Sammy Farjani, Class Of 2025

“Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend“

Old Major

At the end of every English class from November to December I knew I would once again have to read a new chapter Animal Farm and most likely add a 500 word reflection for each chapter. Later into the night each day I realized in my head:  “Oh shoot I gotta read a chapter and write a 300 word reflection!”. I realized this every night at around 10 PM and then I would spend the next hour and a half reading the chapter twice to kind of understand it and then read the chapter summary to further understand it and finally do the reflection. As I repeated this loop over and over, it made me think about how I had procrastinated all of my work along the way reading Animal Farm, making me not enjoy as much as I should’ve and making my perspective on the book more skewed since I didn’t fully comprehend it. This made me think about how many other students around the world procrastinate on what could be a good read or fun assignment and eventually miss out on the enjoyment they could’ve had doing the activity just like me.

Read more: Did Animal Farm Just Go Full Circle?

In the book Animal Farm by George Orwell rebellion is what the animals on the farm are trying to accomplish to gain freedom from their dictator Mr. Jones. The father of the Animalism ideology Old Major stated that “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon 4 legs, or has wings, is a friend.” The reader sees this when they attempted the rebellion against Mr and Mrs. Jones. In Chapter 1 of Animal Farm, the pig Old Major was the animal that introduced the others to the ideology that later became Animalism which is a metaphor for Communism in the soviet union. Spreading and explaining the idea of Animalism was vital for the rebellion to succeed which is why the ideology of Animalism grew so fast: 

Three nights later, old Major died peacefully in his sleep… These three had elaborated old Major’s teachings into a complete system of thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism. Several nights a week, after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and expounded the principles of Animalism to the others. [Source, Chapter 1]. 

Old Major’s death had invigorated the people of Manor Farm into expounding the ideas of his speeches into Animalism. They were able to grow the ideas of Animalism insanely fast to the other animals as well since almost all of them had attended the speech making it so that almost all of them believed in the idea immediately. 

In Chapter 1 of Animal Farm, Old Major had also gathered the animals of the Manor Farm before the creation of Animalism to talk about the wisdom he has acquired over the years and eventually introduced them to the idea of a free world for animals without humans stealing all of their resources and controlling them. Old Major’s ideas were eventually turned into the ideology of Animalism: 

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is the lord of all animals” [Source, Chapter 1].  

The fact that humans had given practically nothing back to the animals while taking everything from them such as their eggs, milk, and labor. This fueled all the animals hatred against the humans and they knew they had to take back what was their produce.

Creating a system of thought and the name Animalism for Old Major’s ideas were crucial in the success of the idea Animalism. A main factor in Old Major’s speech was the fact that Mr. Jones was overworking the animals for their labor and exports and selling it to others yet he was still their ruler with Old Major’s saying: “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy,” resonated with the animals, making them want to take down Mr. Jones and get what’s rightly theirs. 

In the animals minds, it wasn’t just for Mr. Jones to be taking everything the animals made, for example, their eggs and milk, and then selling them off, as well as putting them to work every day and after the speech by Old Major he had rallied all of the animals behind the ideology of animalism and they rebelled against Mr. Jones. After a while though, the ways of Animalism had slowly shifted back to the ways of Mr. Jones and humans by doing things like drinking alcohol and sleeping in beds and slowly changing the rules of Animalism to make sure they didn’t get in trouble for it as well and that’s when the story comes full circle with Napoleon as a Mr. Jones figure.

By the end of the book the lines between the humans and animals were almost nonexistent with the animals drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, and standing on 2 legs, the farm really came full circle with the only difference being the deaths of many animals along the journey of Animal Farm and the idea of Animalism.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” [Chapter 10].  

By the end of the book the farm reverted right back to its old ways of selling all of the animals produce and labor to humans with Napoleon as a Mr. Jones or supreme ruler figure. Animal farm is a great lesson to find out that if you forget the past it will most definitely repeat itself.

As I sat down to read the last chapter of the book, it really made me think “What did I really gain from this?” and was it worth it? Reading Animal Farm really made me question my work ethic and how I procrastinated reading almost every chapter of the book and has compelled me to want to work on myself to stop procrastinating. 

As I read Animal Farm I really had to analyze every little detail of the book to fully understand it since it was a metaphor for Communism specifically in the Soviet Union. I had to learn to look at this book from different perspectives as well since not everyone in Animal Farm is telling the truth. Eventually though, I finished the book and felt that I had truly understood the book which was the most important piece to me. 

When I started reading my initial idea to read Animal Farm was to read a chapter a night so I could be done with it early which definitely did not happen. The book was a lot harder to comprehend than I thought it would be, making me have to reread a lot of chapters and read the summaries to fully understand the true meaning of them which in the end gave me a more fulfilling experience.  The way I actually read Animal Farm was with a lot of procrastination and staying up late into the night to finish reading Animal Farm. The real difficulty in reading this book was understanding the deeper metaphor of Communism in The Soviet Union. But at the end of every day I did the work and the feeling of pride after it made it all worth it. 

By the end of reading Animal Farm I realized that there is always corruption in the world and there is nothing we as the normal citizens can do to stop it. Chapter 10 which is the final chapter of Animal Farm truly shows this when we see the pigs take human shape and the Manor Farm goes full circle with Napoleon becoming Mr. Jones and the animals doing everything the humans on Manor Farm would. 

If you know me at all you would also know I like to do things at the last second which is not a very good way to live life. When Fitz initially introduced our class to Animal Farm I thought this would be the time I get my work done on time and early but that was not the case. This learning experience from Animal Farm has prepared me for the next chapter of Fitz’s English and I am ready to stop procrastinating my work.