Open Prompt Response October 14:

Prompt:

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

Response:

     In the allegorical novel Animal Farm, George Orwell implicitly addresses the question of why communism fails. He addresses this question indirectly by investigating an example of a communistic society in which events are not marred by propaganda or time. Through his example of the farm animals' society, Orwell answers his own question by showing the reader that communism fails because, it manifests in corrupted form, it provides only a temporary solution, and because members of society are innately unequal.

     George Orwell shows us the corruption of true communism through the animals' deviation from the vision of Old Major, who is representative of Karl Marx. In the beginning, Old Major presents his pure form of communism, but as the play progresses, it is corrupted as the pigs seize power. This seizure of power occurs gradually, so the animals are unaware of it. But the reader, who can perceive events neutrally and whose memory is superior to that of the animals, see the gradual progression that leaves the system in a totally different state than it began in. These changes are explicitly presented on the wall in the novel, where the commandments of the system are written, but which change many times throughout the novel. Each time they change, the animals still treat them almost as divine law. By showing this, Orwell means to parallel it to events of the Russian Revolution, and how the corruption of a pure idea was obscured because it occurred gradually. 

     The novel ends with a scene that brings the story to complete a circle, making it end exactly as it started, but with pigs in place of farmers. Thus the problem of oppression the animals experienced was solved only temporarily, because the pigs eventually oppress them just as the farmer had.

    Orwell's main answer to his question, which is presented constantly throughout the novel, but never explicitly stated is that there will always be inequality because of the innate inequality of people (or animals). Each type of farm animal in the novel represents a stereotypical type of person in society, and throughout the novel the differences between the types destroy the system. The main example of this is the horse Boxer, who is loyal and selfless, giving far more into the system than anyone else but receiving no reward. In the same way, each of the types of animals on the farm contributes a different amount unintentionally because of different attributes of their species which they cannot control. This results in the society being destroyed because some species like Boxer are worked to death, while other contribute nothing. 

     All the events and representations in Orwell's allegory serve to answer his question indirectly. Instead of explicitly stating why communism fails in a way that could be attacked or challenged politically, he instead emphasizes what is wrong and lets the reader decide for himself/herself what the true problem is and how it might be fixed. The implicit question about the nature of communism ties Orwell's novel together, but also makes it relevant outside of literature.