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Animal Farm 1.4 Unfair Stereotype… a la Shmoop.

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Anybody else feel like they could use a vacation?

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How about we take a drive over to Jung Land?

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I hear they have a lot of interesting archetypes to look at.

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What’s an archetype? It’s the thing with characteristics that everybody ‘gets’.

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Like, Batman is an archetype for a super hero; the Joker is an archetype for a villain.

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Animal Farm is loaded with archetypes. Look, there’s one right now!

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It’s Old Major. He’s kind of a ‘boar’ to the youngsters, but he’s the communist future.

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Even though most of his life is in the - distant - past.

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He represents the wise old father figure, kind of like Dumbledore.

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Benjamin…you could call him a stubborn mule, except that he’s a donkey.

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He’s definitely not a party animal.

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He might represent pessimism or realism, but certainly not optimism.

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In his opinion, nothing gets better. Life is just variations on the theme of bad,

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no matter who’s in charge.

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He’s basically the Eeyore of this story. Then there's Napoleon. Napoleon is the archetype

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dictator, surrounded by his dogs like the KGB. One off-color remark and you become their

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next meal, which is really just an appetizer since Napoleon’s starving you while he overworks you.

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Nice guy.

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But he actually represents the real life dictator, Joseph Stalin.

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And Squealer, representing propaganda, is with him, drafting a speech to explain that

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Napoleon eats from the gourmet menu for the benefit of the animals.

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He must be pretty good at his job to make the proletariat animals swallow that load of poop.

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So, as a propagandist, what does he do, exactly?

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And who are the proletariat that he does it to? Well, they’re the masses, the everyday

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people (or animals) who are just trying to live their lives. He feeds them words, explanations,

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revisionist history to convince them that what he is saying is the truth…

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even when it isn’t.

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And he has to be a brown noser to stay in Napoleon’s inner circle.

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You’re either in or you’re dead. And all dictators need a scapegoat, right?

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Snowball represents the intellectual idealist. Why did Napoleon pick on him?

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Because he was a true threat to Napoleon’s ambitions.

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He was friendly, persuasive and well liked…just

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the kind of pig you don’t want in your pen when you’re trying to be king.

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So Napoleon blamed everything that went wrong on him. Brilliant strategy. Create a common

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enemy for the population to unite against. Happens all the time in war and politics.

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Ya gotta love Boxer…dumb but dedicated. He represents the proletariat.

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Even when he had a nagging feeling that maybe Napoleon wasn’t being straight with the animals,

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he convinced himself he was wrong because Napoleon was always right.

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If only Boxer’s brains matched his brawn, he would have seen what was really going on,

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bashed Napoleon’s head in with his mighty hoofs and had a double serving of sweet oats and hay.

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Instead, he allowed himself to be used to death…like the proletariat under Stalin.

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Clover also represents the proletariat - but

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with female intuition. She smells something fishy but she can’t quite put her finger on it.

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After all, seafood is notoriously slippery.

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She’s a maternal, powerless victim. If you’re looking for the Material Girl archetype,

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Mollie’s your gal. She represents the bourgeois who’d rather high tail it

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out of town than give up their luxuries.

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Considering how the revolution went downhill real quick, we note the irony of a smart choice

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being made by a shallow thinker. Moses is the pusher man. He makes a good archetype

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for religious mystery…the dark arts, the sacred, the occult. But he doesn’t exactly

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practice what he preaches.

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The pigs allow him back to Animal Farm because religion is good dope for the animals stuck

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in a life where Sugarcandy Mountain doesn’t look so bad. Stalin did the same thing with

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the Church.

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Wonder if Boxer ever got to Sugarcandy Mountain. The sheep represent the ma-a-a-asses.

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They’re never sure what’s going on but they’ll follow along without making a fuss, chanting

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on cue. It’s a good thing they’re cute and cuddly ’cause they sure aren’t clever.

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Vacations always make you miss home, don't they?

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Everybody, click your heels three times and let’s get the beep out of here.

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