Intro
In this exciting tale, some pigs lead a revolt against a drunk farmer who doesn't take good care of his farm. They tout the virtues of animalism in a cool and groovy manifesto… but then the pigs become tyrants themselves.
They kill off other animals and turn human-like: they start wearing pants, drinking alcohol, and being all-around self-centered jerks.
But why do the ecocritics care extra much about this story? Because Orwell's allegory isn't just about the dangers of mob rule and fascism. It can be read as an ecological allegory as well. You want to mess up the natural world? Act like a human being.
Rachel Carson was one of the first eco-activists of the modern age to go deep into why our "civilized" habits are dangerous to the lives of other species and their natural habitats. As she says, we are "living in a world that is just not quite fatal."
Ecocriticism helps us find parallels between Carson's critique of human ecological behavior, particularly the spreading of pesticides, and the frightening transformation of Orwell's pigs as they start to behave like humans.
As soon as they adopt more human-like behaviors and aesthetics, they begin to spread fascism throughout the farm. Now look what we did: we just discovered an excellent eco-metaphor. Fascism is a pesticide. Bam.
Quote
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Life will go on as it has always gone on—that is, badly.
Analysis
The animals of Orwell's farm are not your happy, plastic, Fisher Price barnyard animals. In this quote, Benjamin—a wise, cantankerous donkey—says that life will go on badly. Just as it always has on the farm.
We can't say for sure whether or not Orwell consciously intended to make a statement about the horrible conditions of farm animals. And not, you know, exclusively focus on our societal oppressions. But authorial intent doesn't really matter here, does it?
Say the ecocritics: what matters is that we can read critiques of modern farming and animal-raising into the text of his novel… no matter what the dude presumed he was doing when he wrote Animal Farm. So let's do it.
Before they turn all evil and human-like, the animals on the farm revolt against the humans because they're treating them poorly. The drunken Mr. Jones is not a good steward of the farm and Old Major, the father of the animal revolution, compares humans to parasites.
Gross, but sort of true. Humans live off the meat and work of the animal, and give very little in return. That's a pretty one-way relationship right there.
Rachel Carson, Eco-Activist Extraordinaire, also says that humans act like parasites. They spread out across the land, over-use the dirt to over-produce food, and, in that process, cover Mother Earth in harmful pesticides. So really, Orwell and Carson have got a lot in common.
It doesn't take long before the once-revolutionary pigs become fascists themselves. They start to drink and play poker and enjoy the excesses of the farm just as humans have done for a very long time. And while these scenes do, in part, allegorize Stalin's fascist regime, they also depict Big Agri-Business.
By applying Carson's ecological critique to Animal Farm, we start to see the fat faces of chemical companies and massive farm operations in those pigs-cum-humans…
And now we need a hug.