March 13th

Read over all of the following questions. Choose two questions to answer. 

Please write out a rough outline first on your document. Then type your response. When you are done with your response, go to the top of your response and write a few sentences introducing what you have discussed, ending with a topic sentence/thesis. Then, go to the end of your response and write a couple of sentences concluding your response. 

Your answers need to include specific/quoted details from the novel.  Please remember to introduce the quotes with a tag line... Boxer explains, "Napoleon is always right" (Orwell 33). Please, also, do the parenthetical citation correctly. I have demonstrated it above. Remember I.C.E.- Introduce. Contextualize/Cite. Explain. 

Utilize an MLA heading at the top, as well as a header/page numbers. You will also add as your last page, a work cited page in which you will cite Animal Farm. You will only have one source. A sample works cited page is found here: OWL Works Cited Page

You will upload your document with both outlines/responses to Google Classroom by the end of class tomorrow (Tuesday). 

1) "Surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?" (26). Throughout the animals' reign on the farm, Napoleon and Squealer dangle the possibility of Jones' return as a constant danger, keeping most of the other animals in fear, and thus, submission. Do you think that this was a valid threat? Do you feel that, overall, the animals were better or worse off once they were in control of the farm?

2) In chapter 1, Old Major expresses his vision of a society free of human influence and control. Compare and contrast this against what eventually plays out on Manor Farm once the animals have taken over. What, if any, concepts or goals remain the same?

3) In one of the first scenes in the novel, Old Major sings Beasts of England, effectively bringing the animals together under a common purpose. Indeed, throughout the initial struggle against Man, it is a wildly popular and inspirational song. Yet later on, when the animals have successfully conquered the humans, Squealer, "attended by two dogs," announces that Beasts of England had been abolished and "was no longer needed" (62). Why would the pigs no longer want the animals to sing this song?

4) Following the massacre of "guilty" animals at the hands of Napoleon and the other pigs, Clover reflects sadly on what she thought life should have been like on Manor Farm: "If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech" (61). Is Clover overly idealistic in feeling this way? Do you feel that such a community can exist?

5) Although Napoleon is considered the absolute Leader of Animal Farm, it is Squealer who is most adept at conveying the "party line" to the animals, often convincing them to disbelieve their own eyes. What methods does Squealer employ to deceive and/or placate the other animals? How does the concept of memory (or lack thereof) figure in Squealer's pronouncements and dealings with them?

6) The novel ends with a chilling passage, wherein Clover notices something odd about the humans and pigs meeting in the farmhouse: "Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which” (97). What is Orwell saying here? How do you interpret this final scene?

7) In reading Animal Farm, Lord Acton's famous pronouncement "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" may come to mind. How and why is this statement applicable to the course of events in the novel?

8) Among the various characters in the novel, whom do you feel is the noblest or most worthy? Which animal would be best suited to lead a group against Napoleon and the pigs? What qualities would this animal need to posses to do so?