In my reply at 1:00 in the morning last night to Tung's comment on Ploy's blog post "Do you know that pop song can cause ageing in elderly?" I start talking about Shakespeare's tragedies, which I hope no one thinks are positive, cheerful or happy (Peter F. AUA, 2016), That led naturally, at least in my responding brain, to Orwell's Animal Farm, which I also say is not so much a happy story as a very depressing one as our expectations based on the known history of the various political revolutions it can be interpreted as allegorizing must suggest. In the course of my response to Tung's thoughtful comment responding to Ploy's post and the subsequent discussion, I also suggest a Yes/No question about the novel.
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My Yes/No question is:
Compared with the end of chapter 3, have the animals' expectations changed at the end of chapter 5 of Animal Farm?
My answer is:
No, not really. Well, perhaps they are not exactly the same as they were two chapters earlier. A lot does happen in the action packed chapter 5, but on the whole, I think the animals' expectations are still pretty much what they were. Do you agree? If you agree, why? If you disagree, why?
A couple of notes:
If you use your own ideas in a later piece of work, you still have to cite yourself. When you cite a Blog post, comment or similar, use the author's name as shown on your source.
Although the use of bold formatting is common in textbooks, as we have seen already in Quest, it is not usual in academic writing. I did it in my Source Background section above for the same reasons that Hartmann and other textbooks do it: the word in bold is an important one for our writing exercise next week, as you will already have seen if you've looked ahead a little to Hartmann's Mechanics of Writing section for "States of Consciousness" (2007, pp. 157 - 160) and her following academic writing exercise (pp. 161 - 163).
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References
Peter F. AUA. (2016, March 13). Re: Do you know that pop song can cause ageing in elderly? [Blog comment]. Retrieved from http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2016/03/do-you-know-that-pop-song-can-cause.html?showComment=1457805110181#c219394083754342698
Animals' expectations remain the same but the pig's expectation changes. As Napolean is being the only leader of the farm in chapter 5, he expel Snowball as to gain superior power to control the whole farm for himself, thus thirsting for power and showing characteristics of dictator. On the other hand, other animals just follow the leader blindly because they think that their expectation of not having Mr Jones to come back will be completely fulfilled with the lead of Napolean as it is clearly stated in Squealer's speech in Animal Farm novel for several times: "you do not want Jones back?". Hence, generally, most animals' expectations remain unchanged while pigs are eager to seek for power.
ReplyDeleteNon's ideas here sound right. I also like the implied division in his first sentence of the animals into two groups. Do you agree with that? How strong is the evidence in chapter 5 and before?
ReplyDeleteThis question is number 13 on the set of questions I posted on chapters 4 - 5 over the weekend, so although we know much more having read what follows, the support for your ideas here should be taken from chapters 1 to 5 only, and Non does that.
I agree with all of you that their expectations (at the end of Chapter 5) are still pretty similar to the past ones (at the end of Chapter 3). The ideas in response to this were explained by Non very well with the clear evidences found in around chapter 4-5.
ReplyDeleteSo, what I might add on his ideas would be although the expectations remain unchanged, there seems to be some other signs of the donkey Benjamin which implied that their expectations seemed not plausible. As Benjamin dubiously indicates in lines 4-8 on page 20, any policies of Napoleon or Snowball concerning the construction of windmill will never improve their quality of life or wealth, but keep suffered as usual. Similarly, 4 paragraphs (starting from line 56 on page 20 to line 43 on page 21), line 21-30 (p.22), and the last paragraph of chapter 5 indirectly tell us important signs that the animal’s expectations, especially for equality, will never come true as the story continues.
I agree with all of you that their expectations (at the end of Chapter 5) are still pretty similar to the past ones (at the end of Chapter 3). The ideas in response to this were explained by Non very well with the clear evidences found in around chapter 4-5.
ReplyDeleteSo, what I might add on his ideas would be although the expectations remain unchanged, there seems to be some other signs of the donkey Benjamin which implied that their expectations seemed not plausible. As Benjamin dubiously indicates in lines 4-8 on page 20, any policies of Napoleon or Snowball concerning the construction of windmill will never improve their quality of life or wealth, but keep suffered as usual. Similarly, 4 paragraphs (starting from line 56 on page 20 to line 43 on page 21), line 21-30 (p.22), and the last paragraph of chapter 5 indirectly tell us important signs that the animal’s expectations, especially for equality, will never come true as the story continues.