Stand Up For Your Beliefs-Response to Animal Farm

By Delaney McCabe

4/28/10

Everyone has their own beliefs and they could be about anything, from politics to religion. Beliefs and opinions are a big part of what makes people individuals and what would it be like if everyone dropped their beliefs because our government wanted to change them? That is similar to what happened in Animal Farm. Beliefs are an important part of how you live your life so they cannot be forgotten about or changed, because of what someone with greater power tells you, to favor themselves, and you must stand up for what you believe in no matter what.

The pigs are great hypocrites in Animal Farm, and by the end of the story it becomes very sad. Once the humans are chased out of the farm the pigs write rules on the wall for the farm stating things like "no animal shall walk on two legs," or "no animal shall drink alcohol," but by the end of the book all of the rules had "suddenly" been changed on the wall to favor the pigs. One example is "no animal should drink alcohol excessively." All of the pigs were drinking alcohol and walking on two legs while other animals watched them do this like nothing was wrong with it.

While the pigs changed the rules they also abused their power. One of the reasons that the animals wanted the humans gone in the first place was so they could all have more food, and that's how it was at first, but then the pigs started eating much more than their share. The pigs also got the dogs to kill any animal who spoke out against them which went against the rule "all animals are equal" which was later changed to "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." It was very disappointing for them to use their power for evil instead of good, while no one could speak out against them without going "missing" the next day. All of the pigs were turning into humans, and that made a lot of the animals wonder if it was truly much better without the humans.

All of the animals made the wrong choice letting the pigs have absolute power and it caused corruption. They all let the pigs change their beliefs and what they stand for leaving them less equal than the pigs, because all of them became gullible and didn't stand up for themselves when they should have. That is why no one should ever forget about what they stand for. Everyone needs to stand up for themselves and their beliefs, because that is where the animals were flawed, and this is an example of what that can lead to.

The Presence of Love and Hate

How can someone absolutely hate an idea while another person loves and completely believes in the same exact idea? This happens the same way people decide which party they will be for politics. Everyone creates their own opinion. In The Host love and hate are both very present once Wanda is with the underground community of humans, and all of the different humans have many different emotions towards the situation.

It's important for everyone to have their own opinion, because otherwise we would only look at things from one point of view, which isn't the right thing to do, and it's very boring. Everyone involved in the underground community has their own point of view on what happened with Kyle and Wanda. Even though they all know that Kyle tried to kill Wanda, some of them think that it was for the best and it would have been better if he succeeded. Others think that Kyle should be killed for it to follow the rules. That's why they went to "court" to see which opinion was the majority.

In a way I'm glad they went to their court to decide how to deal with the situation, because it really brought out everyones' opinions. I'm not sure if I agree on what they decided or not, but I think that it's probably best if a human doesn't have to die because of something they did to Wanda. There are many different ways to look at the situation and it would be wrong to dismiss Wanda's point of view, because she didn't do anything wrong. This is why it is very important to look at situations from every point of view and never to decide anything before you have done so.