Blog Post Essay
3/2/15
Is Animal Farm still relevant today? Yes, and in a few ways. First, one element of the story is how power can corrupt any leader. Power hungry leaders are almost completely normal in our society today. Secondly the book has an element of human nature. Humans have a selfish side as shown by some of the animals, but also a caring side as shown by other animals. Finally, Animal Farm is relevant today because it has an element of propaganda. Propaganda is used in modern politics just like it was used in the book.
Animal Farm is relevant today because it has elements of power hungry leaders that is common in modern governments. The book is about farm animals who are tired of how they are treated by Mr. Jones (farmer), and overthrow him. Mr. Jones is the first example of corrupted power in animal farm, "...without bothering to feed the animals." Mr. Jones was an example of a cruel and unfair leader. An obvious example of this is modern government is Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. He is known for making changes that help him more than the people of his country
.
Another way Animal Farm is relevant today is it's demonstrations of human nature. Human nature by definition is the characteristics, behavior and feelings of the human race. The different characters in Animal Farm represent different sides of human nature. Napoleon is the selfish side. Humanity as a whole is selfish; everyone cares for themselves first. He mainly cares of himself, "Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the
wellbeing of a pig." He convinces all the animals that he needs the milk and apples to take them for himself. Boxer is the determined side, People can be stubborn, they can set their mind to something and get it done, boxer is a great example of this. "His answer to every problem, every setback, was "I will work harder!"which he had adopted as his personal motto" Boxer's only thing in mind is to work harder. Clover is the caring side of human nature. She cares for boxer and does everything to help him.
"A thin stream of blood had trickled out of his mouth. Clover dropped to her knees at his side." after boxer is hurt she helps him, and eventually tries to help him escape from the
'knackers'. Clover represents the opposite side of Napoleon.
The final way Animal Farm relates to real life is it's use of propaganda .
Propaganda is used all the time in todays government and society. "four legs good, two legs bad" and "Napoleon is always right" are two main examples of propaganda used in
Animal farm. This is relevant today because propaganda is everywhere. Politicians use propaganda to either boost your opinion of them or lower you opinion of their opponent.
For example, Napoleon is praised with “Napoleon is always right” and humans are put down with “four legs good, two legs bad.”
In conclusion, Animal Farm is very relevant today because it has many real life concepts. First the concept of power hungry leaders, who care of themselves more than their people. Secondly, it shows elements of human nature, through different characters throughout the book. Finally, because the way the animals use propaganda is very similar to the way politicians use it in modern politics. It may not seem like it, but Animal
Farm is extremely relevant today.
Sources http://www.123helpme.com/assets/5100.html http://kittychowanimalfarm.weebly.com/propaganda.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10522136/KimJongun10
waysNorthKoreasDearLeaderisdifferent.html
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