How Does Orwell Explore the Theme of Education in 'Animal Farm'?
How Does Orwell Explore The Theme Of Education In Animal Farm?
‘All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others’. George Orwell writes this toward the end of his highly acclaimed allegory, Animal Farm. From this single statement we can tell quite a bit about Orwell’s views on education which he puts across strongly throughout the novel. A message I see that this statement portrays is that everyone has the right to an education but some people were getting a better education than others at the time. During this essay I will be arguing that George Orwell was critical of the education system in 1945 (the year the book was written) and that he aired his views, hidden as they were, in many places through the book.
One of the ways he used to put across his views was to use biblical references. Orwell was strongly anti-Christianity and he put this across in the novel partly through his reference to the bible’s ten commandments by creating a list of rules that the animals must live by entitled ‘The Seven Commandments’. ‘No animal shall kill any other animal without cause’. The last two words were added by Squealer under the orders of Napoleon, adding their own twist on Old Major’s original commandments thus tweaking them to their advantage. This was not the only commandment to be edited: in fact all of them were but only slightly, just enough so the pigs wouldn’t be breaking any and so the other animals wouldn’t notice. The pigs were able to use the fact that they were educated well as an advantage over the other animals in order to do what they liked and get away with it. The fact that Orwell used the commandments in this way, just that the pigs were changing them so regularly seemed to me rather disrespectful of the Christian faith and when seen like this, Orwell’s religious views are blatantly obvious. From this part of the book I remembered being taught about priests in the Anglo-Saxon times and how they had been educated well before beginning their
‘All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others’. George Orwell writes this toward the end of his highly acclaimed allegory, Animal Farm. From this single statement we can tell quite a bit about Orwell’s views on education which he puts across strongly throughout the novel. A message I see that this statement portrays is that everyone has the right to an education but some people were getting a better education than others at the time. During this essay I will be arguing that George Orwell was critical of the education system in 1945 (the year the book was written) and that he aired his views, hidden as they were, in many places through the book.
One of the ways he used to put across his views was to use biblical references. Orwell was strongly anti-Christianity and he put this across in the novel partly through his reference to the bible’s ten commandments by creating a list of rules that the animals must live by entitled ‘The Seven Commandments’. ‘No animal shall kill any other animal without cause’. The last two words were added by Squealer under the orders of Napoleon, adding their own twist on Old Major’s original commandments thus tweaking them to their advantage. This was not the only commandment to be edited: in fact all of them were but only slightly, just enough so the pigs wouldn’t be breaking any and so the other animals wouldn’t notice. The pigs were able to use the fact that they were educated well as an advantage over the other animals in order to do what they liked and get away with it. The fact that Orwell used the commandments in this way, just that the pigs were changing them so regularly seemed to me rather disrespectful of the Christian faith and when seen like this, Orwell’s religious views are blatantly obvious. From this part of the book I remembered being taught about priests in the Anglo-Saxon times and how they had been educated well before beginning their