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Animal Farm 1.5 So That’s Where "Orwellian" Comes From… a la Shmoop.

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Orwell sends his greetings from Sugarcandy Mountain. He’s pretty busy over there. [Orwell with a guitar on candy mountain]

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We don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s kind of a big deal.

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He’s even been turned into an adjective.

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Dr. Phil rang him up and asked him why his writing is so fixated… [Dr Phil on the telephone to Orwell]

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…on the poor, the oppressed, inequality, domination and exploitation. (He’s not a lot of fun at a party.)

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Orwell gave him an earful.

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It’s not that he was strictly anti-revolution. [Shoe stomps on soldiers marching on horses]

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He just believed that they provide opportunities for power-hungry, greedy individuals to usurp them.

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Which is what happened in the Russian Revolution, according to Animal Farm. [Russian soldiers marching]

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As if that wasn’t unsettling enough, he wrote 1984, another political satire about

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dystopia, that used human characters instead of animals.

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If Animal Farm is a fairy tale, 1984 is a nightmare.

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It’s just as powerful and influential today as it was when it was published just after World War II. [Tanks riding through a field]

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So what is satire?

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It’s the use of techniques like humor,

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exaggeration and sarcasm to criticize people, ideas, events and behaviors.

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If you’ve ever laughed at the painful truth of a political cartoon, you’re familiar with satire. [Cartoon of planet earth watching a show and Uncle Sam telling people to shh]

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Orwell was a total master.

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In fact, we still use his famous expressions today. Big Brother, Thought Police, Doublethink,

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Newspeak and Cold War… they’re all Orwell originals. TM.

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What would Orwell write about today? How would he influence society’s thinking if he could? [New York timess square]

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Well, his reserved personality wouldn’t make him a the best host for a satirical TV

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show, but he could certainly be a writer. And he would never run out of material. [Orwell using a Macbook]

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Even though his topics were serious and deep, Orwell never lost his sense of humor.

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Satire can be hilarious.

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But you can bet that Orwell is up in Sugarcandy Mountain asking,

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“So your phone is smarter than you? [Orwell on candy mountain]

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It knows everywhere you go…and everything you buy…and everyone you call…and everything

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you write…and every word you searched...?

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…And you’ve got this thing called the internet where every click is monitored, every movement traced?"

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Big....uh, Big Mother? [Orwell looking through an iron bar window]

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….Sorry, what? We were too distracted by Facebook to hear your whining about that.

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