Animal Farm: In Response to Professor Hanley

In class last Thursday, Professor Hanley posed two questions: Why do the pigs impose a hierarchy? Is it human nature to want hierarchy?

As one student stated in class, the hierarchy is pre-existent in Orwell’s Animal Farm. That is, the ranking of the fable’s characters: Mr. Jones, the owner of the farm, and the various farm animals, each defined by their genus, individual assets, deficits and liabilities.

Hierarchy, ideally includes systems of compromise, reciprocity, interchange, and exchange.
(To be continued).

Edith