Animal Farm - Analysing the extract
The question
How does Orwell use the character of Old Major to highlight ideas about inequality in Animal Farm?
As part of your answer, you will need to analyse how Old Major鈥檚 speech highlights ideas about inequality on the farm.
Look again at the extract below with some highlighted points that you could write about in your answer. Think about what points Orwell is trying to make in this section about inequality.
"(1) Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired. (2) I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to speak to you.
Now, comrades, (3) what is the nature of this life of ours?Let us face it: our lives are (4) miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, (5) 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 (6) forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and (7) the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with (8) hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. (9) No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
(10) But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no!"
- (1) 'Comrades' - Old Major calls the other animals 'comrades'. This suggests that there is an 鈥榰s and them鈥 situation between the animals and humans, they are not equal.
- (2) 'I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall' - as we read on, we realise that there is an element of hypocrisy and inequality, even in what Old Major says.
- (3) 'what is the nature of this life of ours?' - Old Major gets the others to question the quality of their lives.
- (4) 'miserable, laborious, and short' - Old Major uses a rhetorical device, a triple, to emphasise how dreadful the animals' lives are. The language used is very emotive.
- (5) 'we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies' - this emphasises how little Mr Jones gives the animals.
- (6) 'forced to work to the last atom of our strength' - this is an effective image, it again emphasises how hard the animals work in comparison to the humans.
- (7) 'the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end' - using the word 'usefulness' makes the animals sound like they are merely products to be exploited.
- (8) 'hideous cruelty' - this is effective rhetoric - emotive language used to shock the audience, to emphasise the 'cruelty' of Mr Jones鈥 treatment of the animals.
- (9) 'No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.' - here Old Major uses a combination of rhetorical devices, emotive language and short sentences for impact and opinion presented as fact. All work to emphasise his point about inequality.
- (10) 'But is this simply part of the order of nature?' - here Old Major asks whether this inequality is a 鈥榥atural鈥 part of things, by this point the animals know the answer.