Classics Without All the Class discussion

Why use animals and exaggeration instead of just writing a political essay?

Sometimes the truth is better received when the finger isn't pointed directly at you. Orwell does a fantastic job if driving his point home without really ever suing the blame game.

And it makes for a more interesting read. :)

I agree, Jessica! I love the imagery of using the animals. It takes real life, serious topics, and makes it sort of a cute fairy tale. I feel like you could read this book aloud to a child, and they'd fall in love with the imagery and the characters. Little do they know... ;)

The introduction to my copy went into quite a bit of detail actually explaining the fairy tale connection. Having never read this before I find it quite clever and entertaining. Way way better than 1984 in my opinion. I couldn't get into that one

Jessica wrote: "Sometimes the truth is better received when the finger isn't pointed directly at you. Orwell does a fantastic job if driving his point home without really ever suing the blame game.

And it makes..."

Travis of NNY wrote: "The introduction to my copy went into quite a bit of detail actually explaining the fairy tale connection. Having never read this before I find it quite clever and entertaining. Way way better th..."

I agree Travis, along those same lines I think that Orwell was trying to reinvent the Aesop's Fables which were always cationary tales in explained in the way of animals. I thought that Orwell was very clever in trying to reinvent something like the fables here

And like Jessica said, it makes for a much more interesting read. I mean if these were real people it would be quite bleak and boring, am-I-right?

I think I read the version which had real people. It was called history class. I was mostly asleep and drooling on my desk but during brief periods of consciousness I think this book was history many times over.

I think animals worked well allegorically for many reasons as already stated here. Something I noticed is the hierarchy of intelligence in the species and how they correspond to their human counterparts. Pigs are considered highly intelligent with dogs close behind. It makes sense that they would be the ones that plan and scheme (and lie and cheat). Of course these higher level thinking skills are only seen in people or perhaps some primates but if other animals were to have the ability to think this way, it would be pigs and dogs. Below them are horses who are not AS intelligent but they work really hard and persistently to get the job done with guidance. And on down the line to sheep who are really limited in intelligence and therefore serves as excellent vehicles for spitting out the messages that they heard over and over. That is about all they could do but they served a purpose for the pigs!

Beth sums it up pretty perfectly, I think. It's clear that Orwell knew what he was doing when he assigned the different species their roles in the story. As for using animals instead of people, I think it has a dual purpose: to both separate the readers from the story while simultaneously making them more aware of the similarities within their own world. Sortof like taking a step back from a situation and hearing it re-told by an outsider.