Independent+Novel+Studies+-+Focus+Assignment

For my Independent Novel Studies, I decided to read and write about the book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. The title goes along well with the whole plot of the story, because the story is mainly about animals who take over a farm, and kick all of the humans off of it.

The story takes place on a farm in England, that was once ran by someone named 'Mr. Jones' until the animals took over. It happens around the time of the Russian Revolution, which happened just before the 1920s, roughly around 1917. This story didn't have to be placed in England, I think that it could have happened anywhere in the world, and it would have made no difference, since the animals taking over a farm became known around the world.

There are quite a few different conflicts in this story, first of all it is between Napoleon and Snowball, (near the beginning of the book.) Both of these two pigs wanted to become the leader of Animal Farm, because they think that they each have good leadership qualities. Napoleon thinks that he would make a better leader, because he thinks that Snowball is dangerous. Once Napoleon became the leader, one of the first things he did was to kick Snowball off the farm; which he did. The next conflict was when Napoleon decided to kill quite a few different animals, because they had either dreamt about Napoleon, or had seen him. Since Napoleon hated Snowball so much, he decided to execute the animals that admitted these things. All of the other animals on the farm were stunned by Napoleon's actions, and also worried, because it clearly stated in the rules that humans are the enemies, anything that walks on two legs is bad, but everything that walks on four legs is good; it also stated all animals are equal. The last conflict I found in this story is when Frederick and his men came to animal farm armed with weapons, planning to take it over from the animals. The animals were prepared and ready to attack (since they already beat Mr. Jones and his men) but once they saw the guns the men were carrying they decided to retreat, and stay a distance of 50 ft away from them. The men then went straight for the windmill, which the animals worked very hard on, hammered it until a whole was made, and put dynamite into it. The men ran in all directions, then it exploded, leaving a cloud of smoke in the air. Once Napoleon saw what they did to their windmill, he demanded that the animals attack. Boxer (the strong horse) crushed three of Frederick's mens heads, others were wounded; however, Frederick managed to escape, running for his life. Even though they had won the battle, almost all of the animals were wounded or injured in some sort of way. Napoleon, the leader, was shot at the tip of his tail leaving it to bleed.

Once I finished reading this novel, I couldn't exactly decide on just one climax, I found that there are two. The first one I found, was when Napoleon finally decides to take over animal farm, and succeeds, because they were tired of being ordered around day after day. I think that this is one of the climax's, because once it happened everything changed, which leads to the second climax I found. The second climax I found was when the pigs who were ruling the farm (Napoleon and others) were beginning to act like humans were (they even started to walk on there hind legs,) which some of the animals found annoying, and when the revolution was over. The first and second climax aren't really resolved, because throughout the novel the animals were always in control of the farm, and the pigs didn't really stop acting like humans.

I enjoyed reading this novel, because it was very easy to understand throughout the whole plot, nothing was confusing to me. I also liked how it was fast moving, nothing was boring, and was full of wit. I also liked how even though it is very unlikely to happen, it was still sort of believable, because I think that if animals did take over a farm, that is how they might act.

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