Aim: How does Chapter 7 (of Animal Farm) portray the psychology of memory and authority?
Thoughts on the Reading
Chapter 7 drives deeper into the intricate facets of animalism as it spreads on the farm, and continues to draw several parallels to communism in the USSR in an allegorical sense. The windmill plotline progresses as the animals struggle rebuilding it after the storm, and Napoleon appears to be successful in convincing them that Snowball is to blame for the windmill’s destruction. At the end of chapter 6, he employs many classic types of propaganda, including scapegoat, name calling, transfer, bandwagon, and more. “Comrades, do you know who is responsible for this? Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill? SNOWBALL!" he roars. “...This traitor has crept here under cover of night and destroyed our work of nearly a year. Comrades, here and now I pronounce the death sentence upon Snowball.” He then orders the reconstruction of the windmill, saying, “This very morning we begin rebuilding the windmill, and we will build all through the winter, rain or shine. We will teach this miserable traitor that he cannot undo our work so easily.” The words “enemy” and “traitor” clearly constitute name calling. Napoleon’s ability to always shift the blame of the farm’s problems onto Snowball shows both scapegoat and transfer techniques. Lastly, his consistent use of the words “we” and “our” is a subtle example of bandwagon propaganda, especially considering that he doesn’t participate in the actual labor of rebuilding the windmill. All this only reinforces Napoleon’s characterization as a skilled manipulator and liar; he knows that the cause of the downfall of the windmill was a storm, but since that would make Animal Farm look like it was failing, he couldn’t reveal the truth without humiliating himself and risking his position of power and authority. Therefore, he chooses to frame Snowball as the sole saboteur in the situation.
Throughout chapter 7, the animals slowly begin to starve and lose morale. Their hard labor is only met with failing crops and food shortages left and right. Despite Squealer’s speeches on “the joy of service and the dignity of labour,” the animals found inspiration in Boxer’s motto: “I will work harder!” As the readers, we’re aware of the allegorical context of all this: Boxer represents the ‘perfect worker’ in the communist Soviet Union - blindly obedient and highly productive. Historically, despite the fact that Russia’s Communist Revolution in 1917 was initially a revolt against harsh, slave-like working conditions which were imposed by a wealthy ruling class, labor conditions changed very little when the communists took over. In order to keep the economy afloat, productivity was top priority; that’s why the Party adopted a unique style of propaganda that glorified the concept of labor. The justification they used was that it was better to work hard so long as one could reap the benefits of their own labor, as opposed to a system where one’s labor only existed for the purpose of serving a rich aristocrat. In reality, however, the communists, or the pigs in Animal Farm, continue to grow wealthier and more powerful as everyone else works harder. This is the central point that Orwell tries to make using Boxer and Napoleon.
To conceal the shortcomings of Animal Farm to the outside world and protect its reputation, Napoleon deceives Mr. Whymper and keeps him believing that everything is going perfectly fine on the farm. He does not inform Whymper of the food shortages by ordering the bins to be filled almost to the top with sand, and then covered with the little grain that remained, to create the illusion of plentiful rations. Meanwhile, to solve the actual issue at hand, Napoleon resorts to force and violence by commanding the hens to surrender their eggs, through a contract that mandated 400 eggs a week. The hens organized a protest which they lost. It ended in 9 fatalities; the animals were told that the hens had died of coccidiosis. During the protest, Napoleon ordered “the hens' rations to be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a hen should be punished by death.” The dogs made sure all these orders were carried out. It is hard as readers not to notice that the very same reasons the animals had overthrown Mr. Jones now continued to exist under Napoleon. In my opinion, the brilliance of it lies in that the pigs have managed to replicate the exact same situation as had existed before the rebellion in a way that made sure the animals don’t even know that it’s happening. They have all been convinced that despite everything, no matter what, their situation is better than it was when Jones was in charge, even if the regime is equally, if not more, violent and oppressive than it used to be. This is an exact parallel to Stalin’s Soviet Union, characterized by its terror and brutality, justified by elaborate and widespread government propaganda. The atmosphere on the farm stifles the idea of rebellion and outspokenness against Napoleon, thus citing the censorship and fear prevalent under Stalin.
Just as Stalin demonized Trotsky during his reign, Napoleon demonizes Snowball. He tells the animals that Snowball’s scent can be found everywhere, and that he has been secretly visiting at night to sabotage the farm. One day, Squealer announces that Snowball is on Pinchfield Farm, and has been in league with Mr. Jones from the very beginning. While it appears ridiculous to the readers and even the animals at first, he manages to sell it eventually. He discredits Snowball’s efforts at the Battle of the Cowshed, saying that he had an arrangement with Jones, and that the bullet he took had only “grazed him.” Squealer cites some sort of newfound mysterious documents which supposedly contain Snowball’s confession of treachery - a complete lie. He then manipulates memory by contrasting Snowball with Napoleon: “...Comrade Napoleon sprang forward with a cry of 'Death to Humanity!' and sank his teeth in Jones's leg? Surely you remember that, comrades?" Although this never happened, the graphic way in which Squealer described it caused the animals to form a false memory in their head and believe him. After all, Squealer has been described as possessing the ability to “turn black to white.” Boxer, though reluctant at first, immediately believes the story as soon as Squealer says that Napoleon stated it: “"Ah, that is different!" said Boxer. "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right."”
Towards the end of the chapter, Napoleon commits a purge of all those who have confessed to acts of rebellion against him. Many of the animals claim that Snowball had incited them to rebel, but Napoleon shows no mercy and proceeds to order the dogs to rip their throats out. Numerous animals, including many hens involved in the protest and four pigs, are brutally slaughtered by the dogs in front of everyone. This leaves all the animals terrified, confused, and shaken. Boxer resolves to work harder and wake up a full hour earlier every day, and Clover reflects internally on the realization that this isn’t what anyone aimed for at the Battle of the Cowshed. The chapter ends when the song Beasts of England is banned for its lack of purpose, according to Squealer, in favor of a different song that is highly patriotic but doesn’t stir the same passion as Beasts of England once did. This directly depicts the farm’s long departure from the utopian vision of equality which the animals had once imagined and fought for. The veil has been lifted, and the harsh reality of things is coming into the light, even if it’s not being acknowledged out loud by the animals. Everything was hijacked by Napoleon, who was serving his own self-interest and greed for power. The hypocrisy of his authority is seen as he goes back on numerous promises and statements made against humans: sleeping in beds, engaging in trade, continued strenuous labor, consistent starvation, violence and brutality against all dissenters - the only difference between Manor Farm and Animal Farm is that instead of Mr. Jones being the dictator, it’s now Napoleon. This is the biggest central message I think George Orwell intends to send with the book Animal Farm: communism expertly sells a utopian idea of equality and economic justice, but really, it’s just human nature at work - someone gaining power at the expense of everyone else. It manages to convince the people and peasants that it’s a system created for them, but it’s really not. Conditions practically don’t change at all, and censorship and lack of personal freedom grows more and more prevalent. We see all this happen on Animal Farm under Napoleon just as we saw it happen in the Soviet Union under Stalin. The regime is growing more violent, more like the humans it originally sought to overthrow, and less concerned with sticking to its initial goals.
Notes/Reflection
What Did I Learn?
Today we talked about leadership. The Do Now asked us to think about the qualities and attributes associated with a good leader, try to evaluate the point to which leaders can forge ahead despite the costs of gaining power, and determine what costs are too great. In my opinion, good leaders understand that their responsibility is to serve their people, not themselves, and that that requires sacrifice and, sometimes, ruthlessness and tough decisions. They are honest, courageous, intelligent, and outspoken. Also, they should be good problem solvers with decent critical thinking skills and decisiveness. I think that leaders should continue forging ahead no matter what if people’s lives depend on it, or if the benefits outweigh the costs. In other words, if forging ahead produces better results and more positive net change than doing nothing, then that leader should continue forging. Costs that are too great might include mass loss of human life, high risk of danger, majority dissatisfaction with a decision, or if doing something can only be accomplished at the expense of something essential in people’s lives, such as financial stability or physical wellbeing. There is no universal manual on good leadership, but there seems to be a general consensus that good leaders embody good citizenship qualities, or good virtues in a person. They are looked at as more competent and capable of honoring the responsibility of their power than most people would be in their position. Basically, as humans, we intrinsically center our perception of good leadership around ethics and justice, but more importantly, our own survival; the individual who looks most promising to ensure our protection and livelihood is the most appealing to choose as a leader, on any level.
We also discussed memory and authority in Animal Farm. We watched a few YouTube videos explaining the concept of “false memories” and the famous Milgram experiment to connect to these concepts. Essentially, I learned that human memory is quite unreliable, and is even capable of conjuring up memories of events that never happened under the right circumstances. A memory changes every time you recall it, even a real one. The video cited an instance in which a school was investigated due to claims of child abuse; the children did not recall any abuse at first, but because the police were so eager to lock up a bad guy, they told the kids that they may have suppressed memories of the abuse. This, combined with the rampant fear and rumors in the school, almost instantaneously led to the children all recalling similar details about abuse, involving clowns and even witches, even though nothing of the sort took place. Another experiment was described in which the subjects’ families were asked to recount some of the subjects’ major childhood experiences, and then the subjects were asked about different memories that never occurred, thinking that they were being asked about an event their families had provided, such as: “Do you remember when you went to a wedding as a kid and accidentally spilled a punch bowl on the parents of the bride?” At first, none of the subjects could remember, but after a few days, they started recalling vague details. This ties into Animal Farm because many characters create falsified memories to control the animals on the farm, such as Squealer and Napoleon framing Snowball, saying that he was in league with Jones from the beginning, or that the Fourth Commandment forbade sheets and not beds. They use the flimsiness of memory to maintain their power and authority.
Speaking of authority, I learned about the Milgram experiment too. The experiment involved a subject, secretly an actor who was in on the goal of the experiment, a teacher (who was pretty much the actual subject), and a scientist overseer. The teacher was told to read off word pairings to the subject and ask them to remember the pairs and then recite them. Whenever the subject failed to recite a word pair, the teacher was told by the scientist to administer a small electric shock. The machine they were using to shock the subjects had voltages going from 15 v to 450 v, with the last setting just saying “XXX: DANGER.” The subject, who was an actor and wasn’t actually receiving any shocks, intentionally started getting the word pairs wrong and pretended to make sounds of discomfort as the voltage increased - they began to scream in pain as the voltage increased to 350; beginning to pound on the wall, begging to quit the experiment, complaining about a heart condition. Throughout the whole experiment, the scientist told the teacher to keep going no matter what. The scientist said a variety of things, from simply “The experiment requires that you continue,” to making an order: “You have no choice, you must go on.” The vast majority of participants obeyed, no matter how much the subject protested. The experiment showed how humans are so disturbingly inclined to obey commands when they’re given by someone viewed in a position of authority, no matter the ethical cost. After World War II, during the Nuremberg Trials, where Nazis were put on trial for various crimes against humanity, the most popular excuse they used was that they were simply obeying orders. The Milgram experiment shows how evil isn’t a separate minority ruining the world, but something intrinsic that exists in every single person; after all, the participants were normal, typical Americans, not war criminals. In Animal Farm, (and allegorically, Soviet Russia) the animals obey Napoleon because of an inherent urge to obey. He uses this to his advantage and gets all the animals to do things for him: the dogs obey his every command, he controls all the animals’ labor, and no one raises a finger when he slaughters all the animals in chapter 7.
We finished the lesson with a Memory and Authority Discussion Board, where we had to answer one or both of these questions:
- Identify a character which is using memory and authority to their advantage and explain how it’s being used to their advantage.
- How does the acquisition of this kind of power tend to affect both individuals in the novel and in real life?
I answered both.
Squealer definitely employs memory and authority and uses it to his advantage. He creates and spreads falsified memories and facts in the minds of the other animals, such as the idea that the Fourth Commandment only antagonized the human invention of sheets rather than all beds, or that Snowball’s role in the Battle of the Cowshed was over exaggerated and he was in league with Jones from the beginning. As the analogy for Stalin-era propagandists, Squealer manages to persuade the animals to remain obedient to the authority figure of Napoleon. We as the readers know that the more powerful Napoleon gets, the better and more luxurious all the pigs get to live, relative to the rest of the farm. This manipulation of memory and ability to keep the animals obedient to their authority figure, Napoleon, and therefore, the pigs as a whole, shows Squealer’s talent for maintaining power and gaining advantage through the use of persuasion and propaganda.
The acquisition of this kind of power affects the characters in the novel and analogically, real-life Soviet historical figures. Squealer gains power by using propaganda to manipulate memory and obedience, albeit inadvertently through Napoleon’s increased authority. In real life, propagandists obviously worked closely with Stalin’s regime and gained more power as their deception became more effective. Stalin himself benefited the most directly from this propaganda, as it framed him in a positive light and protected his image/reputation, as well as gave the Communist Party more justification for the methods they were using to govern the Soviet Union. Just like the pigs justified their newfound sleeping in beds, the Communists justified their newfound opulence and wealth - the same things they originally revolted against. Just like Stalin framed Trotsky as a liar and coward, the pigs framed Snowball as a liar and coward; both were said to be working with the “enemy” from the beginning. Propaganda as a form of power affects the powerful or ‘dominant’ group (Stalin’s government/Napoleon and the pigs) by twisting and blurring the truth in a way that protects them, while keeping the group being ruled (Soviet citizens/the other animals) in check, ensuring their blind support and stifling the thought of rebellion. Basically, Squealer’s, and in turn, Napoleon’s acquisition of power through propaganda (using memory and authority) benefits the pigs in the end, at the expense of all the other animals’ autonomy and right to the truth.
Why Did I Learn It?
How Will I Use What I Learned?
Overall, what we learned today in class was highly important and useful. It’s important to be aware of how propaganda ties in with memory and authority, so that we don’t remain ignorant to people’s abuse of power and know how to point out good and bad leadership. As people, it’s necessary that we question all authority so that no one person has the final say in what goes on in all our lives, whether that’s the government, or simply whatever company I might work at in the future. Being self-aware is essential or else the truth stays hidden from the majority of people forever.
What is it Like Working from Home?
Working from home is unusual, but I’m managing. It’s nice to be able to sleep in and not have more than three classes a day. The workload isn’t the worst, and I still feel like I’m learning, at least in my English class. The biggest hassle is remembering deadlines and attendance. I get about a million emails a day so it’s really hard to keep up with new assignments sometimes. The biggest surprise in all this is that I actually have more work now than I did before Remote Learning. I usually work for more than 6 hours every day, and I don’t know if it’s because I have so much work or because I’m just taking more time and giving more attention to detail to my actual work.
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