Eric Blair, globally recognized as George Orwell in the globe of
literary, was a political literature writer, intellectual scribbler, a
humanitarian critic and unprejudiced author. At the time of dire, he
wrote the most stimulating and incisive articles in those years of
totalitarianism, censuring the abusers in power, of maliciousness
between power and the common citizens, opposing inequality and
dehumanization. Of course, the world would never forget his sardonic
book, Animal Farm.
Literature itself is an imperative subject. It is an art, a history, a
religion, a philosophy, a humanity, and even politics. To comprehend
the idea of literature, one cannot elude the three genres that comprise
literature itself as a theme. These three genres – prose, drama, and
poetry – have significant effects on humanity. Prose, which is the
foremost aspect of reaching multiple readers, deals with fiction and
nonfiction stories. It is written in a narrative technique. Drama, on
the other hand, involves the dialogues between actors on stage,
dramatizations and presentations. The stage that the actors stand for
performance represents the world. While poetry, the third genre in this
article, reflects or expresses the feelings of the writer. It is written
in stanzas, lyrically, poetically and artistically. All human beings
engaged in these three genres of literature.
But within these three genres of literature, there are various
classifications with a philosophy that denotes each category. One of
them is called a satire. According to Wikipedia,
satire is a genre
of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which
vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule,
ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government
or society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant
to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social
criticism, using wit as a weapon and as a tool to draw attention to both
particular and wider issues in society. Unarguably, satire is the most severe genus for any writer. But this is what George Orwell represented in the 1940s.
The philosophy of George Orwell can indeed spark a painstaking
rejoin. According to him, telling the truth in our society is a
revolutionary act. As he puts it,
‘in a time of universal truth,
telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’ In another context, George
was quoted as, “what I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten
years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is
always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down
to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce the work
of art.; I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose,
some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is
to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even
a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience.’
So we can see – an aesthetic experience, a lie that I want to expose,
a sense of injustice – and yes, these are the things that instigate
writers of satire. And one way to present this picture is to study the
works of George Orwell circumspectly. Therefore, Animal Farm is not just
a book of some certain animals rebelling against the farmer, Mr. Jones,
and setting up their own farm. It is an allegory, a fable and a satire.
It is about humanity as a whole. It is about the dishonest in power in
the high places, about the masses in the hands of the crooked masters.
It is about the Russian Revolution of 117, and probably, what may happen
to people in the terrain of their leaders.
In the book, the behaviors of people, the power of belief, the kowtow
of power by the masses, were all represented in the characterizations
of the animals. Of course, after driving Mr. Jones from the farm by the
animals, and Napoleon, a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar,
the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a
reputation for getting his own way ascended a leader; the animals were
in another world of dictatorship and ideology. One of them was to say
that all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than the
others. But before the revolution that drove the owner of the farm away,
the belief of the animals was that all ‘animals are equal.’ Of course,
the weak animals had no options; they had to go along with Napoleon’s
policies. This Napoleon was Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union
from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953.
For instance, look at how many stories of betrayal exhibited by
political leaders in Africa. They use the masses as their ladder to
power, but at the end, they dashed their hopes of the people by leaving
them in isolation and deprivation. The people do the solidarity, voting
earnestly, but at the end, they are left alone in wailing. This brings
the ideology of Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm who first
invented the idea of revolution to the animals.
‘Never listen to
them when they tell you that Man and animals have a common interest,
that the prosperity of animal is the prosperity of others. It is all
lies. Man serves the interest of himself.’’
Who is the Man here in the word of Major? The Man here, are the
political leaders, the abusers of power who flourished on people’s brain
with suitable words to achieve their aim. They used all sorts of
orientations to brainwash the masses into believing them, and the masses
are left in the hand of gullibility. And the media, which hold the most
effective right to censure the government, are in a state of pathetic.
Many of them are not independent. The government controls every aspect
of the media – the radio, the newspapers, and the TV. What about
education, agriculture, law, entertainment, and infrastructures? All are
manipulated by the government. As Orwell puts it,
‘he who controls the past controls the future; and he who controls the present controls the past.’
Of course, the government controls everything, including the liberty of
the people. You read some books in school because the government
approved them. You are permitted to work because you are allowed by the
government. You are disbanded and cannot say your opinion because the
government of your country never condones it. Look at how many
journalists that have been killed in Nigeria by political suspected
leaders?
George Orwell, who was not only a novelist but also a columnist, must
have studied the downtrodden elements that were unleashed on the masses
in the years of totalitarianism. But not alone that, George wrote the
literature of all time, about the struggling of the masses in the hands
of the masters, about the people’s liberty and freedom of expression,
about the eradication of discrimination and dehumanization, prejudiced
and deprivation. George Orwell, therefore, wrote the Africa politics,
the abusers of power.
One of the predicaments of Africans is that they never learn from
literature. Literature is not just an entertainment; it is our life.
By David Isoje
