Transcript Animal Farm

Fables and Allegory
 Very
short
 Features
nonhuman characters personified to
the extreme (such as animals, plants,
objects)
 Ends
with moral or lesson
 Most
well known writer of fables
 Lived in Athens, Greece
 Wrote many popular fables you are familiar
with…
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The Ant and the Grasshopper
The Lion and the Mouse
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
The Fox and the Crow
 Don’t
cry over spilled milk.
 Don’t
count your chickens until they hatch.
 Birds
of a feather flock together.
 Appearances
 Slow
are often deceiving.
and steady wins the race.
 Form
of artwork (in our case a piece of
literature) that has at least two meanings
 Literal
meaning—what is about
 Symbolic
meaning—story stands for
something else
 Fables
are often allegories
In a field one summer's day a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and
singing to its heart's content. A group of ants walked by, grunting as they
struggled to carry plump kernels of corn.
"Where are you going with those heavy things?" asked the grasshopper.
Without stopping, the first ant replied, "To our ant hill. This is the third
kernel I've delivered today."
"Why not come and sing with me," teased the grasshopper, "instead of
working so hard?"
"We are helping to store food for the winter," said the ant, "and think you
should do the same."
"Winter is far away and it is a glorious day to play," sang the grasshopper.
But the ants went on their way and continued their hard work.
The weather soon turned cold. All the food lying in the field was covered with a thick white blanket
of snow that even the grasshopper could not dig through. Soon the grasshopper found itself dying of
hunger.
He staggered to the ants' hill and saw them handing out corn from the stores they had collected in the
summer. He begged them for something to eat.
“What!" cried the ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the
world were you doing all last summer?"
"I didn't have time to store any food," complained the grasshopper; "I was so busy playing music that
before I knew it the summer was gone."
The ants shook their heads in disgust, turned their backs on the grasshopper and went on with their
work.
MORAL
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Don't forget -- there is a time for work and a time for play!
Ant
 Corn
 Grasshopper
 Summer
 Winter
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Literal
Hardworking People
 Work/Preparation
 Simple Minded People
 Opportunity
 Hard Times
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Symbolic
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Mr. Jones
Old Major
Napoleon
Snowball
Squealer
Animalism
The Rebellion
The Dogs
Moses
Boxer
Benjamin
Mollie
Literal
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Czar Nicholas II
Karl Marx
Stalin
Trotsky
Propaganda
Communism
Russian Revolution
KGB
Religion
Working class people of Russia
Skeptical people of Russia
Vain/Selfish people of Russia
Symbolic
 Cruel—beats
animals with a
whip
 Irresponsible
because he
doesn’t feed them
much
 Sometimes kind—
mixes milk in mash
 Poor
Russian
leader
 Lived lavish
lifestyle at
expense of people
 Cruel—brutal to
opponents
 Sometimes kind
 Taught
Animalism
 Workers do the
work, but rich
keep the money
 Dies before
revolution
 Collected
ideas of
communism
 “Workers of the
world unite” to
take over gov’t
 Dies before
revolution
 Not
a good speaker,
not as clever as
Snowball
 Cruel, brutal,
selfish, corrupt
 Ambition is for
power, killed
opponents
 Used dogs to control
animals
 Not
a good speaker,
not educated like
Trotsky
 Didn’t follow Marx’s
ideas
 Ambition for power,
killed all that
opposed him
 Used KGB and
propaganda to get
his way
 Young,
smart, good
speaker
 Really wants
better life for all
 Chased away into
exile by
Napoleon’s dogs
 Other
leader of
Russian Revolution
 Pure communist,
followed Marx
 Wanted to improve
life for all people
of Russia
 Chased away by
KGB
 No
owners, no
rich, but no poor
 Workers get a
better life
 All animals equal
 Everyone owns
farm
 No
owners, no
rich, but no poor
 All people are
equal
 Government owns
everything, people
own government