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Compare And Contrast The Two Novels ?Animal Farm? By George Orwell And ?Oliver Twist Essay, Research Paper
?Animal Farm? and ?Oliver Twist?, by George Orwell and Charles Dickens respectively,
are both novels written by two very different authors writing on a rather
similar theme. Both novels outline the subject of human suffering and it is the
authors? different choices of means by which they convey this that creates the
immediately apparent contrast. ????? Both writers write their novels in a
style new to their era; the awakening of social awareness targeted by Dickens
and his contemporary writers of the mid-Victorian period such as Thomas Carlyle
and William Morris, and Orwell?s originality in depicting the fate of
Bolshevism in Russia through anthropomorphism.?
Some have said that Dickens?s incentive to write Oliver Twist was that of bellicosity toward a female contemporary
of his literary age: Harriet Martineau. Dickens understood fully the propaganda
Martineau was incorporating in her novels and aside from the other causes of
his writing of Oliver Twist, he
wished to disseminate a contrary notion of ill-justice within the
infrastructure of industrialist Victorian England. The same can be said of
Orwell; he lived amidst the height of British imperialist power and felt that
in writing novels on the subject of communism, such as Animal Farm and Nineteen
Eighty-four, he could make the others aware of not only the idyllic nature
of communism as a working ideological principle, but its ultimate failings when
implemented imperfectly. Evelyn Waugh was a writer with whom Orwell shared the
style of writing that observed and commented upon politics, and Waugh satirised
the nature of bourgeois Britain that Orwell professed to disdain. Unlike
Orwell, however, Waugh was a Conservative man. And viewed communism not as a
wonderful alternative to capitalism but as an issue that at some point could
threaten it. In his book ?Brideshead
Revisited? Waugh told of the decline of the aristocracy and thereby
predicted a banal future of a classless society. This foresight can be
accredited to the nature in which Britain had fought the war; it was a war
whereby class mattered little for that brief period in history.????? ????? Oliver
Twist commences its first chapter under the heading: ?Treats
of the place where Oliver Twist was born, and of the circumstances attending
his birth.? ????? The
reader at this stage in his or her knowledge of the book?s content will not be
able to assume a great deal from this and it is possible that one may even
incorrectly anticipate a story of a wealthier boy as could have been told by a
contemporary of Dickens?, such as Martineau. However, any such thoughts are
dispelled promptly as the first few introductory paragraphs list instances of
suffering on the part of the child being delivered. Dickens may do this to make
the novel instantly appeal to those entranced in the type of novel he is
writing to oppose, or he may be aiming to begin the book with irony.? ?(p.1) ?For a long time after
it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble?it remained a matter of
doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all?? ????? Here it
can be observed that Dickens chooses to class the child as ?it?, as a means of showing the child?s unimportance and
insignificance. Immediately the reader can picture the unfortunate
circumstances the child has found himself begotten into and the theme of
suffering has started. ????? Animal
Farm opens immediately into an earnest and simple account of the neglectful
nature of a certain Mr. Jones, whom the reader can identify as a farmer. ?Mr.
Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night but was too
drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes.? ????? In Animal
Farm, the deterioration of the animals? lives commences in the aftermath of
their revolt against Mr. Jones as they are made to suffer under the auspicious
and increasingly powerful pigs. The pigs, as the most intelligent animals on
the farm, take over in the role of the negligent farmer and inflict suffering
on the animals in the blatant inequality they create. This new way of life
contradicts the egalitarianism represented by ?Animalism? which is the
revolution?s political philosophy Orwell uses to encapsulate communism. It is
the degeneration of the animals? standard of living that perpetuates the
suffering theme surrounding this revolution and the reader is made fully aware
of the level of hardship present at the start of the novel during a speech made
by the elderly wise boar Old Major. ??????????????? (Animal Farm, p. 3) ?The life
of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.? (Animal
Farm, p. 4) ?And you, Clover, where
are those four foals you bore?? Each was sold at a year old? – you will never see one of them again? ????? Oliver
Twist ? ????? Unlike the excessively intricate
language used by Dickens, the language of Orwell is entirely succinct in its
use of terminology. The difference between the two narrators is upon first
sight obviously that of Dickens?s ornate style and Orwell?s conciseness but
also the two authors include irony in different forms to one another. Dickens
very often incorporates full-blown sarcasm to his text outside of dialogue
while Orwell?s is a more subtle irony. ??????????????? (Oliver Twist, p.22) ?A beadle
ordered to hold his tongue! A moral revolution!? ????? To show the overly high esteem the
beadle holds himself in as a member of society Dickens uses the narrator as a
clearly well educated gentleman, with a strong opinion on the matters of unfair
social standings, to mock the superciliousness of men such as the beadle
through sarcasm. The sarcasm he uses serves to depict the thoughts a beadle
would hold and the outrageousness of them. ??????????????? (Animal Farm, p. 37) ?All that
year the animals worked like slaves.? ????? The animals
actually are slaves in the regime of the pigs under whom they operate. Use of
such irony by Orwell demonstrates the way in which the animals still overlook
their terrible condition of living following the ousting of Mr. Jones and the
reign of ?Animalism? as a self-governing farm. The animals continue to see
their predicament as a great achievement following a time of what was deemed to
be of ill treatment and hardship; comparatively, the reader realises, the
animals lived better that way. In using this irony through his animal
characters Orwell can allegorically tell of the incidents of the Russia?s
communist affairs and the collective psychology behind its rise and downfall.
The peasants who fought under Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky for communist
ideals to be implemented are represented as farm animals other than pigs ? who
represent leaders of the revolution ? and, while Orwell never tells anything
directly to us as to the feelings of the animals through narration, his irony
can tell us a great deal. In the above statement the reader is shown how the
peasants/animals fail to recognise the similarities between their lives prior
to revolution and subsequently to it. ????? In the two author?s use of irony through
their narrators there is, again, a difference. Orwell?s narrator is an
impartial person whose irony is the only insight given into the novel, while
Dickens presents his narrator as being a person who expresses opinion blatantly
through sarcasm in reference to the characters, their bigoted nature or their
superficiality. It could be said that Dickens? narrator is his self as the
narrator writes intricately like a well-learned human being, as Dickens grew to
be ultimately, and as a man or woman who feels strongly on the subject being
told of. ??????????????? (Oliver Twist, p. 253) ?It was
almost too much happiness to bear. Oliver felt stunned and stupefied by the
unexpected intelligence; he could not weep, or speak, or rest.? ????? Dickens
incorporates into his narrative writing in the novel a good deal of saddening
statements, such as the one quoted above, which keep a theme of suffering
running throughout the novel. Dickens? main source of suffering recounted in
Oliver?s life is as much a lack of happiness as it is actual hardship and
Dickens as a narrator ensures that this is reminded frequently to the reader. ????? Very little of Animal Farm is written through dialogue, therefore the entire novel
is mainly narrative recollections of events. In this the greatest form of
suffering following the Bolshevik Revolution is symbolised: the lack of
communication. The narrator mentions little correspondence between the animals
and Orwell?s deliberate omission of conversation relates the novel to
post-revolutionary Russia. The people of Russia were helpless to stop Stalin?s
reign of terror when there was no communication between population and
dictatorship and were, therefore, left without ability to break free. Furthermore,
whenever dialogue is used, it is largely that of the pigs in charge of the
farm; from this it could be observed that wherever Orwell has opted to use
speech he more often than not has that of the pigs showing that under Stalin
especially, whatever there was of the limited communication, it only came from
the powerful leaders.? ????? The general readership assume that both
authors denounce the oppression in both of the novels but Orwell remains fully
neutral in his criticism of the parties he writes of and creates an authorial
void thereof, whereby the reader has to fill this void to form an opinion of
the issue in hand. In the following quotation, the narrator writes about a
horrible event of carnage but shows absolutely no reaction or opinion. ??????????????? (Animal Farm, p.52-53) ?When
they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats
out.?? ????? It is a widely acknowledged fact that
both George Orwell and Charles Dickens had socialist ideals, although it must
be remembered that Dickens lived through an age in which socialism existed only
as an ideal and not as a political doctrine or even a word. Dickens? experience
of politics is very much different to that of Orwell; communism, the politics
Orwell studied largely and was interested by, did not come officially into
being until the publication of The
Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848). Communism
affected Orwell a great deal and it affected the world equally; in 1980 four in
every ten human beings on the earth lived under a Marxist government. Dickens
did not have this considerable political monster hanging over his world as
communism existed in its infancy at this time; nor did Dickens have a World War
engaging around him, and nor did he know of global suffering. The two writers
wrote in entirely different ages but were pioneering authors of their
respective eras. ????? Suffering continues throughout both Animal Farm and Oliver Twist,not so much
as a theme but moreso as an inherent part of the lives of the characters.
Orwell scarcely directly mentions the suffering that his characters endure and
even when he does he deliberately only skims the surface of that suffering; he
chooses never to comment on the lies and propaganda the pigs use in their reign
over the animalist farm and merely reports them in the form in which they
occur. Dickens, however, ensures that the reader is aware of the message he is
conveying by using sarcasm and also on occasion highlighting injustices. ??????????????? (Oliver Twist, p.11) ?What a
noble illustration of the tender laws of England! They let the paupers go to
sleep!? ????? This
quotation serves to demonstrate further the sarcasm Dickens uses in his display
of content held against the hierarchy of his society and also the manner in
which he points out the suffering to the reader. The reader can also comprehend
from this Dickens? categorical accusation of the English hierarchy that they
are guilty of self-aggrandisement and self-congratulation on a successful and
noble society they believe themselves to have achieved. ??????????????? (Oliver Twist, p.222) ??a
weary catalogue of evils and calamities which hard men had brought upon him
(Oliver).????? ????? From this, though, one can see also the
way in which Dickens also chooses plainly and without irony to raise the
reader?s awareness of the suffering. The novel gains from Dickens? mixture of
ironical and direct narration a sense of awareness and consciousness in the
authorial voice, while the image of the author is continued as that of an
intellectually and politically aware person. A reader can draw from a
combination of irony and simplicity a feel of knowledge of the text in hand and
the subject being narrated on; this is how Dickens manages to achieve an
audience of mixed dispositions. Those whom writers such as Harriet Martineau
could attract would read Dickens for the epic tales he tells and those
interested in the nature of Dickens? political writing can also find the novel
of interest. ??????????????? (Animal Farm, p.46) ?Starvation
seemed to stare them in the face.? ??? ??Orwell,? however, mentions
suffering as it would be seen by the animals and not in a more complex way. The
animals remain blind to the oppression they endure under the pigs for a long
time and never once does the narrator represent events from a biased angle,
like the narrator of Oliver Twist
does. Dickens? narrator is a gentleman aware of the situation and he shows this
to his audience; Orwell?s narrator would not even be associated to a human
voice as it expresses no awareness it may have, unlike a human narrator would.
In Oliver Twist Oliver is more aware
of the sloth of his masters than the animals in Animal Farm, but he too is not fully conscious of the greed his
masters are guilty of. ????? Through Orwell?s use of narration it can
be observed that he wished for the novel not to be read by a widespread
readership but to be read by those whom he wished it to affect most: political
people and those of intellectual nature. Animal
Farm was Orwell?s method through which he interpreted the highly contentious
issue of Bolshevism and explained it to others who wished to think about it. ????? Therefore it can be concluded from what
has been said that both Oliver Twist and
Animal Farm?????????????