Faculty of Letters, Arts & HumanitiesManouba

Department of English--2013-2014
George Orwell: Animal Farm and 1984
Instructor: Ben Beya
Animal Farm

I. Animal: Philosophical Tradition

a. Aristotle

Human beings are by nature political animals, because nature, which does nothing in vain, has
equipped them with speech, which enables them to communicate moral concepts such as justice
which are formative of the household and city-state (Politics)
The city-state is a creation of human intelligence. Therefore, everyone naturally has the impulse for
such a [political] community, but the person who first established [it] is the cause of very great
benefits. This great benefactor is evidently the lawgiver (nomothets), for the legal system of the
city-state makes human beings just and virtuous and lifts them from the savagery and bestiality in
which they would otherwise languish (Politics).
Man is by nature a social animal. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-
sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.
(Politics)
Humans are rational animals (Politics)
A human is an animal that laughs. (Politics)
Many animals have memory; but no other creature except man can recall the past at will (History
of Animals)

b. Descartes:

for Descartes human being is explicable in terms of a res cogitans (a thinking thing. What is of
interest in Descartes formulation is the way in which the animal and the human are juxtaposed in
terms of a relationship between thinking (for Descartes this is existing) on one side and both life
and feeling on the other. The animal is introduced at the moment which concerns the relationship
between the infinite and the finite, the particular and the Universal:

One does not define man as a laughing animal (animal risible) but rational (rationale).
the greatest of all the prejudices that we have taken from our childhood is that beasts
think [bruta animantia cogitare].We can strongly conceive a continuous body (corpus
continuum) of indeterminate or indefinite size, in which only extension to the universal
and infinite is considered. (Treatise on Animals)

C. Heidegger:

it might be said that Man (homo) is a rational animal: Man is the animal that represents, imagines
and performs. The mere animal, a dog for example, can neither position itself, nor conceive of itself
before something for this end it must, the animal must, perceive itself. It cannot say I; It cannot
name itself; above all, it cannot say anything. (Being and Time)

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 d. Christian Theology:
Adam Names the Animals: Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and
every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man He created in His own image to see what he
would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave
names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field 1 (Genesis 2:20)
International Standard Version
The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds that fly, and to each of earth's animals.
King James Bible
And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.

e. A Synthesis:

King James (ruled 1567-1625)

As the Father of his fatherly duty is bound to care for the nourishing, education, and
virtuous government of his children, even so is the king bound to care for all his subjects
King and country are head and body. The head cares for the body, so doth the king for his
people I am the Husband, and the whole isle is my lawful wife; I am the Head, and it is
my Body. What God hath conjoined, let no man separate." (King James I, Political Works
(1597)

Analysis

King James's ruling statement is interesting for its illustration of the patriarchal hierarchical system. God,
Adam, king, duke, noble, the Renaissance world is organised in terms of production and reproduction.
From high to low, from top to bottom, the hierarchy is set for the rule of authority. In James I's example,
the organisation of an ideal state system is fed, and in turn feeds, the patriarchalism of the family. If the
king establishes himself as the father of his country, then the male parent will be his "magistrate" and
the children their respective obedient "subjects." The king provides the law that stems from a higher
authority (God), and the father will see to it that this law is reproduced within the family. The father is
king in his miniature realm. The corporealiazation of the patriarchal structure --head and body-- is used
so that the hierarchical system appears familiar and natural. As the head stands over the body, so should
the king over the country, the husband over the wife, the father over the children, the Landlord over his
land and stock, etc.. Such construction is empowered by the metaphor --the king is head-- which
naturalises its functioning: the husband and father is the indisputable lord, with the absolute authority
of a despot, over his wife and children. To legitimise his power, he frames the territory of interaction
within his family, and traces the boundaries of proper behaviour that should not be crossed. Hence,
those who are owned are merely expected to be obedient and loyal to the one who stands as the
unchallenged legislator.

II. Post-humanist Revival of Animality

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Just for fun: but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a
woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. (Genesis: 2:21)
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A specter haunts Western philosophical tradition: it is the specter of the animal. Since Plato and
Aristotle, investigations have continued in order to establish either the radical differentiation between
beasts and humans or the negotiation of the recognition mans animal humanity, a humanity that may
not be attained until the former is repressed, if not eradicated. Such positions led to the birth and
glorification of humanism as a system of thought that rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans
and their moral values, rational capacities, and worth. Yet, after World War II, and the disasters that
were brought about, a form of anit-humanism emerged and developed in a move of intellectual
condemnation against the upheavals that shook the world. A return to the animal was the latest form of
opposition to Western humanism which was seen at the origin of the damage inflicted upon the earth
and humanity all together. Derridas The Animal That Therefore I Am (2008) was pivotal as a post-
humanist philosophical intervention, where he shows the limitations within the enlightenment project
that acclaimed mans capacity to achieve mastery and ownership of Nature.

Derrida seeks to voice-in/out human inherent relation to animals. To do this, he coins the word
animot, not to show that animals speak or write but to insist on a particular form of language that they
write even though they lack that form of articulation/articulacy proper to humans. If they do not speak,
either, he insists, they cannot be said to be mute. Seeking the animot that rhymes with animaux
turns out to be seeking vainly a singular (word/mot) in the plurality of the species (animaux). There
is here the affirmation that speech, writing, language are not the proper characteristics of the human.
There is, for Derrdia, animal speech; animal writing. Should we believe Darwinists, were not our
ancestors animals; are we not their descendants; are they not our generic habitat, the trace of our
being. Derrida is not resisting the erasure of animals difference; he is not trying to reinscribe their
presence; nor is he giving speech back to animals in a simple reversal of the philosophical tradition, but
rather, as the proximity between the seemingly contrary words mot and muet (mute) suggests in
French, in order to insist that words (mots) can be spelled out without a word the French language
uses the pseudo-Latin word motus to try and impose silence so that a cat, for instance, might be []
signifying in a language of mute traces, that is to say without words. (The Animal That Therefore I Am
18) Humanity needs to follow the trace of its animality to save life. Does not the figure animal express
the very trace of life, i.e. animation? then what this means is that when humans speak and writers
write, they do it in their identity as animals, living traces, living with traces, leaving traces. What if a
genius, say Orwell, were tempted to make animals speak like humans? What would this
anthropomorphic2 imitation be like? The parody, the irony, the satirical overtones, would signal human
depravity and horror, human deception and betrayal of the ideal.

III. Of fairy Stories/Fables

The title sets the genre of the narrative. It is a fable. With this very conventional label, readers expect
to read an allegorical narrative whose main protagonists are animals who speak. Fables, we all know,
contain a moral and/or didactic viewpoint either in praise of human virtues or in criticism of mans
follies. Contemporary scholars, however, seek to determine the relation between humanity and
bestiality. Evolutionists, psychologists, behaviorists, sociologists and even political theorists and
philosophers, who attempt to study the genesis of such complex connection, go as far back as classical
Greek debates about the matter. The common goal may be simply stated: coming to terms with human
evolution, or working through the beast-within to detect the function and characteristics of human
animality. No doubt, such endeavor announces a deconstructive move that aims at unsettling the
2
Anthropomorphism: the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object.

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traditional hierarchies and constructing a new idiom based on a non-hierarchical social and cultural
structure. The beast as other, as enemynow turns out to be intimately dwelling inside. The beast is
our repressed id/instinct/impulse.

Animal Farm

I. Of Man and Animals:

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night . but was too drunk to remember
to shut the popholes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across
the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the
scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mr.s. Jones was already snoring.

As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there was a stirring and a fluttering all through the farm
buildings. Word had gone round during the day that old Major, had had a strange dream on the
previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals. First came the three dogs, Bluebell,
Jessie, and Pincher, and then the pigs, who settled down in the straw immediately in front of the
platform. The hens perched themselves on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, the
sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and began to chew the cud. The two cart-horses, Boxer and
Clover, came in together, walking very slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great care lest
there should be some small animal concealed in the straw. Clover was a stout motherly mare
approaching middle life, who had never quite got her figure back after her fourth foal. Boxer was an
enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together. A
white stripe down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate
intelligence, but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of
work. After the horses came Muriel, the white goat, and Benjamin, the donkey. Benjamin was the
oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered. The two horses had just lain down when a brood
of ducklings, which had lost their mother, filed into the barn, . At the last moment Mollie, the foolish,
pretty white mare who drew Mr. Joness trap, came mincing daintily in, Last of all came the cat, who
looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover;
there she purred contentedly throughout Majors speech without listening to a word of what he was
saying. All the animals were now present except Moses, the tame raven, who slept on a perch behind
the back door.

A. The Figure of the Beast/Animal as Other: preliminary Investigations

Aanalysis1
With the Western philosophical tradition vis--vis animality in mind, the figure of the beast is
constructed/taken by the dominant establishment/convention to essentialize. Hence, anything/anyone
that stands beyond or out of the sphere/domain/territory of the dominant culture is given the figure of
other, of outsider , of enemy. Thus it is named and thus it is held to be excluded. naming in this
sense is exclusion. Naming is here like mapping. It aims at defining, limiting, relating the one who
defines to what is defined. Like its spatial counterpoint, it sets borders, frontiers of property and
belonging. The one who gives a name creates and appropriates the object, exactly like the one who
owns a space. At least at first glance, Mr. Jones is presented exactly in these terms. He is the owner of
the farm (the habitat) and all the creatures that occupy it. TAs the one who owns, he has rights of
property as master of the space, as legitimate Lord of the territory and its wealth/products. He is Adam
in his paradise. He names, calls and commands. Like mapping, then, naming holds, captures, frames

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and controls. In its relation to the definer, the named figure stands as the particular stands in relation
to the universal: Was not Adam commanded by God to give names to the beasts He formed, and
allowed ownership?

The text begins with Mr. Jones. He has precedence. He is the origin of the narrative. By leaving aside for
a while any ironic input to this position, the introduction of Mr. Jones as the first component of the
incipit indicates him as originator, and all that follows as derivative(s). This Adamic origin endows him
with the double position of proximity to creation/to beginning and distance/separation from the
surrounding. Mr. jones is in. The animal(s) is/are out, locked. This is the kind of relation between
interiority and exteriority; between the inside and the outside; between the human and the inhuman, in
short between the particular and the universal, which is abstracted from the particular even if it includes
it. Mr. jones (humanity:adam, man) is legitimately taking the position of the universal. He is one:
singular-universal. Follows then, the appearance of particulars, in their aberrant otherness. As
introduced above, this is analogous to the assumption held in traditional philosophy and theology in
which the abstract/the universal precedes differentiation. The animal being thus essentialised (in
Animal Farm, all animals, in the plural, become the animal, in the singular), is in turn, excluded from the
realm of humanity. The animal cannot be absorbed; may not be included; it may only be used. Humans
have only a pragmatic relation with animals, a relation of utility. Fundamentally, then, what marks out
the relation between human and non-human animal is that there is no relation; their relation is anon-
relation; it is a relation without relation (Blanchot). This form of the without relation is the only way
the relation to the animal is held in place by humans. AS Heidegger argues:

We keep domestic pets in the house with us, they live with us. But we do not live with them
if living means being in an animal kind of Way. Yet we are with them nonetheless. But this
being-with [Mitsein] is not an existing-with [Mitexistieren]because a dog does not exist but
merely lives. Through this being-with animals, we enable them to move in our world. That is
all. (The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, 50 )

B. Owner and Owned: Tyranny, or, The Pitafalls of Mastery

In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on
evil days. He had become much disheartened, and had taken to drinking more than was good for him.
For whole days at a time, he would lounge in his Windsor chair in the kitchen, drinking. His men were
idle and dishonest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing, the hedges were
neglected, and the animals were underfed.

Analysis II

In order to understand fully the issue of mastery in Animal Farm, and the rebellion that follows, an
initial focus on Mr. Joness recession into the lower status of humanity is revealing. Mr. Jones used
to be a hard master in full control of the land and animals under his possession. Mr. Jones
acquisition of such masterful management of his affairs was due to the triumph of the will as pre-
requisite for the achievement of control and domination. And indeed, as will seemed to triumph,
the without relation to animality was maintained, for once the will triumphs, then animality in
Man is overcome.

Yet, in this account he has turned truant to his public responsibilities as landlord for the sake of
pleasure and sensual comportment. Mr. Jones fails to correspond to the requirements of being
fully human, and in one decisive respect not wise or rational at all. This separates him further from
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 knowledge and will. He has grown a stranger to his estate, and seems to be unaware of the
consequences. In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel defines the sensual man by bringing him closer
to animality. For him, the sensual man , like the animal, is the one who has lost free will, and has
stumbled under the grip of the instincts. The without relation of man to animal fails as the former
gets the characteristics of the latter, which complicates mans being fully human. The sensual
man is here reformulated in terms of Mr. Joness collapse into the lowest state of human
animality, due mainly to the dominance of instincts and drives, and thus to the failure of the
will. The failure of the will is the triumph of the instincts and the drives, hence the triumph of
animality within Man.

Old Majors speech:

What is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born,
we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are
forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we
are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is
a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word. Man. Man is the only real
enemy we have. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He
sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving. Such is the
natural life of a pig. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end. You young porkers who are sitting in front of
me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year. To that horror we all must come, cows,
pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate. You, Boxer, the very day that those
great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you
down for the foxhounds. `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. All men are
enemies. All animals are comrades.'

Theoretical Support:

Essay Question
Study Animal Farm within the terms of the theoretical statements formulated below

A. Hegelian Dialectics:

1. Every form of consciousness, in realising itself, at the same time abolishes and transcends itself, has for
its result its own negation --and so passes into a higher form. This is the very standpoint which is universal
first, considered in and for itself, shows itself to be the other of itself. Taken quite generally, this
determination can be taken to mean that what is at first immediate (in-and-for-itself) now appears to be
mediated, related to another ( the other of itself). Hence the second term (other) that has thereby come
into being is the negative of the first, and if we anticipate the subsequent progress, the first negative. But
the other is essentially not the empty negative, the nothing; it is rather the other of the first, the negative
of the immediate; it is therefore determined as the mediated --contains in general the determination of
the first within itself. Consequently, the first is essentially preserved and retained in the other: the
positive in its negative; it includes the positive within itself. The second determination, the negative or
mediated, is at the same time also the mediating element, since it includes within it itself and the
immediate whose negation it is. The second negative, the negative of the negative, reached in the
continuous process of negation, is the abolishing and transcending of the contradiction.. The negative of

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 the negative is immediately the positive, the identical, the universal. Now, more precisely, the third
(negative of negative) is the immediate resulting from the abolition and preservation of mediation, the
simple resulting from the abolition and preservation of difference, the positive resulting from the abolition
and preservation of the negative, the concept that has realised itself by means of its otherness and by the
abolition and preservation of this reality has become united with itself, and has restored its absolute
reality, its simple relation to itself. The universal is posited for itself as the universal and the identity of its
moments. (G. W. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic)

2. Lord/Master-Bondsman/Slave dialectics: synopsis

The master-bondsman relation is based on a primary conflict of recognition. The master does not recognise
the bondsman as independent self-consciousness; the bondsman struggles for that very recognition. Conflict
ceases when one protagonist submits to the other and becomes a slave. By recognising the master as master
and serving him in fear, the Hegelian slave moves away from selfish immediacy to one-sided universality (the
master's). The slave submits to a higher tyrannical law. According to Hegel, those "who remain slaves suffer
no absolute injustice; for he who has not the courage to risk his life to win freedom, that man deserves to be
a slave." (Philosophy of Mind). Therefore, if the primal master-bondsman struggle, does not lead to freedom,
then a secondary struggle must take place for true universality and mutual recognition to be obtained. The
secondary struggle must recommence the primary struggle so that the master is compelled by the slave to
recognise their mutual freedom. The secondary struggle differs from the first, however, because the slave
now recognises both his own and the master's mortality and humanity. The slave is fighting for the triumph
of human rationality, not domination. This is the leap from the particular (primary struggle) to the universal
that it implicitly is, in the dialectic process of negation and reconciliation .

3. Western History is a history of 'waste and blindness,' as the crimes perpetrated against powerless
humanity annihilate any basis for a belief in positive history, and thus precludes synthesis. They then
precipitate a retrogression in the structure of dialectics, a return to the original structure of the master-slave
dialectic as it appeared in Hegel's writings. This retrogression in turn challenges the historical manifestations
of synthesis which caused difference to perish rather than creating a union that accommodated contraries. (
Adorno and 'A writing of the Ruins 59)

B. Tyranny:

According to Aristotle, the brutish mode of tyranny aims at making the ruled not only distrust the ruler but
also one another, and tyranny cannot be overthrown or eliminated until persons are able to trust one
another:

Everything is done to make all as ignorant of one another as possible, since knowledge tends to create trust
of one another . . . a tyranny will not be overthrown before persons are able to trust each other hence they
make war on the respectable as being harmful to their rule because they claim not to merit being ruled in the
fashion of the master. Their failure or success depends on their degree of mutual trust, i.e. because they are
trustworthy, both among themselves and with respect to others, and will not denounce one another or
others. (Aristotle, Politics)

C. Pascals Penses: Justice, force

Il est juste que ce qui est juste soit suivi; il est ncessaire que ce qui est le plus fort soit suivi.

La justice sans la force est impuissante, la force sans la justice est tyrannique.
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La justice sans force est contredite, parce quil y a toujours des mchants qui le font. La force
sans la justice est accuse. Il faut donc mettre ensemble la justice et la force, et pour cela faire
ce qui est juste soit fort ou que ce qui est fort soit juste.

La justice est sujette dispute. La force est trs reconnaissable et sans dispute. Aussi on na pu
donner la force la justice, parce que la force a contredit la justice et a dit quelle tait injuste,
et a dit que ctait elle qui est juste.

Et ainsi ne pouvant faire que ce qui est juste ft fort, on a fait que ce qui est fort ft juste.

English translation
(Justice, force. It is just that what is just is followed; it is necessary that what is strongest is
followed.

Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

Justice without force is contradicted, because there are always evil ones who do just that; force
without justice is condemned. It is necessary therefore to combine justice and force, and for this
end make what is just strong, or what is strong just.

Justice is subject to dispute; force is easily recognised and is not disputed. Thus we cannot give
force to justice, because force has contradicted justice, and has said that it was unjust and has said
that it is she herself who is just.

And thus being unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.

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 Analysis1

1. Tyranny, Force, Justice

The initial situation in Animal Farm sets the threshold to the subsequent development of the dialectical
relation. The path to freedom requires an objective analysis of the dystopic condition and the strategies
designed to overcome it. This condition, as Old Major recounts it, is presented in terms of terror
brought about by Mr. Joness tyrannical rule. The farm animals seek justice, as an ideal, which seems to
be hindered/thwarted and thus deferred by the landlords despotic practices, mainly based on the use of
force. Before investigating the play of negativity which constitutes the dialectic, a preliminary critical
dtour on Pascals complex imbrications between justice and force is necessary. Such endeavor,
reinforced by Aristotles political thought on the matter, requires the examination of Pascals abstract
statement in order to check its material or practical correspondence to the situation in Orwells
narrative.

The animals have lived under the threat of misery and the necessity to survive. Some even have taken
their condition for granted; some others have considered the without relation as part of the workings
of nature, and therefore as justice. Hierarchy here is perceived by them as the norm in the natural
order of things. So far, in the terms of Pascal, Mr. Joness authority is recognized and accepted by all (La
force est trs reconnaissable et sans dispute). It is indisputable because it manifests itself, not in the
form of benefit for the ruled but for its own judgment and profit, a profit consolidated by the sheer
use of force:

The uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who sprang out of bed. He seized the gun which always stood in a
corner of his bedroom, and let fly a charge of number 6 shot into the darkness. The barn and the
meeting broke up hurriedly. Everyone fled to his own sleeping-place. The birds jumped on to their
perches, the animals settled down in the straw, and the whole farm was asleep in a moment.

As a despot, then, the landlord clearly bases his rule on the single use of threat. In political philosophy,
the farmers kind of government is akin to the Aristotelian definition of anti-constitutional or pre-political
tyranny whose unrighteousness is most pernicious when possessed of weapons, which it is possible to
employ, not for wisdom and virtue but entirely for the opposite ends.

What is the nature of this life of ours? Thus sets Old Major the animal condition in the form of a
question, and immediately starts to define it as framed in the simple truth of misery and slavery, that
is, in the absence of decency and freedom which find their foundation and origin in the practices of
tyranny. The animal question, then, is a question of justice whose implementation is made impossible
by force. In his Politics, Aristotle declares that tyranny, which is monarchy based on force,
irresponsible and selfish, is preserved only through coercion. In Pascals statement above, echoing
Aristotles, force and justice are juxtaposed as incompatible. Yet, paradoxically, they also seem to be
complementary. Justice without force, Pascal notes, is powerless and force without justice is
tyrannical. This means that not only is the former necessary for the actualization of the latter but also
that force without justice is bound to be no more than harsh repression (Aristotle). Such is the fate of
the animals in Orwells fable. Mr. Joness rule only rests upon force. Force, coercion, is the unique and

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single mechanism for his autocratic authority. As lord, as master, as tyrant, he is not concerned with the
welfare of his animals but is merely fed by his selfish drives. To this sort of tyranny, Aristotle notes,
must necessarily belong a monarchy that exercises irresponsible rule over subjects with a view to its own private
interest and not in the interest of the persons ruled . It is actually this very without relation which
constructs the gap between the one and the many, i.e. between the one who exploits, oppresses and
even guiltlessly murders, and the many who are determined as beasts of labor, beasts of use, utility and
exchange; the many against whom autocratic authority is held and maintained. Yet, as Aristotle concludes,
since no free man willingly endures such rule, a change of focus is bound to transpire, a new spirit necessarily
emerges from the very force which deters its becoming.

The truth, then, about Mr. Joness shameless and guiltless brutality against animals would be, in Jacques
Derridas gripping text, The Animal That Therefore I Am, the truth about humanity at large in its lasting
obsession with animality (its own perhaps). The assault turns out to be provoked by mans inability to
admit that what he hysterically reproduces as radical Otherness is actually the mask he failingly hides.
Humanism, for Derrida, is the very mask that serves to camouflage that projection. By separating
anything human from animal, by excluding the latter from everything that is exclusively human
(speaking, thinking, and above all suffering), man rescues himself from guilt and therefore provides
himself with the rationale of domination, exploitation and slaughter. What Derrida calls la pense de
lanimal is in fact his way to urge man to think otherwise, to think in favor of difference, of the freedom
of otherness, and the respect of all kinds of otherness. Echoing Aristotle above, such urge is symbolically
expressed in Animal Farm through the voice of the animal, Old Major, who says: no to violence, no to
oppression, no to suffering, and yes to freedom.

Old Majors political discourse does not only list the masters horrendous deeds but also aims to provoke
the animals hatred of the oppressor and to feed their anger. Hatred and anger are essential ingredients that
help nourish disgust and instigate the revolutionary process, leading to radical change. Defense of anger is
well-articulated in Aristotles Rhetoric, Ethics, and Politics, where anger felt at the right time, in the right
place, and in the right manner is evidence of an independent and virtuous spirit. Anger safeguards
political liberty as it reacts to injustice with the privilege of the few at the expense of an unfair treatment
of the many.3 The absence of anger, he also warns, might conversely show a slavish character of those
who are unable to stand up for themselves or for the freedom of their countrymen. This Aristotelian view
is most clearly delineated in the definition of the figure of anger in his statement: Let anger, then, be
desire, accompanied by pain, for revenge for an obvious belittlement of oneself or of ones dependents,
the belittlement being uncalled for (Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.2). In contrast to accounts of anger that stress
its irrationality, this figure clearly positions the passion as being both personal and political. It is about a
present/past of obvious/uncalled for belittlement and the compulsive desire for revenge. Old
Majors legitimate and long-borne grudge against Mr. Jones is what explains the emphasis he puts on
enmity and hatred.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines hatred as an emotion of extreme dislike or aversion; detestation,
abhorrence. Hate would be then an affect of the most radical ill-feeling that can be felt toward someone.
The Oxford English Dictionary also defines the verb to hate as to hold in very strong dislike; to detest; to

3
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sums up the classical ideal of emotional moderation: Now we praise a man who feels
anger on the right grounds and against the right persons, and also in the right manner and at the right moment for the right
length of time. Anger, kept within its proper bounds by reason and the will, delimited by multiple considerations of
rightfulness and kept beneath the level of irrational overflow, helps define and defend the self.
10
bear malice to. Aristotles comments on feelings is entirely appropriate Old Majors. In the
Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle classifies hate as a passion or feeling. Feelings, I mean, for example,
desire, anger, fear, envy, courage, gladness, friendly feeling, hatred, longing, emulation, pity, and, in
general, whatever is accompanied by pleasure or pain (N.E 38; II:v.2). To those who quickly display
their anger and do with it, Aristotle opposes those who remain bitter for a long time. There are the
bitter, he writes, who are implacable and nurse their wrath for a long time. The bitter person contains
his grief. He continues to labor under it and, since he does this in secret, he cannot find anyone to argue
him out of his resentful mood, and it takes him a long time to digest his spleen (100; V:10). Resentment
of this kind is lasting, for the subjects rightful reaction is hate wedded to a patient consideration for cold
revenge. With this political interaction, we come to see that Old Majors speech underlies layers of
intentions, made up of the stones of indignation which feed the victims dream to construct their utopian
city of liberation.4

2. Old Majors Founding Principles of the Ideal State

As Old Majors speech illustrates, the gap widens when a new conscience is awakened and an alternative
project is sought. Mr. Jones is declared enemy and all the animals are friends/Comrades who would
seek to get rid of the burden of slavery by overthrowing tyranny. It is this very common mistrust of Mr.
Joness despotic government that has awakened their mutual trust, perceived as a threshold to their
will for the actualization of a just ideal State. A new force is thus born out of the solidarity of the
different members of the oppressed community. Mr. Joness rule is abolished because it is self-sufficient,
self-oriented, and self-centered. It is, in short, a rule without friends (Aristotle), and friends are those
without whom, no one would wish to live, even if he possessed all other goods. By basing the
structural foundations of his utopian dream on friendship/Comradeship, Old Major radically abolishes
the masters egotistic and coercive realm of authority. The animals, therefore, are about to move from a
state of voluntary or forced servitude, and to set the foundational stones of one ideally based on
freedom and equality, acquired through the emerging communitys combination of the project of justice
with the force of friendship. Old Majors All animals are Comrades, later to be transformed into all
animals are equal is a decisive claim that blends the political community to its political project. In this
respect, Pascals emphasis that one needs to combine justice and force, and for this end make what is
just strong, or what is strong just may here be further corroborated by Aristotles view wherein lies the
claim that it is natural for what is just to increase together with friendship, on the grounds that justice
and friendship are present among the same subjects and are coextensive. (Nicomachean Ethics) As an
alternative world to Mr. Joness self-absorption and selfishness, the political State, as old Major
conceives it, is a one that takes its force from partnership. Old Majors dream-State cannot survive
without partners that agree to contribute in its construction. As such, it is thus decisively relational.
For each individual, Aristotle maintains, must be related to the whole state as other parts are to their
whole, and

the man who first unites people in such a partnership is the greatest of benefactors. For as
man is the best of the animals when perfected, while a man who is incapable of entering
into partnership, or who is so self-sufficing that he has no need to do so, is no part of a state,
so that he must be a lower animal; so he is the worst of all when sundered from law and
justice. (Politics)5

4
This is recently addressed by Mark S. Ferrara, Blakes Jerusalem as Perennial Utopia, Utopian Studies. Vol. 22.1 (January
2011).
5
In Nicomachean Ethics, justice may mean either lawfulness or fairness, alternatives that Aristotle classifies under the
respective headings of general and particular justice. Accordingly, there are two different, though related, characteristics in
the case of justice: general justice as lawfulness is complete virtue, understood as the sum of all the virtues directed toward
11
Old Major is the farm animals greatest of benefactors. His speech sets the tone for a new vision since
it contains all the ingredients that help to frame and complicate the animal question as an instance of
the great and horrendous wrongs (force) done by Mr. Jones to his animals (slaves). Because of these
wrongs, a situation of mistrust is established wherein animals start to imagine means of liberation and
the construction of a utopian project (justice). What should be noted already at this stage is the fact
that dystopia (force) in-and-for-itself is negated internally by what it is not, i.e. a some kind of utopia
(Old Majors animalist dream) is Presented by the very power that absents it. In a word, what is
(force) gives birth, feeds what is not/ what ought to be (justice).

And indeed, if Mr. Joness power is presence, then absence of the animals from its space or interests is
its negation. Absence is a source of transformation. Non-being (what is not) is presented as becoming.
Old Majors speech announces change in terms of a process or movement in which a thing becomes
something else, and in that process ceases to be what it was. Only get rid of Man is the commandment
that announces the injunction. By this act, what the animal/slave was is already no more and has been
absented through the process of change. This inevitable processual quality of being, linking it to the
negation in change, is what ties being to becoming. Becoming is the absenting of what was
( oppression/tyranny/dystopia) in favor of the emergence of what now is, what now is going, is
becoming (utopian dream of freedom).

Old Majors dream is not for him to realize. It is for those who survive after his death. And indeed, as a
philosopher, he is a political thinker, an advisor, and may be here considered as a founding father of the
ideal State. As a utopist, he is a diagnostician who notices the social dis-ease around him, and produces
appropriate therapeutic doses. As such, utopian thinking is essential for the social, political and
psychological health of his fellow creatures.6

Utopianists map out what ought to be from a critical observation of what is. Since its inception,
utopian thought has been testimonial and projectional, ranging from Platos Republic, to Thomas Mores
Utopia, to Marxs practical The German Ideology (and by far The Manifesto). As Old Majors speech
illustrates, utopian thought is testimonial in that it examines the faultiness in what there is, detects the
real historical worlds wrongdoings and failures, is outraged by its excessively dehumanizing principles,
critiques its unethical practices, and sets for an equitable alternative. As such, that is, as critical and
transformative, this thought is committed to break through the status quo, to imagine, design a social
and political cartography aimed at constructing a better world. Utopias, Peter G. Stillman notes,
explore what is not, portraying in some detail the principles and practices of one or more alternative
societies ; they examine what is, surveying contemporary societys norms, practices, and possibilities
for change ; and they ask about the relation of what is to what is not, about the possibility of effects,
and desirability of various changes. Utopias involve a process of critical reflection (about the ideals
of contemporary society) that can lead to thoughtful action. [F]or many utopians, the central
concern is the process of raising and reflecting on alternatives, thinking about the present in light of
them, and acting where warranted. 7

the good of another; and particular justice, understood as equality or fairness, is the proper disposition concerning the goods
security, money, and honor-in which all who belong to the political community must share.
6
Lyman Tower Sargent, The Necessity of Utopian Thinking, in Yrn Rsen, Michael Fehr and Thomas W. Rieger, eds.,
Thinking Utopia, Steps into Other Worlds (New York: Berghan Books, 2005).
7
Barbara Goodwin, ed., The Philosophy of Utopia (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001)
12
Thus was already the structural frame of Thomas Mores Utopia, as narrated by the voyager Raphael
Hythloday. Asked to relate his adventures, Raphael begins with a critique of the English harsh
institutional disciplinary practice, which radically gets rid of thieves by inflicting capital punishment on
them, so as to save private property from further potential threat. From this, he moves to the
description of the alternative space of Utopia in the second Book, a space which is described as the
Other World, as a no place (U-topos) but also as a Eu-topos, a place of happiness of the Other. 8
Located in the not here/not now, or in a Blochian noch nicht (the still not or not yet)9, utopia is
hopeful by determination. It is where it is not; born out of lack, it survives through desire.

Yet, the combination of two seemingly opposed spaces in the concept of utopia requires more focus.
One of the two meanings refers to a place which is topographically determined as better, in comparison
to another viewed as bad. It, therefore, clearly denotes a place which may be rationally imagined as
possible. The second, however, refers to a no-place, to a place of negativity, which renders it more
problematic, for it is hard to conceive of something that is defined by its opposite (negative). Yet,
nothingness seems to hover between radical negation (or is it absence?) and desire. When we get to
know, as Ernest Bloch notes, that nothingness incorporates emptiness, the site of deprivation, and, at
the same time, indicates an explosive force against the abyss of that very deprivation, we come close
to a fuller appreciation of the apparent contradiction. The no-place, indeed, manifests itself as a No to
a place, hence its revolutionary tenet. Bloch convincingly argues that The No to the bad situation which
exists, is actually the very articulation of the Yes to the better life that hovers ahead.10 Negativity,
absence, thus, is the very expressive energy of affirmation.

Absence here is present in the form of negativity and negation that constitute Old Majors speech and
announce the movement from one state to another. Absence is in the overall ontology of change (the
absenting of the old in the emergence of the new). It is therefore at the core of the dialectical sense of
being. It is here in Old Majors ethics as the dialectics of agency, as the absenting of Mr.Joness ruthless
constraints upon freedom. Every process of becoming involves the determinate absenting of the old in
favor of the determination of the new in our imaginary. Jacques Ehrmann pointly remarks in his analysis
of the tragic and utopian sides of history that it is not this world, our world, which gives its meaning to
the other world, to utopia, but rather it is our possibility of imagining another world which gives
meaning to our own. Our world is thus but the reverse side of the other world, that world of happiness,
the only world living, the only real world.11

8
David W. Sisk, in his Transformations of Language in Modern Dystopias. (London: Greenwood Press, 1997) states
that:

Dystopian fiction owes More a great debt, as Mores coinage has given its name to the genre of works
concerned with perfect societies. Works that react against them are therefore anti-utopias, and some of them
are dystopias. Although More wrote in Latin, the name he gave to his book and to the fictitious country
described in it combines two Greek terms, ou (not) and topos (place)--literally, no place. The Latin word
utopia has the same pronunciation in Greek and, if transliterated into , the first syllable becomes eu
(good), thereby changing the meaning to good place. Utopia, then, is simultaneously a good place and no
place. Robert C. Elliott credits More with punning for satiric effect: The two senses--the one associated with
escape into the timeless fantasies of the imagination, the other with the effort to construct models of the ideal
society, whether in fiction or otherwise--are inextricably bound up in our use of the term today.

9
Ernest Bloch, The Principle of Hope (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). Cited by Barbara Goodwin, ed., The Philosophy of
Utopia (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001)
10
Ernest Bloch, The Principle of Hope, trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1986)
11
Jacques Ehrmann; Jay Kaplan (trans.), The Tragic/Utopian Meaning of History, Yale French Studies N 96 (1999).
13
At the assembly, Old Major majestically relates the terrors of his past in the farm to the young and old in
terms of dignity, honor and pride. He is one of those rarest species who learns the harsh lessons of life
and puts his knowledge in the service and benefit of others for the betterment of their lives. Old Majors
speech is one that expresses the perfection reached by an enlightened benefactor, positioning himself
under a lantern which hung from a beam. Methodically structured, his language bears the signs of
design of what ought to be done for a successful revolution to be guaranteed. Old Major is no prophet
here. He is a scientist who presents the theoretical ingredients for the realization of his dream,
ingredients that put the process of the foundational structure of the new State in motion. By declaring
that all the farm animals are comrades, he, in one blow, destroys Mr. Joness individualistic system. All
animals are free, however, is not something that is so easily gained. It needs to combine the
solidarity/friendship/comradeship with the force of will, the will-to-freedom. And remember,
comrades,, he urges, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray. Besides,
and above all, for a just and ideal State to emerge, one should consider the teachings at hand of the
myriads of historical struggles with their defeats and partial success. Such records are kept intact in Old
Majors memory. First-hand testimony comes through art, through his recollections of the harmonious
choral singing of Beasts of England by his family and ancestors:
Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time.

Soon or late the day is coming,

Tyrant Man shall be oerthrown,
And the fruitful fields of England
Shall be trod by beasts alone.

Art is cathartic. It is the combination of pain and pleasure in catharsis that reduces the acuity and
sharpness of the worlds ordeals, and even purges and cleanses the spirit from impurities and
corruption. Revolutionary art (be it formal, popular or folkloric) is the weapon of the oppressed, set
against the sword or the gun of their oppressors. Revolutionary art is part and parcel of the Long Road to
Freedom, to the better world of justice. The alternative world of Utopia is sung in unison by all who, in
their being distinct and different, in their singular particularity turn into one totality, into a whole
fashioned by the power of artistic imagination. Actually, it is through imagination, as Erhmanns
statement above shows, that a utopian reality is constructed, a utopian reality that Adorno locates in
the realm of art as a production of a negative dialectics of what is at a particular historical moment.
For him, works of art are not a mere replica of the empirical world, but rather dynamic constant
counter-images of what is denied in the social world. As he writes, works of art are counter after-
images of the empirically living, inasmuch as they offer to the latter what outside is denied them. ... Art
should assist the non-identical, which coerced identity in reality represses. 12

All in all, if Mr. Jones were to stand unrightfully as the oppressive father, then Old Major would
indisputably be qualified as the father liberator who legitimately seeks to free his fellow creatures of the
farm from the grip of destitution. Presented as a good, virtuous and wise patriarch, Old Major
undeniably stands beyond comparison to the ruthless and irresponsible master, Mr. Jones. As a
revolutionary thinker, Old Major lays the principal foundations for a non-hierarchical society to come,
foundations listed under a few constitutional principles to remember and to implement:

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you
12
Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory (London: Routledge, 1986).
14
 have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or
wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of
Man are evil. And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever
or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.

3. Animal Farms Utopia: A Critical Diagnosis

A sympathetic reading often takes the narrator as a reliable guide to the meaning of her story, accepting
her perception as more or less factual observation, or even identifying with her point of view. A
symptomatic reading, on the contrary, is often at odds with the notion that critical reading is simply a
highly sensitized perception of what a text contains. Its purpose is exactly to see what the text does not
say or even hides from itself. Michelle Boulous Walker explains symptomatic reading as a process
whereby the texts non-vision or silence is brought as a component of its message, and hence ends up
speaking or demonstrating its vision or voice. This, she states, make[s] us see what the text itself says
while not saying it, or does not say while saying it. Michelle Boulous Walker, Philosophy and the
Maternal Body (London: Routledge, 1998)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Animal Farm,.

1. 2 Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a
strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals. Old Major
(so he was always called, though the name under which he had been exhibited was Willingdon Beauty)
was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hours sleep in order to
hear what he had to say.
At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised platform, Major was already ensconced on his bed of
straw, under a lantern which hung from a beam. He was twelve years old and had lately grown rather
stout, but he was still a majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact
that his tushes had never been cut. (continued: See course notes p. 4 above)
2. First came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher, and then the pigs, who settled down in the
straw immediately in front of the platform.
3. All animals are comrades. At this moment, there was a tremendous uproar. While Major was
speaking four large rats had crept out of their holes . The dogs had suddenly caught sight of them, and
it was only by a swift dash for their holes that the rats saved their lives. Major raised his trotter for
silence.
4.Comrades, he said, the wild creatures, such as rats and rabbitsare they our friends or our
enemies? Let us put it to the vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are rats comrades? The vote
was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There were
only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on
both sides.

Question
Continue the section below by providing a symptomatic reading of the extracts
selected above.
15
 Analysis 2

The atmosphere of the meeting may inarguably be judged as one corresponding to the ideal State
which is being inaugurated. Old Majors speech is favorably received by all his comrades. An
ambiance of friendship reigns among the animals. Best of all, Old Major seems to initiate his
comrades into communal decision-taking. Equality among different social groups favors the
establishment of a deliberative democratic system. Before laws are implemented, a consensus is to
be reached among all the partners that make up the polis. This is why, to reach agreement about
whether the rats should be considered comrades or not, he proposes to put the question to the
vote.

Moreover, immediately after Old Majors death, the animals succeeded in overthrowing Mr. Jones out
of the Manor Farm, changed its name into Animal Farm, and turned Old Majors teachings into
constitutional laws. Down to mid-chapter III, all seems to be moving fast towards the celebration of a
new era of happiness and pleasure. Without the grudging master, the new animals are now
enjoying their labor and equally sharing the fruits of their products:

The animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful of
food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their own food, produced by
themselves and for themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master.

However, a symptomatic reading of this part of the narrative reveals signs that need to be considered.
The signs are discreet markers. In the short hermeneutic game, just done above, our sympathetic
reading has attempted to work through what the text provides, by highlighting the elements that
reveal the meaning of the story in accordance with the perceivable objective situation. This
presupposes that the narrative space is clearly drawn, transparent, and that it presents no difficulty
in framing or comprehending it. Defined in these terms, a sympathetic reader observes, explores,
charts, and finally brings under control in view of exposing the overall idea or message of the
narrative. A symptomatic reading, on the other hand, may seek other traces that the first reading
neglects or happens to miss. Because marks/signs may not be decipherable, because their
meaning may not be easily revealed, then their referential horizons may remain beyond the reach of
hermeneutic expectations, which renders the sympathetic reading partial or provisional. Seeking
what the text reveals without telling it or what it does not say by saying it constitutes the
hermeneutic game of the following section.

16