Animal Farm: Utopia to Dystopia

Do your parents have a tracking app on your phone? Life 360? Find my friends? These are apps that parents have on their teens phones to see their location. This makes the teens feel followed and trapped. Parents are following their every move. Well the people in Anthem and Animal Farm are being constantly followed and controlled by a totalitarian government. This dystopian society is being controlled by a totalitarian government, conforming to expectations. On the contrary Animal Farm, does not relate to the real world, when Anthem does.

A totalitarianism government is a democracy is a society that is usually ruled by a dictator, and the members of society have no freedom. In totalitarianism, the government controls almost everything that you do. In the stories Animal Farm and Anthem can be seen as a totalitarianism government because the members of society have little freedom and no identity. In the story Animal Farm, the animals on the farm were being used as slaves and were being used for labor by the humans. A pig, named Old Major, always hated the way that the animals were treated so he started the idea of Animalism. Old Major states, “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him” (13). The animals attempt to vanish human rule; Old Major doesn’t want the animals becoming friendly with humans or even becoming like them. Like many of his other statements, this is a caution the pigs will not heed, they become more and more like the humans as they gain more power over the farm. Finally, the animals over take the farm and kick off the humans from the farm. The farm was now lead by 3 pigs, Napoleon, Snowball, and Squealer.

The pigs wanted to make the Animal Farm a happier place. The pigs thought that as the leaders, they should learn to read, and write as the rest of the animals on the farm are illiterate. This obviously created an advantage over the rest of the animals. The pigs decided that to have a society that runs smoothly that they need to have rules that every animal has to follow, that’s when they came up with the 7 commandments. In the story, it states the 7 commandments, “Any animal that goes upon 2 legs is an enemy, whatever goes upon 4 legs, or has wings is an enemy, no animal shall wear clothes, no animal shall sleep in a bed, no animal shall drink alcohol, no animal shall kill any other animal, and most importantly, all animals are equal” (24). In another words, the pigs do not want the animals to be doing any actions that the humans on the farm used to do. In Anthem, the society is portrayed of being under surveillance at all times. They aren’t allowed to go anywhere that isn’t under supervision. In the story, it states, “It is easy to leave the theatre, when the candles are blown and the actors come onto stage, no eyes can see us crawl under our seat and under the cloth of the tent” (35) Another example is “We dared not speak. It is transgression to speak to men of other trades, save in groups at the social meetings” (40) The leaders in Anthem controlled the citizens because they believed that nothing should change without the consent from everyone. The council of scholars said that it took 50 years for candles to be allowed to be used as light but in reality, society is set up to put people in the dark because this way they are much more controlled. From candles being limited it made Equality think and that’s when he discovered the light bulb. Animal Farm and Anthem are similar by both being controlled by a totalitarian government.

In a totalitarian government, the leaders are making them conform to expectations. The seven commandments force the animals of Animal Farm to follow rules and they will be punished if they break these commandments. However, later in this story the pigs break these commandments and do not receive a punishment. This made the other animals feel mistreated and that the pigs were receiving special treatment. The pigs were always controlling what the other animals do. Even though the animals felt controlled, they liked to show the pigs that they were loyal members of the Animal Farm. In Anthem, the government made the citizens always conform to expectations. In Anthem, the opposite gender may never speak or think of each other if they are not in the season of mating. In the story, it states, “And we take no need of law that says no men may speak or think of women, save at the time of mating” (41) Another rule in Anthem is that the citizens cannot use personal pronouns. They only refer themselves as “we”. This is a rule because the government doesn’t want them to be more equal than the others. The citizens do not know that the word, I, me, etc. exists. When not using personal pronouns, it leads to lack of identity and freedom. Another law is that men may never write unless the council of vocations allows them to. Again, this is a lead factor of having no freedom or identity. Animal Farm and Anthem are both similar by the citizens always conforming to the governments expectations.

Even though there are a lot of similarities there are also differences. Animal Farm addresses real world problems while Anthem does not. In Animal Farm, it’s an allegory for the Russian Revolution. Mr. Jones and the humans represent the capitalists of the West. The pigs represent the leaders of the Russian Revolution and the animals are replacing the human capitalist system that have their own communist ideas. Old major, who created the idea of communism, represents Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin, which is who created the idea of communism. Karl Marx, informed communist state. The allegory suggests that capitalism can be a corrupt system. In addition to the allegory it suggests that communism is easily corrupted. At the end of the book illustrates this idea that there is no difference between the capitalists and the communists. The book Anthem, is about a futuristic society where the society is seen as perfect and equal. This is different from Animal Farm because it doesn’t connect to the real world and doesn’t address problems that have happened to an actual society. This is not realistic because they can’t do things that most human beings can do. This is a made-up society and doesn’t connect to the real world. Animal Farms society connects to the real world, because the idea of communism, and capitalism. However, Anthem is not as it says a unrealistic society where everyone is equal.

Authors write about dystopias to give the reader and themselves an opportunity to reflect on how the choices we make in our everyday lives will form our future. Anthem and Animal Farm are controlled by a totalitarian government where they have no freedom. The citizens are expected to conform to expectations or unless they will receive consequences. On the contrary Animal Farm, does not relate to the real world, when Anthem does. This all makes them a dystopian society. By being constantly watched and conforming to expectations, this can cause the citizens of Anthem and Animal Farm to have a lack of freedom. From Anthem lacking relation to the real world this causes an unrealistic society.

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