Animal Farm Fear

1. Animal FarmFear By Chloe, Paulina, and Jordan.

2. Explain what ‘fear’ and ‘living in fear’ mean. Fear is a term used to describe someone being scared of something or someone. It also means being worried, afraid or in concern, but all these meanings mean the same thing. If you live in fear you live in a permanent state of being in fear, like in Animal Farm most of the animals are living in fear, at first of Mr. Jones but at the end of Napoleon.

3. In what ways is fear shown in Animal Farm? Fear is shown in Animal Farm a lot. The quote that shows this is ‘It isn’t true!’ repeated Mollie, but she could not look at Clover in the face, and the next moment she took her heels and galloped away into the field. This shows us that this is a guilty fear of Mollie when Clover catches an enemy stroking her muzzle. It also suggests that Mollie is going against a commandment ‘Four legs good, two legs bad.’ It suggests that Mollie is breaking what is known as a ‘law’ in Animal Farm.

4. Which characters do you think live in fear on Animal Farm? What were they fearful of and why? In Animal Farm, the animals that live in fear are all of them, as they live in fear of Mr Jones. They live in fear as they are whipped, starved and taken of their rights and then finally killed. ‘You Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will send you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds.” As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick around their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond. This suggests that Jones has no respect for his animals as all he does is uses them to his advantage, hardly feeds them and then finally kills them, this is why they fear him.

5. Which characters do you think live in fear on Animal Farm? What were they fearful of and why? But, when the animals rebelled and Napoleon the pig took over animal farm, he started out as ‘all animals are equal’. But as time went on he became just like Jones, killing the animals and making them work harder for less food, so they begin to fear him just like they had feared Jones. His commandment also changed from ‘all animals are equal’ to ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’. This shows that Napoleon has turned into Jones treating the animals like slaves. This also shows that Napoleon had no respect for his comrades.

6. How do you think those in power on Animal Farm used fear to their advantage? In Animal Farm, those in charge use fear to their advantage, as they can blackmail the other animals so they don’t rebel against them. ‘Napoleon demanded whether any other animal had something to confess. Three hens came forward and said they had a dream and had told them to disobey Napoleons orders. They were immediately slaughtered. A sheep came forward and admitted to urinating in the drinking pool, and a goose came forward and admitted to having secreted six ears of corn during the last years harvest and eaten it in the night. He too was slaughtered’. This shows that Napoleon was scaring the other animals and using fear to say that if you go against me you will be killed. This is bad because Napoleon’s commandment was ‘no other animal shall kill another animal’. But then he changed it to ‘no animal shall kill another animal without cause’. Napoleon killing and changing his commandment is why all of the animals except the pigs are scared of him.

7. How do you think the book would have turned out if some of the animals weren’t fearful? ‘Animal Farm’ is a fable written by George Orwell. If the animals weren’t fearful and were all brave and stood up for each other then Orwell wouldn’t have got the message across about rebellion and communism and how it doesn’t work. Bravery is shown in the quote ‘As the human beings approached the farm buildings, Snowball launched his first attack’. This shows us that Snowball isn’t afraid of attacking the humans as he has the courage to rebel, whereas some animals would hesitate. Presumably, if the animals didn’t fear Napoleon then they too would rebel – which means that the book would have turned out differently, perhaps showing communism working. However, this doesn’t happen, fear represses further rebellion.