Satireandironynew

Satire/Irony Notes

Compiled by:

Olivia and Nathan

Edited by:

Alissa and Grace

Setting

• S/I can be set in any time, any place.– Any time also shows that the story

is an allegory because Animal Farm is NOT dated by time.

– Any place rural England farm•Examples:

– Name: Animal Farm/ Manor Farm– Farmhouse– Lots of animals– Farmer Jones

No One Wins, No One Loses

• No one wins The animals suffer more and have worse conditions than when Farmer Jones ruled.

• No one loses The animals accomplish their goal of having a farm ruled by animals, free of humans, and one of their own kind ruling them (exception is the fact that the pigs change to humans).

Criticism• Orwell criticizes the Russian Revolution because

of the outcome they achieved after they overthrew the czar. In a similar situation on Animal Farm, the animals overthrow Jones and his family but as their leadership forms, the reader sees direct relationship between the new leadership and the rule of Jones. By the end of the story, the pigs (leadership) have become exactly like the humans to the point where the animals can see no difference between the two. Therefore, only a worse situation came out of the revolution because the animals had worse living conditions than before.

Criticism (continued)• Orwell also criticizes the people who follow the

revolutionaries because of their ignorance to look at the future outcomes of their actions now. For example, the animals follow blindly after the pigs not realizing who would be the governing body and how they would get supplies they could not get from the farm like food and parts for the windmill.

• Criticism is directed to the people who are power hungry like the pigs. They start as one of the group and work for the good of everyone but their motivation slowly changes focus to just them and how they can benefit in the end.

Additional Information

• You have to be mature to understand S/I– Little kids understand only the surface story (animals form a rebellion and take over a farm)

– Higher Maturity and Educated People understand the underlying meaning (Russian Revolution)

Characters• Protagonist

– Animals (pigs and everyone)• Accomplish a goal- to take over the Manor Farm

that was run by Jones, and run the farm by having their own government that would be more sympathetic to their wants and needs

• Awareness/Experienced- the animals understand what total control feels like and what type of government they would like to be run by, but they are not aware enough to see their true outcome

• Flat- as the reader, we do not know the animals as anything beyond what the story tells us about this one period in their life

• Personality Flaws- the animals main flaw is their unawareness of the consequences that are to come from Napoleon’s actions

Characters

• Antagonist-– Mr. Jones and man (in general)

• Blocking force- man attempts to fight the new government, trying to prevent the animals from going on with their plan of ruling the farm free of humans

• Experienced- they have been in the ruling position once before and know how to run a farm, and they know who they want to be in charge

• Flat- Mr. Jones and others are flat because we only hear about them in very general terms at the beginning and middle of the story (we do not know much about their past or their life after they try to rebel against the animals)

Napoleon• Napoleon is both a protagonist and an antagonist in the story.

– In the beginning of the story, he is the protagonist, but by the end of the story he becomes the antagonist

• Protagonist-– Experienced and aware- he understands/ knows what total control feels

like by another– Attempting to accomplish a goal- he wants to overthrow Jones just like

the rest of the animals (he is part of the group)– Personality flaws- his desire to become a powerful leader with total

control which then changes him to an antagonist against the animals

• Antagonist-– Blocking force- preventing the animals from getting what they want (a

government where everyone has their own voice and all animals are equal)

– Experienced and aware- he understands/ knows what total control feels like and is aware of the opportunity he has to be the new ruler of the farm

Irony

• Situational We think one thing will happen, then an unexpected twist occurs.

• Dramatic The reader knows something that the characters in the book do not know.

Situational Irony

• We think that since because the animals rule the farm, they will have a utopia.

• Unexpected twist The pigs become dominant, they have a utopia while the other animals suffer from misery.

Dramatic Irony• We know that the pigs (Squealer) are changing the commandments, but the other animals are clueless.

• We know that Boxer was slaughtered while the other animals think he died in the veterinary clinic, even though he was given lots of expensive medicines that Napoleon supposedly paid for.

• We recognize that the pigs are slowly taking over little by little, while the other animals do not realize that every move the pigs make means less freedom for them.