Lesson 5

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • Animal Farm, George Orwell, Signet Classics, 2004

Materials

Tools

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• Animal Farm: Reading Schedule

Reference Guides

• Academic Discussion Reference Guide
• Narratives Reference Guide

Question Sets

• Animal Farm: Section 1 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• Animal Farm: Section 1 Question Set

Activity 1: Read – Discuss – Write

We will review the concept of complication in a narrative’s plot and identify key scenes in chapters 3–5 that serve as further turning points in the story. As we continue to examine characters and their roles in the story, we will also discuss various character types, in particular the concept of character foils.

Step 1

Review the concepts of complication and rising action as phases or stages in a narrative’s plot development (Narratives Reference Guide, p. 3).

For Chapters 3–5, make a list of the major events, actions, and interactions that build and complicate the story.

Step 2

In your Learning Log, identify one major event or character development that you see as very important in the complication and development of the story.

Make a prediction about what will happen later as a result of the event or character development you identified.

Step 3

As a class, return to the explanation of a story’s complication in the Narratives Reference Guide. Note that an element of complication is “how the story’s characters are developed through events that occur, conflicts that arise, descriptions, and dialogue.”

As you discuss character development, turn to the “The Process: Analyzing and Developing Characters” section of the Narratives Reference Guide and specifically the information presented under the heading “Character Roles, Types, and Relationships” (p. 15).

Note and discuss the sentence that states “Characters often play a defined role in a story or fit a character type or archetype.” As you focus on a selected character in your reading and interpretation of Animal Farm, you will be thinking and rethinking the role that your character plays in the narrative.

Read the explanations for the four archetypes that characters sometimes play in a narrative: protagonist, antagonist, foil, and tragic character.

Discuss what a character archetype is and how characters you are familiar with from books or movies might be seen as archetypes.

After examining the explanations, discuss these questions:

1. At this point in your reading of Animal Farm, do any of the characters seem to fit the archetypes of protagonist, antagonist, or tragic character? Refer to specific examples from the story to support your yes or no answer.

2. As you think about the relationships among characters in Animal Farm, what pairs of characters might you see as contrasting examples of character foils?

Step 4

With a discussion partner, consider one of the following character relationships in Animal Farm and determine in what ways the two characters might be seen as contrasting or as foils.

• Snowball and Napoleon

• Boxer and Mollie

• Benjamin and the sheep

• Other character pairs

In a class discussion, share what you have observed about each of these character pairs and their relationships as possible foils. Support your observations about their contrasting relationships with specific references to what you have read in Chapters 1-5.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss – Write

We will continue to study how Orwell uses language to characterize the animals and, specifically, we will analyze a new passage from chapter 3 in which their various efforts to become literate are described.

Step 1

Turn to Chapter 3 and the paragraph that begins:

“The reading and writing classes, however...”

Read through the next five paragraphs (up to “Napoleon took no interest in Snowball’s committees.”)

Focusing on the animal characters who most interest you, note details that describe and distinguish how “almost every animal on the farm was literate in some degree.”

Step 2

As a class, discuss what you note about the developing literacy of each of the following characters:

• The pigs

• The dogs

• Muriel, the goat

• Benjamin

• Clover

• Boxer

• Mollie

• The rest of the animals (sheep, hens, ducks, etc.)

Step 3

Locate the passage that describes how Snowball deals with the lack of literacy among some of the animals, the “single maxim” that the Seven Commandments of Animalism can be “reduced to.” Note also how the sheep respond to learning this maxim.

1. How do Orwell’s choices of words, such as “Snowball declared,” “maxim,” and “reduced to” suggest his perspective on how Snowball is using language to control the other animals?

2. What does the sheep’s response to learning “by heart” the new, reduced maxim suggest?

3. How does thinking about the various levels of literacy for the characters relate to seeing some pairs of characters as foils?

Activity 3: Read – Discuss – Write

In character study teams, we will reexamine chapter 3 to identify the ways in which our characters have been presented and further developed.

Step 1

Based on your reading and developing interest so far, join a character study team for one of the following characters in the novel:

• Jones and the other men

• Clover

• Boxer

• Benjamin

• Mollie

• Snowball

• Napoleon

• Squealer

• The Dogs

• The Sheep

• The cat

• Moses, the raven

Individually, explain to your study team why you are interested in the character, what you think about the character so far, and how you think the character may be important as the story develops.

Step 2

As a study team, review Chapters 3–5, looking for details that relate in some way to the character you are studying. List those details, with references to the pages on which they are found, on your Character Note-Taking Tools.

Discuss what you previously observed about your character and whether that character has a foil in the story. Identify any passages or details that suggest a contrasting relationship to another character.

Step 3

Based on the character development details you identify, develop a short summary of your character’s development in response to these text-specific questions:

1. How has your character been further developed or changed during the rising action (complication) of Chapters 3–5?

2. What role does your character play in the novel’s developing allegory?

3. Does your character seem to fit any of the character archetypes you have examined in this lesson: protagonist, antagonist, foil, or tragic character?

Step 4

In a class discussion, share what your study team has concluded so far about the development of your character and their role in the allegory of Animal Farm.

Activity 4: Read – Discuss – Write

We will closely examine the key turning point presented in Chapter 4, the battle of the cowshed, and its implications for the rest of the story.

Step 1

As a class, return to these text-specific questions from your homework reading of Chapter 4:

3. What happens before, during, and after the Battle of the Cowshed?

4. How is this battle another turning point in the story?

5. In what ways does the setting of the cowshed now have greater symbolic importance for the animals?

Find the passage in Chapter 4 that describes what happens early in October when humans first return to Animal Farm.

Read through and discuss the events that are depicted in the paragraphs that follow, up to the paragraph that begins “Where is Mollie?”

Step 2

Note how the passage you have reviewed has dramatized a central conflict of the story—between the animals and the humans.

Discuss how the Battle of the Cowshed is another turning point in that conflict and the story as a whole. Consider why the animals have named the battle after the Cowshed and how that setting now has greater symbolic importance for them.

If you are a member of the character study team that is focusing on Jones (and the other men, Frederick and Pilkington), Snowball, Boxer, or Mollie, explain that character’s role in the battle and what you learn further about the character.

Step 3

Following the class discussion, write a few sentences in your Learning Log in which you explain the importance of the Battle of the Cowshed in the development of the story.

Predict what you think might happen as a result of the animals’ victory.

Activity 5: Read – Discuss – Write

We will closely examine the key turning point presented in chapter 5, the expulsion of snowball, and its implications for the rest of the story.

Step 1

As a class, review what happens in Chapter 5, in light of these text-specific questions from your homework reading:

1. How does the conflict and battle for influence between Snowball and Napoleon play out?

2. How does what happens foreshadow what might happen as the story develops further?

Discuss the key details of the early part of the chapter considering the following questions:

3. How are the debates about building a windmill central to the developing conflict between Snowball and Napoleon?

4. How do the ways that Snowball and Napoleon act during the debates reinforce their relationship as character foils?

Step 2

As a backdrop to this conflict and what happens in this chapter, return to Chapter 3 and the paragraph that begins “Napoleon took no interest in Snowball’s committees…”

Reread this paragraph, thinking about how it is another example of foreshadowing within the story’s plot, and how what you learn about Napoleon and the puppies sets up the climactic events of Chapter 5.

Step 3

Listen as the paragraphs from Chapter 5 that dramatize the outcome of the conflict and Snowball’s banishment are read dramatically, beginning with the sentence

“But just at this moment Napoleon stood up…”

Discuss the ways in which this scene and its aftermath is another key turning point in the story, and what it may foreshadow for the future of the animals and Animal Farm.

In your Learning Log, write a few sentences in which you react to what happens to Snowball and what you predict may be the implications for the future of Animal Farm.

Activity 6: Read – Discuss – Write

We will continue to discuss Animal Farm as an allegory, considering how its symbolic meaning may relate to a theme of power and how it is wielded. We will write about what the story might be saying about language, literacy, and violence.

Step 1

After examining how language is used and presented in the first three chapters of Animal Farm, write a few sentences in your Learning Log in response to this question:

1. What do you think the book is saying so far about the power of language and the importance of literacy?

Step 2

Share what you have written, first with a discussion partner and then with the class as a whole.

In a class discussion, return to the concepts of an allegory and a fable. Think about the symbolic nature of the story so far. Consider this question:

2. If Animal Farm is in some ways an allegory or fable about the power of language, what do its characters and their varying levels of literacy represent?

Step 3

Now consider the events of Chapter 5, and the ways in which Napoleon has used his control over the dogs, violence, and terror to further his own power. Discuss this text-specific question:

3. How has Napoleon combatted the power of Snowball’s use of language through violence and terror? How does this further suggest that the two are character foils?

4. What might Napoleon’s actions foreshadow as the story develops further?

Step 4

In your Learning Log, write a few sentences in which you present and discuss what you think the story so far might be saying about language, literacy, violence, and/or terror and their use to take and wield power over others.

Refer to a character you have been following as an example of how the narrative is an allegory:

“A story in which ideas are symbolized by [characters], helping the story communicate its theme in a direct and transparent way”

or a fable:

“[A] story in which animals…take on human characteristics, often to teach a moral or religious lesson.”

(Narratives Reference Guide, p. 10)

Activity 7: Read – Discuss – Write

For homework, we will finish reading chapters 3 through 5.

Step 1

For homework, finish reading Chapters 3 through 5 if you have not already done so, or begin reading ahead in Chapters 6 and 7.

Continue to keep in mind the following questions as you read:

Chapter 5

1. How does the conflict and battle for influence between Snowball and Napoleon play out?

2. How does what happens foreshadow what might happen as the story develops further?

Overall

3. In what ways has a character you are interested in developed or been important in this phase of the story’s development?

Step 2

Think about how you visualize the character you have selected to examine closely as you read the rest of the book.

1. How do you visualize your Animal Farm character? What images come to mind?

Draw a picture of your character, or do a preliminary search online for images that others have associated with your character.

To search, type “animal farm + [your character’s name]” and click on “images.”