動(dòng)物農(nóng)場的哥特式元素分析

1、.西南大學(xué) 課 程： 文學(xué)導(dǎo)論 學(xué) 號： 222010310011183姓 名： 王艷兵 學(xué) 院： 外國語學(xué)院 專 業(yè)： 2010級英語（師范）班 級： 七班 任課教師： 胡蕾 The Gothic Elements in the “Animal Farm”Abstract: “Animal Farm” is a famous work written by George Orwell. Its a typical anti-utopia allegorical novel. Even though the “Animal Farm” is not a gothic novel, but it

2、 still has some gothic elements.Key words: “Animal Farm”; gothic element; symbol. As we all know, the birth of gothic novel have much relationship with politics, economy, history and culture. Generally speaking, the “Animal Farm” sneers at the policy of the Soviet Union, according to the history bac

3、kground. The gothic element appears in the novel making contribute to the atmosphere of fear. Just take some points for instance. First, the place where the story happens is a farm out-of-the-way. The animal farm was far away from other farms or towns, so it makes animals have an improper view on hu

4、man beings. To some extent, they are afraid of human beings because they live in this remote farm without information about the truth. As a result, they have to build the windmill in cold winter as slaves. The winters coldness and the wasteland show a miserable feeling. Second, in the chapter IV “An

5、imal Farm”, “Any animals caught singing it was given a flogging on the spot. And yet the song was irrepressible. The blackbirds whistled it in the hedges, the pigeons cooed it in the elms, it got into the din of the smithies and the tune of church bells. And when the human beings listened to it, the

6、y secretly trembled, hearing in it a prophecy of their future doom.” (Orwell 25) From this description, we can see that people think the song which comes out from the animal farm as a horrible thing, they fear that the other animals will be deluded by the song and will fight like the animals in the

7、animal farm. It use blackbirds, pigeons, peoples tremble to describe a horrible atmosphere in the society. In the western, people always take the blackbird to give a hint on death, the mumbles of pigeons, and so on, all this are typical element in gothic novel to build a horrific atmosphere. Third,

8、the violence is an important element in the novel. At the beginning, the animals get their own control right in the farm through violence. They fight Mr. Jones away who is the master of the Manor Farm in the first chapter. Then, after the pig became the leader of the animal farm, they also use viole

9、nce to control other animals. In chapter V, nine enormous dogs came bounding into the barn, straight for Snowball. The dogs want to tear him in two. In this story, especially the pig whose name is Napoleon became the boss in the animal farm; he has to keep his highest power in the farm through viole

10、nce way. There are seven commandments in the animal farm, for example: “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.” “No animal shall wear clothes.” and so on. If anyone goes against anyone of it, he or she will be assassinated. However, all this rules are just applied to the populace, not the leaders.

11、 The brutal upstairs make their rules going through this way which seems reasonable. In this situation, many innocent animals think only Napoleon can lead them live a happy life. But actually, the leader Napoleon and his dogs deprive the animals rights and freedom arbitrarily. Forth, there are some

12、mysterious elements in the novel. The gothic novel has a traditional character is that some strange tales or adventures will appear in the story. The strange tales or adventures are use to show the conflicts between dream and real life. In the chapter I, the Old Major, “had had a strange dream on th

13、e previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals.”(Orwell 1) He heard a song named Beasts of England in the dream. According to this song, “the animals elaborated old Majors teachings in to a complete system of thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism.”(Orwell 9) The Anima

14、lism comes from a dream, and which is a motivation for the animals to beat the master of farm. All the movement can dating back to a dream, sometimes, it seems ridiculous. The old Major dead soon after he told the dream. However, he appears gained in chapter V, “the skull of old Major, now clean of

15、flesh, had been disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the gun.”(Orwell 37) Its a strange ceremony before the meeting, the animals a required to show their respect to a skull, to a large extent, its more horrible than mystery. The skull was put near t

16、he guns; it shows not a respect, but power of the leaders. They are command what the other animals have to do with no other choice. The pig Napoleon have a talent for govern, he know how to control the animals, keep them working in the name of Animalism, just like slaves but have no complains. For a

17、 long time, the animals forget freedom day by day; they just do what they are asked to do without thinking the right or freedom. In the last chapter, the animals saw pigs walking on hint legs, which violate one of the seven commandments. Besides, pigs start to make business with human beings; they d

18、rink wines together, and play cards. The animals crept silently away when they saw this. They came back to see what happened in the room, “from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which.” (Orwell 91). Thats the end of “Animal Farm”, the pig cannot be distinguished from human beings, what more important