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For Christmas, I have offered paid subscribers the chance to have some work marked by me. Thank you B, for volunteering.

B has got a low grade 9, and wants to write a perfect essay.

I love this. Grade 9 is not just for geniuses. It is for students who think like a student of literature, rather than a reader of books.

A reader of books tries to understand what the writer wants us to think about the characters and their actions.

A student of literature tries to understand what this tells us about ourselves and our society, and what the author wants to change about us and the society they live in.

Anyone can do this.

Yes.

B got 27/30, a grade 9, because she focused on Orwell’s ideas about the characters and the world of the novel.

But, B could easily have got 30/30 by writing about Orwell’s ideas about his society at the time, and his predictions about what sort of society humans are always likely to create because of their natures.

This is how you get 30/30 when writing about any text. What is the author telling us about society, then and now?

Hi Sir, this is a wonderful Christmas present!

I got 31/34 on this (just within Grade 9), but my teacher's comments are extremely confusing!

I am happy with the level of context I used throughout (perhaps too much, if I'm honest) and some of my analysis.

However, I was told I needed to offer 'more varied interpretations', and I 'drift occasionally with judicious use of precise references to support interpretations' (no idea what this means).

I also needed to include more about 'the book as satire' and 'Orwell's political views, and broader ideas about any kind of dictatorial rule and corruption of idealism' and focus on how this is a 'law book' (?).

If you are unable able to mark the whole essay (completely understand how Christmas is a busy time for all), please could you explain what these terms mean?

Hello B,

Thanks for being a paid subscriber and for sending in your essay.

Teachers write a lot of helpful feedback for their students. But often it is useless! Teachers don’t realise that they are experts, and so find it impossible to think like a student.

I write a lot in these posts. I know much of it might not make sense, because I am an expert. That is why I always give you the essay. This is what grade 9 looks like. Readers then have a better chance of understanding why it gets grade 9.

Have ‘more varied interpretations’:

What was Orwell saying about communism and about Russia? What was he saying about people, and their desire to believe in something, even when the evidence shows that belief is wrong? Was he ultimately an optimist about equality and overcoming the class system, or a pessimist?

You ‘drift occasionally with judicious use of precise references to support interpretations’:

You sometimes don’t use the best quotes, or enough references to what happens in the text. This means you don’t fully back up some of your interpretations of the novel.

I also needed to include more about 'the book as satire'

This comes back to Orwell’s intentions again. Let’s think about the purpose of satire. It is easy to see it as sarcasm, or as simply making fun of something.

But it is much more than that. It takes an idea and stretches it to breaking point. It challenges you to see the world in a new and horrifying way.

For example, in A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift (who wrote Gulliver’s Travels) wrote a pamphlet about the poor in Ireland. He noticed that poor people had a huge number of children. The rich, instead of just paying the poor to be idle by giving to charity, could help them by buying their fat babies. They would pay to fatten them up. The babies could then be cooked and eaten as a delicacy at dinner parties. This would give the poor a means of earning money, and end poverty.

The point of the satire is this. The rich are landowners. The poor are farmers on their land. The rich create poverty by not paying enough. This means that babies are malnourished, get ill and frequently die. So, the rich kill babies. But they do it so they themselves can stay fat and rich - their riches depend on the poor being paid too little.

So, satire is always angry. It challenges the reader to see their behaviour in a new way. Based on your behaviour, Swift says, the poor would actually be better of if we cannibalised their children. Your attitude to the poor is worse than eating babies, because at least if you did that, poor people would at least have a chance to escape being poor.

Ok, now we know what satire is, what is Orwell so angry about?

‘Orwell's political views, and broader ideas about any kind of dictatorial rule and corruption of idealism’

He can see that the great hope of communism in Russia has failed. Stalin is the Napoleon-like figure who has turned on his own people, starving millions of them with his five year plans, executing thousands for political disagreement.

He is also furious with communists in the UK, who have turned a blind eye to Stalin’s atrocities because they want to keep believing in communism. They believe in the ideal, and so ignore the terrible facts.

He is horrified that (in 1943) Stalin and Russia are now an ally in the war against Hitler. This means communism will continue to be celebrated.

He is also horrified that Stalin is really no different to Hitler. They are both dictators who are happy to kill millions of their own people, as well as invade other countries.

Now we can see his horror is aimed at us. He is asking if it is human nature to follow dictators. This comes from his own experience of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, on the side of the communists and republicans. The communists lost, and nationalists won. Spain was then ruled by the fascist dictator, Franco. Stalin supported the republicans and Hitler supported the nationalists.

The fascists won, even though thousands of men from democratic countries in Europe rushed to Spain to join the fight against fascism. They had hope for democracy and the rights of the poor. But Franco still won. He had greater support.

So, the novel asks if people will always end up preferring powerful rulers to fair rulers, dictatorship rather than democracy.

He took this to it’s logical conclusion in 1948, when he wrote 1984. In this novel he imagined Britain being controlled by a dictatorship which kept changing history - rewriting the commandments in the same way.

Within Orwell’s satirical allegory of the Russian revolution, the revelation of overthrowing the humans is portrayed as, initially useful, but by the end of the novella, the changes to the seven commandments, highlight that the animals’ situation had not changed.

A nice thesis statement.

This is where you need to share Orwell’s anger. Explain what the allegory has to say about communism, idealism and human nature - will we always prefer dictators to democracy? In other words, what do the animals represent?

Firstly, from the very beginning, after the successful revolution, the Seven Commandments are established in an equal manner. Orwell uses poetic language to describe how the animals ‘frolicked’ and ‘gambolled’ around the fields, full of joy and enthusiasm after their victory. These verbs have positive connotations and make it clear from the start that the revolution was, inherently, a good thing.

Brilliant use of the quotes. But, don’t just say what this reveals about the world and the characters in the novel. Explain what this then reveals about Orwell’s view of his society.

However, this poetic language is juxtaposed with the rest of the novel’s more monotonous and less enthusiastic language, especially after the Seven Commandments are set. The pigs are immediately described as taking control with the way they are the ones to paint the words on the wall, and the disparity in literacy levels are clear from the start– the pigs and dogs had already memorised them, but other animals struggled immensely. For example, Boxer, who was only able to remember the first three to four letters. Perhaps Orwell’s intentions were to highlight how the very main message of the revolution- equality- was being contrasted with the way the rules were set, foreshadowing the pigs’ exploitative use of the Commandments to control the animals.

You are starting to think more about what Orwell thinks about his own society. But you don’t really get specific.

Is he saying that a lack of education makes it easier to control people, and therefore education and literacy are essential to stop dictatorship?

Or is he saying people are too stupid to remember the past, because they would much rather keep imagining a better future?

Or is he saying we are all too selfish to ever create a world in which people have equality and fairness?

Alternatively, Orwell was attempting to convey that the timing of the revolution was the issue as the animals were underprepared, not the revolution itself. This links in with the Russian revolution when the Social Democrats were split between those who wished to implement communism in Russia immediately, versus those who wished to wait until Russia was ready; this foreshadows how the animals on the farm were eventually divided into those who supported Snowball against those who didn’t. Therefore, by using the unequal beginning to the Seven Commandments establishment, Orwell has perhaps shown it to be against the previously perfect revelation.

Yes, this is too much context. Readers would not have known or cared about the split in the Social Democrats. They may well have known that Lenin and Trotsky believed in one kind of communism, and Stalin believed in quite another.

Your last sentence shows that you are thinking hard about Orwell’s purpose, but I’m not really sure what you mean. This is what your teacher might mean when they ask for better quotes or references to back up your interpretations.

Secondly, Orwell has emphasised how the Seven Commandments underwent subtle changes as the novella progressed to portray how the revolution had lost its meaning. Old Major had clearly dictated that ‘whatever goes on two legs is an enemy; whatever goes on four legs, or has wings, is a friend’ to highlight that the animals should be fighting the humans. The juxtaposition between the nouns ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’ give the statement a tone of finality to make it clear that the animals are against the humans.

This is a perfect paragraph about the novel.

The next step is to ask what this represents about Orwell’s view of society or Russia.

However, after the revolution, the pigs shorten this to the maxim ‘four legs good, two legs bad’ which almost removes the original meaning of Old Major’s teachings and suggest that the revolution was doomed to fail from the start. This change to the teaching led to the pigs being able to utilise the sheep as a weapon for propaganda and drown out any opposition to Napoleon, notably when Snowball was attempting to put forth his own ideas.

This is a brilliant idea. But how does changing the maxim change the meaning? How exactly does it lead to the silencing of Snowball? What is lost when we take out the words ‘wings’ and ‘friend’, and ‘enemy’?

This again is what your teacher means by analysing the right quotes and references.

This was not the first instance that the pigs had changed the Commandments. For example, in order to justify them sleeping in the farmhouse, the Commandment ‘no animal shall sleep in a bed’ was swiftly changed to add ‘with sheets’. A more serious example was when the Commandment ‘no animal shall kill another animal’ was altered to ‘no animal shall kill any other animal without cause’ to justify Napoleon’s mindless slaughter of animals who had, allegedly, betrayed him. The noun ‘cause’ is ironic and could create confusion and doubt of the pigs’ true intentions within the reader as it implies that there is a potential reason for murder and execution.

Now we are talking. An excellent analysis of what Orwell does in the novel.

So, now link this to his views of human nature, of politics, of dictatorship, of our willingness to go along with strong rulers, of our ability or desire to be deceived, or his despair at rulers ever preferring equality to power.

Paid subscribers get a full grade 9 answer every week, and access to the 50+ already published.

Substack gives you one week free, so you can cancel without ever having to pay!

I’m ok with that - well over 90% of subscribers stay because they know they will see how to get top grades.

Alternatively, it could be a Biblical allusion to the Ten Commandments and a more convoluted version of “thou shalt not kill”, suggesting that the revolution’s ideology had become twisted in order to fit the viewpoint of those corrupted by power. This could also be a reference to the Seven Deadly sins, further reinforcing the idea that the revolution was doomed from the setting of the Commandments.

Brilliant. So, does Orwell want his readers to agree with these Christian commandments? What does he say about Christianity and the belief in heaven in the novel? Does he see it as another form of mind control, or as an ally in promoting equality and democracy?

Perhaps Orwell’s intentions were to highlight how those unchecked with power were able to take something good and manipulate it to fit their selfish desires, but still maintain a facade of integrity. Therefore, it can be argued that the changing of the Seven Commandments were merely a tool for the corrupted animals to use in order to maintain control and exploit the beneficial ideology of the revolution.

This is another great analysis of Orwell’s ideas about the characters in the novel. But again, you need to link it to his ideas about society at the time.

Finally, the ending of the novella where the Seven Commandments were reduced to a single phrase is used to elucidate how the revolution had failed and nothing had changed.

The paradox ‘all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others’ highlights how deeply rooted the corruption had become as it was able to infect the rules upon which the society was based on. The comparative ‘more equal’ also suggests this is a competition and juxtaposes the statement itself and, morally, equality should be a prerequisite rather than a prize. This emphasises how the subtle changes of the commandments had spiralled into a complete juxtaposition of the original revolution’s meaning- as if the pigs no longer cared about disguising their corruption and deceit because they had absolute power and were confident no one would be able to overthrow them.

Fantastic. Same comments from me as above!

Alternatively, the Commandments’ subtle changes only became evident when the pigs became more corrupted; if they had wanted to, they could have made them unequal from the start but instead made it so all the animals received some benefits. It could be argued that the revolution only started to become twisted when the pigs became more corrupted due to the influence of humans. This is supported by the cyclical ending of the novella, in which the animals had once again been under authoritarian rule of the humans as shown through them ‘look[ing] from pig to man and from man to pig but it was impossible to tell which was which’, suggesting the failure of the revolution was due to outside influence rather than just the actions of the pigs themselves.

Ah, this was brilliant until the end. But is Orwell arguing that the animals act like humans because of ‘outside influences’, or because they always carried that humanity in them?

This is a satire, so it is the same as Orwell asking if humans are always much more like animals - we act on instinct and emotion and desire - and then intellectualise those primitive and selfish actions to justify them and excuse them.

The more power we have, the less human and equal we have to be, and the more we can indulge our animal nature’s without fear of how other people will react.

Perhaps Orwell had deliberately done this to mislead the reader and make them feel as confused and oppressed as the animals to highlight how those in charge- him as the author- could manipulate the facts to their own perspective. Therefore, it can be argued that the conclusion of the novella meant the revolution had been a futile endeavour as nothing had changed, paralleling to how the Bolsheviks had remained an oppressive force even after the revolution.

Overall, through the use of drastic and subtle changes of the Seven Commandments, the revolution is largely shown to be a meaningless attempt for the proletariats to break free from authoritarian rule, but would always fail as long as corruption of media is possible and those in power remained within society.

In this section you start to show how Orwell is commenting on his own society, as well as the Russian Revolution.

The idea that Orwell tells his reader that he is just as untrustworthy and manipulative as the pigs is fascinating. I’d love you to prove this - it is a beyond grade 9 idea I haven’t met before.

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