether or not someone takes advantage of those opportunities.
Animal Farm’s main message is that there can be positive and good societies, but that that it is impossible for a Utopian Society to exist in the real world.
Work Cited
Orwell, George. Animal farm: a fairy story. London: Longman, 1960. Print.
