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Of Mice and Men is a 1937 novella written by American author John Steinbeck. It narrates the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression in the United States.

Steinbeck based the novella on his own experiences working alongside migrant farm workers as a teenager in the 1910s, before the arrival of the Okies that he would describe in his novel The Grapes of Wrath. The title is taken from Robert Burns' poem " To a Mouse": "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley" ("The best laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry").

While it is a book taught in many schools, Of Mice and Men has been a frequent target of censorship and book bans for vulgarity, and what some consider offensive and racist language; consequently, it appears on the American Library Association's list of the Most Challenged Books of the 21st Century.

During the Great Depression in California, two migrant field workers - George Milton, an intelligent but uneducated man, and Lennie Small, a bulky, strong but mentally disabled man - are on their way from Soledad to another part of the state. They hope to one day attain the dream of settling down on their own piece of land. Lennie's part of the dream is merely to care for and pet rabbits on the farm, as he loves touching soft animals, although he always accidentally kills them by petting them too hard. This dream is one of Lennie's favorite stories, which George constantly retells. They had fled from Weed after Lennie grabbed a young woman's skirt because he thought it was pretty, and would not let go because of his tendency to hold on tighter when stressed. This led to an accusation of rape. Throughout this introduction, it becomes clear that Lennie is dependent on George as he is unable to function independently.

After being hired at a farm, the pair are confronted by Curley, the Boss's small, aggressive son with a Napoleon complex who dislikes larger men. Curley starts to target Lennie. Curley's flirtatious and provocative wife, to whom Lennie is instantly attracted, poses a problem as well. In contrast, the pair also meets Candy, an elderly ranch handyman with one hand and a loyal dog, and Slim, an intelligent and gentle jerkline-skinner whose dog has recently had a litter of puppies. Slim gives a puppy to Lennie and Candy, whose loyal, accomplished sheep dog was put down by fellow ranch-hand Carlson.

In spite of problems, their dream leaps towards reality when Candy offers to pitch in $350 with George and Lennie so that they can buy a farm at the end of the month, in return for permission to live with them. The trio are ecstatic, but their joy is overshadowed when Curley attacks Lennie, who defends himself by easily crushing Curley's fist while urged on by George.

Nevertheless, George feels more relaxed, to the extent that he even leaves Lennie behind on the ranch while he goes into town with the other ranch hands. Lennie wanders into the stable, and chats with Crooks, the bitter, yet educated stable buck, who is isolated from the other workers due to being black. Candy finds them and they discuss their plans for the farm with Crooks, who cannot resist asking them if he can hoe a garden patch on the farm, even though he scorns the possibility of the farm happening. Curley's wife makes another appearance and flirts with the men, especially Lennie. However, her spiteful side is shown when she belittles them and threatens to have Crooks lynched. They then hear the ranch hands returning, which prompts her to leave.

The next day, Lennie accidentally kills his puppy while stroking it. Curley's wife enters the barn and tries to speak to Lennie, admitting that she is lonely and how her dreams of becoming a movie star have been crushed. After finding out about Lennie's habit, she offers to let him stroke her hair, but panics and begins to scream when she feels his strength. Lennie becomes frightened, and unintentionally breaks her neck. He then runs away. When the other ranch hands find the corpse, they form into a lynch mob intent on killing him, then send for the police before beginning the search. George quickly realizes that their dream is at an end and hurries to find Lennie, hoping he will be at the meeting place they designated in case he got into trouble.

George meets Lennie at the meeting spot, and the two sit together while George retells the beloved story of the dream, despite knowing it is something that will never happen. Upon hearing the lynch mob near them, George shoots Lennie, knowing it to be a more merciful death than that at the hands of a mob. Curley, Slim, and Carlson arrive seconds after. Only Slim understands what has happened and consolingly leads George away. Curley and Carlson look on, neither understanding why Slim and George are feeling the way they are.

Characters

George Milton: A quick-witted man who is Lennie's guardian and best friend. His friendship with Lennie helps sustain his dream of a better future. He has been friends with Lennie since they were children. He is described by Steinbeck in the novel as "small and quick," every part of him being "defined," with small strong hands on slender arms. He has a dark face and "restless eyes" and "sharp, strong features" including a "thin, bony nose".

Lennie Small: A gigantic, physically strong imbecile who travels with George and is his constant companion. He dreams of "living off the fatta' the lan'" and being able to tend to rabbits. His love for soft things is a weakness, mostly because he does not know his own strength, and eventually becomes his undoing. Steinbeck defines his appearance as George's "opposite", writing that he is a "huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes" and "wide, sloping shoulders". Lennie walks heavily, dragging his feet a little, "the way a bear drags his paws," adding that his arms do not swing at his sides, but hang loosely.

Candy: An aging ranch handyman, Candy lost his hand in an accident and worries about his future on the ranch. Fearing that his age is making him useless, he seizes on George's description of the farm he and Lennie will have, offering his life's savings if he can join George and Lennie in owning the land.

Slim: A "jerkline skinner," the main driver of a mule team and the "prince of the ranch." Slim is greatly respected by many of the characters and is the only character whom Curley treats with respect. His insight, intuition, kindness and natural authority draw the other ranch hands automatically towards him, and he is significantly the only character to fully understand the bond between George and Lennie. Slim is considered the "übermensch" of this story by the god-like descriptions of Slim that he is the one that knows best out of the novel's characters.

Curley: The Boss's son, a young, pugnacious character, once a semi-professional boxer. He is described by others, with some irony, as "handy", partly because he likes to keep a glove filled with vaseline on his left hand. He is very jealous and protective of his wife and immediately develops a dislike toward Lennie. At one point, Curley loses his temper after he sees Lennie appear to laugh at him, and ends up with his hand horribly damaged after Lennie fights back against him.

Curley's wife: A young, pretty woman, who is mistrusted by her husband. The other characters refer to her only as "Curley's wife". Steinbeck explained that she is "not a person, she's a symbol. She has no function, except to be a foil - and a danger to Lennie." Curley's wife's preoccupation with her own beauty eventually helps precipitate her death: She allows Lennie to stroke her hair as an apparently harmless indulgence, only for her to upset Lennie when she yells at him to stop him "mussing it". Lennie tries to stop her yelling and eventually kills her accidentally by breaking her neck.

Crooks: Crooks, the black stable-hand, gets his name from his crooked back. Proud, bitter, and cynical, he is isolated from the other men because of the color of his skin. Despite himself, Crooks becomes fond of Lennie, and though he claims to have seen countless men following empty dreams of buying their own land, he asks Lennie if he can go with them and hoe in the garden. Crooks is a more relatable individual who sees things from a more rational and human perspective.

Candy's dog: A blind dog who is described as "old", "stinky", and "crippled", and is killed by Carlson.

Carlson: A "thick bodied" ranch hand, he kills Candy's dog with little sympathy.

The Boss: Curley's father, the superintendent of the ranch. The ranch is owned by "a big land company" according to Candy.

Whit: A young ranch hand.

In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.

Steinbeck emphasizes aspirations throughout the book. George aspires to become independent, to be his own boss, to have a homestead, and, most important, to be "somebody". Lennie aspires to be with George on his independent homestead, and to quench his fixation on soft objects. Candy aspires to reassert his responsibility lost with the death of his dog, and for security for his old age-on George's homestead. Crooks aspires to a small homestead where he can express self-respect, security, and most of all, acceptance. Curley's wife dreams to be an actress, to satisfy her desire for fame lost when she married Curley, and an end to her loneliness.

Loneliness is a significant factor in several characters' lives. Candy is lonely after his dog is gone. Curley's wife is lonely because her husband is not the friend she hoped for-she deals with her loneliness by flirting with the men on the ranch, which causes Curley to increase his abusiveness and jealousy. The companionship of George and Lennie is the result of loneliness. Crooks states the theme candidly as "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got anybody. Don't make any difference who the guy is, long's he's with you." The author further reinforces this theme through subtle methods by situating the story near the town of Soledad, which means "solitude" in Spanish.

Despite the need for companionship, Steinbeck emphasizes how loneliness is sustained through the barriers established from acting inhuman to one another. The loneliness of Curley's wife is upheld by Curley's jealousy, which causes all the ranch hands to avoid her. Crooks's barrier results from being barred from the bunkhouse by restraining him to the stable; his bitterness is partially broken, however, through Lennie's ignorance.

Steinbeck's characters are often powerless, due to intellectual, economic, and social circumstances. Lennie possesses the greatest physical strength of any character, which should therefore establish a sense of respect as he is employed as a ranch hand. However, his intellectual handicap undercuts this and results in his powerlessness. Economic powerlessness is established as many of the ranch hands are victims of the Great Depression. As George, Candy and Crooks are positive, action-oriented characters, they wish to purchase a homestead, but because of the Depression, they are unable to earn enough money to fulfill their dream. Lennie is the only one who is basically unable to take care of himself, but the other characters would do this in the improved circumstances they seek. Since they cannot do so, the real danger of Lennie's mental handicap comes to the fore.

Regarding human interaction, the evil of oppression and abuse is a theme that is illustrated through Curley and Curley's wife. Curley uses his aggressive nature and superior position in an attempt to take control of his father's farm. He constantly reprimands the farm hands and accuses some of fooling around with his wife. Curley's Napoleon complex is evidenced by his threatening of the farm hands for minuscule incidents. Curley's wife, on the other hand, is not physically but verbally manipulative. She uses her sex appeal to gain some attention, flirting with the farm hands. According to the Penguin Teacher's Guide for Of Mice and Men, Curley and Curley's wife represent evil in that both oppress and abuse the migrants in different ways.

Fate is felt most heavily as the characters' aspirations are destroyed when George is unable to protect Lennie (who is a real danger). Steinbeck presents this as "something that happened" or as his friend coined for him "non-teleological thinking" or "is thinking", which postulates a non-judgmental point of view.

Of Mice and Men can be associated with the idea that inherent limitations exist and despite all the squirming and struggling, sometimes the circumstances of one's existence limits their capacity to live the fairy tale lives they wish to. Even the title of the novel itself references this "the title is, of course, a fragment from the poem lay Robert Burns, which gives emphasis to the idea of the futility of human endeavor or the vanity of human wishes".

Animals play a role in the story as well; the heron shifts from a beautiful part of the scenery from the beginning of the novel to a predator near the end. The ending chapter has the heron return, preying upon snakes that get too curious in a repetitive nature, symbolic of the dreams of men constantly being snatched away.

Development

Of Mice and Men was Steinbeck's first attempt at writing in the form of novel-play termed a "play-novelette" by one critic. Structured in three acts of two chapters each, it is intended to be both a novella and a script for a play. It is only 30,000 words in length. Steinbeck wanted to write a novel that could be played from its lines, or a play that could be read like a novel.

Steinbeck originally titled it Something That Happened (referring to the events of the book as "something that happened" because nobody can be really blamed for the tragedy that unfolds in the story). However, he changed the title after reading Robert Burns's poem " To a Mouse". Burns's poem tells of the regret the narrator feels for having destroyed the home of a mouse while plowing his field.

Steinbeck wrote this book and The Grapes of Wrath in what is now Monte Sereno, California. An early draft of Of Mice and Men was eaten by Steinbeck's dog. As he explained in a 1936 letter:

My setter pup [Toby], left alone one night, made confetti of about half of my [manuscript] book. Two months [sic] work to do over again. It sets me back. There was no other draft. I was pretty mad, but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically.

In the introduction to Penguin's 1994 edition of the book, Susan Shillinglaw writes that Steinbeck, after dropping out of Stanford University, spent almost two years roaming California, finding work on ranches for Spreckels Sugar where he harvested wheat and sugar beets. Steinbeck told The New York Times in 1937:

I was a bindlestiff myself for quite a spell. I worked in the same country that the story is laid in. The characters are composites to a certain extent. Lennie was a real person. He's in an insane asylum in California right now. I worked alongside him for many weeks. He didn't kill a girl. He killed a ranch foreman. Got sore because the boss had fired his pal and stuck a pitchfork right through his stomach. I hate to tell you how many times. I saw him do it. We couldn't stop him until it was too late.

Attaining the greatest positive response of any of his works up to that time, Steinbeck's novella was chosen as a Book of the Month Club selection before it was published. Praise for the work came from many notable critics, including Maxine Garrard ( Enquirer-Sun), Christopher Morley, and Harry Thornton Moore ( New Republic). New York Times critic Ralph Thompson described the novella as a "grand little book, for all its ultimate melodrama." In the UK, it was listed at number 52 of the "nation's best loved novels" on the BBC's 2003 survey The Big Read.

The novella has been banned from various US public and school libraries or curricula for allegedly "promoting euthanasia", "condoning racial slurs", being "anti-business", containing profanity, and generally containing "vulgar," "offensive language," and containing racial stereotypes, as well as the negative impact of these stereotypes on students. Many of the bans and restrictions have been lifted and it remains required reading in many other American, Australian, Irish, British, New Zealand and Canadian high schools.

As a result of being a frequent target of censors, Of Mice and Men appears on the American Library Association's list of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009 (number five) and Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2010-2019 (number 28). Of Mice and Men has been proposed for censorship 54 times since it was published in 1936. However, scholars including Thomas Scarseth have fought to protect the book by arguing its literary value. According to Scarseth "in true great literature the pain of Life is transmuted into the beauty of Art."

Adaptations

As a "playable novel", it was performed by the Theater Union of San Francisco as written. This version opened on May 21, 1937 - less than three months after the novel's publication - and ran for about two months.

To create a Broadway production, Steinbeck adapted and slightly revised his original text and this version, produced by Sam H. Harris and directed by George S. Kaufman, opened on November 23, 1937, in the Music Box Theatre on Broadway and ran for 207 performances. It starred Wallace Ford as George and Broderick Crawford as Lennie. The role of Crooks was performed by Leigh Whipper, the first African-American member of the Actors' Equity Association. (Whipper repeated this role in the 1939 film version.) The production was chosen as Best Play in 1938 by the New York Drama Critics' Circle.

In 1939 the production was moved to Los Angeles, still with Wallace Ford in the role of George, but with Lon Chaney, Jr., taking on the role of Lennie. Chaney's performance in the role resulted in his casting in the movie.

In 1958, a musical theater adaptation by Ira Bilowit (1925-2016) was produced Off-Broadway in New York City. The cast included several in-demand performers of their day, including Art Lund and Jo Sullivan, re-teamed after performing together in the hit musical The Most Happy Fella, as well as Leo Penn. However, a newspaper strike negatively affected the production and it closed after six weeks. A revival of the work was mounted at the Western Stage in Salinas, California in 2019.

The play was revived in a 1974 Broadway production in the Brooks Atkinson Theatre starring Kevin Conway as George and James Earl Jones as Lennie. Noted stage actress Pamela Blair played Curley's Wife in this production.

In 1970 Carlisle Floyd wrote an opera based on this novella. One departure between Steinbeck's book and Floyd's opera is that the opera features The Ballad Singer, a character not found in the book.

A new version of the play opened on Broadway at The Longacre Theater on March 19, 2014 for a limited 18-week engagement, starring James Franco, Chris O'Dowd, Leighton Meester and Jim Norton.

A ballet adaptation was created by Cathy Marston with original music by Thomas Newman. It debuted on April 27, 2022 at the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago.

Poster for the 1939 film

The first film adaptation was released in 1939, two years after the publication of the novella, and starred Lon Chaney Jr. as Lennie, with Burgess Meredith as George, and was directed by Lewis Milestone. It was nominated for four Academy Awards.

A TV version, produced by David Susskind in 1968, starred George Segal as George, Nicol Williamson as Lennie, Will Geer as Candy, Moses Gunn as Crooks, and Don Gordon and Joey Heatherton as Curley and his wife, respectively.

In 1981, a TV movie version was released, starring Randy Quaid as Lennie, and Robert Blake as George, and directed by Reza Badiyi.

Another theatrical film version was made in 1992, directed by Gary Sinise, who was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Sinise played George, and the role of Lennie was played by John Malkovich, both reprising their roles from the 1980 Steppenwolf Theatre Company stage production.

The 1992 Malayalam film Soorya Manasam directed by Viji Thampi is also based on the novel.

Of Mice and Men was adapted by Donna Franceschild as a radio play directed by Kirsty Williams starring David Tennant and Liam Brennan broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 7 March 2010. Earlier BBC productions were aired in 1966 and 1992.

References

Bibliography

External links

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Of Mice and Men is a 1937 novella written by American author John Steinbeck. It narrates the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression in the United States.

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Since we were small children, our parents and teachers began the important task of teaching us to read. The reason they did this is because they understood the power that would come from our ability to read...both personally and professionally.

I did not develop an appreciation for reading until the age of 21. As a door-to-door salesman, my sales trainer gave me the book Life is Tremendous. It was a quote in that book that changed my life.

"You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read." (Charles Tremendous Jones)

Wow! I did not want to be the same person in 5 years that I was. I wanted to be better, smarter, wiser, closer to God, more wealthy. That book created in me a hunger for reading. I saw books in a new light, and that day launched me onto a new path of personal development through books that I have never regretted.

How exactly do books change your life for the better?

1. Reading changes your perspective.

A few years ago, I read an incredible book titled, The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday. The title itself explains the premise of the book...the problem I'm experiencing is actually the path forward. In his book, Holiday explains that there is a difference between what happens to us and our feelings about what happens to us. We have the power to give meaning to events, and the meaning we attach to events will determine our emotional state.

Because of what I learned in The Obstacle is the Way, it has changed my perspective on how I navigate problems or negative circumstances that come across my path.

2. Reading increases your knowledge.

Jordan Peterson said, "With reading, you have this opportunity to learn whatever you want from the greatest people who ever lived along that dimension." The more books we read, the more knowledge we will glean and a better understanding we will have of humanity and the world we live in. Through its pages, a book will transport us to a different time and a different location, and, as Peterson said, "...we will learn whatever we want from the greatest of people..."

3. Reading increases your wisdom.

I view wisdom as being different from knowledge. Wisdom is the application of the knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge that works itself out in my life. Just as I seek out advice from people in my life who are successful in a certain area, books will expose me to people I've never met and give me a front-row seat to how they responded to their life situation or their business opportunities.

My wife and I read 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, and it transformed our marriage. Practically speaking, I wouldn't call up Gary Chapman and ask him to grab lunch with me and talk, yet I could grab his book and read it and get the same wisdom from him...all for around $10. A book is a small investment for gaining information that could potentially change your life.

4. Reading gives you inspiration.

Inspire means to stimulate, to motivate, to stir, to rouse. I think we could all use that, don't you? Life is hard and can be very discouraging at times. Just think about this...at any time, you can pick up a book and read a story that will inspire you. It's right at your fingertips.

As you can see-we really can't afford NOT to read, yet I know that right now, you may be arguing with me in your head. Here are some things you may be saying to yourself:

I'm too busy to read.

This is a common argument. I personally read early in the morning because the day hasn't stated yet, and there are minimal distractions and a greater ability to focus. I can focus more clearly. The important thing to remember is that it doesn't take 45 minutes. I usually read for no longer than 20 minutes at a time.

I once read that when I devote just 20 minutes a day to reading, it will expose me to 1.8 million words a year. That's pretty compelling data. What about you? Are there things filling your day (social media, tv) that you could give up in order to replace them with 20 minutes of reading instead?

I don't like to read.

If this is the category you fall into, I would suggest at a minimum to listen to audio books. Although I personally use the Audible app, there are other apps you can choose from. Mark Twain once said, "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read." Let that quote sink in. If you do, I think you will begin to realize the power of a good book.

For a list of some great books to get you started, check out my "Recommended Resources" section. If you'd like to go deeper on the topic, be sure to subscribe to my Breakthrough Podcast. In EP031, we talk more about the power of reading.

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Since we were small children, our parents and teachers began the important task of teaching us to read. The reason they did this is because they understood the power that would come from our ability to read...both personally and professionally. I did not develop an appreciation for reading until the age of 21.

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The Hunger Games is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 64 years before the original.

The novels in the trilogy are titled The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009), and Mockingjay (2010). Each was adapted for film, establishing The Hunger Games film series, with the film adaptation of Mockingjay split into two feature-length motion pictures. The first two books in the series were both New York Times best sellers, and Mockingjay topped all US bestseller lists upon its release. By the time the film adaptation of The Hunger Games was released in 2012, the publisher had reported over 26 million Hunger Games trilogy books in print, including movie tie-in books.

The Hunger Games universe is a dystopia set in Panem, a North American country consisting of the wealthy Capitol and 13 districts in varying states of poverty. Every year, children from the first 12 districts are selected via lottery to participate in a compulsory televised battle royale death match called The Hunger Games.

The 13th district was also subjected to this, but they led a rebellion against the Capitol and brought them to surrender. Since District 13 specialized in nuclear weaponry, the Capitol quickly surrendered and agreed to a peace deal. They both agreed that the residents of District 13 would all move underground and the land above would be bombed to make it seem like the Capitol had won.

The novels were all well received. In August 2012, the series ranked second, exceeded only by the Harry Potter series in NPR's poll of the top 100 teen novels, which asked voters to choose their favorite young adult books. On August 17, 2012, Amazon announced the Hunger Games trilogy as its top seller, surpassing the record previously held by the Harry Potter series. As of 2014, the trilogy has sold more than 65 million copies in the U.S. alone (more than 28 million copies of The Hunger Games, more than 19 million copies of Catching Fire, and more than 18 million copies of Mockingjay). The Hunger Games trilogy has been sold in 56 territories in 51 languages to date.

A prequel novel, titled The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, about the early days of the Hunger Games, featuring a young Coriolanus Snow as the protagonist, was released on May 19, 2020. The prequel has been sold by Stimola Literary Studio into 35 territories to date.

The Hunger Games trilogy takes place in an unspecified future time, in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, located in North America. The country consists of a wealthy Capitol city, located in the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by twelve (originally thirteen) poorer districts ruled by the Capitol. The Capitol is lavishly rich and technologically advanced, but the districts are in varying states of poverty. The trilogy's narrator and protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, lives in District 12, the poorest region of Panem, located in Appalachia, where people regularly die of starvation. As punishment for a past rebellion against the Capitol (called the "Dark Days"), in which District 13 was destroyed, one boy and one girl from each of the twelve remaining districts, between the ages of 12 and 18, are selected by lottery to compete in an annual pageant called the Hunger Games. The Games are a televised event in which the participants, called "tributes", are forced to fight to the death in a dangerous public arena. The lone victor and their home district are then rewarded with food, supplies, and riches. The purposes of the Hunger Games are to provide entertainment for the Capitol and to remind the districts of the Capitol's power and its lack of remorse or forgiveness for the failed rebellion of the current competitors' ancestors.

Each book in The Hunger Games trilogy has three sections of nine chapters each. Collins has said this format comes from her playwriting background, which taught her to write in a three-act structure; her previous series, The Underland Chronicles, was written in the same way. She sees each group of nine chapters as a separate part of the story, and comments still call those divisions "act breaks".

Collins says she drew inspiration for the series from both classical and contemporary sources. Her main classical source of inspiration is the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which, as a punishment for past crimes, Minos forces Athens to sacrifice seven youths and seven maidens to the Minotaur, which kills them in a vast labyrinth. Collins says that even as a child, she was stunned by the idea since "it was just so cruel" to force Athens to sacrifice its own children.

Collins also cites as a classical inspiration the Roman gladiator games. She feels three key elements create a good game: an all powerful and ruthless government, people forced to fight to the death, and the game's role as a source of popular entertainment.

A contemporary source of inspiration was Collins' recent fascination with reality television programs. She says they are like The Hunger Games because the Games are not just entertainment but also a reminder to the districts of their rebellion. Collins says that while she was channel-surfing the television on a quiet night, she saw people competing for a prize and then saw footage of the Iraq War. She described how the two combined in an "unsettling way" to create her first ideas for the series.

The Hunger Games is the first book in the series and was released on September 14, 2008.

The Hunger Games follows 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, a girl from District 12 who volunteers for the 74th Hunger Games in place of her younger sister Primrose Everdeen. Also selected from District 12 is Peeta Mellark, who once saved Katniss from starvation when they were children. They are mentored by their district's only living victor, Haymitch Abernathy, who won 24 years earlier and has since led a solitary life of alcoholism.

Peeta confesses his longtime secret love for Katniss in a televised interview prior to the Games. This revelation stuns Katniss, who usually does not allow herself to think of romantic attraction due to her traumatic childhood and her fear of losing future children to the Hunger Games. However, she believes that Peeta is only feigning love for her as a tactic for the Games.

In the arena, Peeta saves Katniss's life multiple times without her realizing. Katniss allies with Rue, a young tribute from District 11 who reminds Katniss of her sister. When Rue is killed, Katniss places flowers around her body as an act of defiance toward the Capitol. The remaining tributes are alerted to a rule change allowing tributes from the same district to win as a team. Katniss finds a seriously wounded Peeta, and, rather than compete alone and be unencumbered by him, she risks her life and nurses him back to health. Haymitch advises her to feign feelings for Peeta in order to gain wealthy sponsors who can provide crucial supplies to the " star-crossed lovers" during the Games. As she allows herself to get close to Peeta, she develops real feelings for him.

When all of the other tributes are dead, the rule change is abruptly revoked. With neither willing to kill the other, Katniss comes up with a solution: a double suicide by eating poisonous berries. This forces the authorities to concede that they have both won the Games, just in time to save their lives. During and after the Games, Katniss's genuine feelings for Peeta grow, and she struggles to reconcile them with the fact that their relationship developed under duress.

Haymitch warns her that the danger is far from over. The authorities are furious at being made fools, and the only way to try to allay their anger is to continue to pretend that her actions were because of her love for Peeta and nothing else. On the journey home, Peeta is dismayed to learn of the deception.

Catching Fire is the second installment in the series, released on September 1, 2009.

In Catching Fire, which begins six months after the conclusion of The Hunger Games, Katniss learns that her defiance in the previous novel has started a chain reaction that has inspired rebellion in the districts. President Snow threatens to harm Katniss's family and friends if she does not help to defuse the unrest and marry Peeta. Meanwhile, Peeta has become aware of Katniss's disingenuous love for him, but while he feels sad, he does not pressure her in any way. He has also been informed of Snow's threats, so he promises to help keep up the act to spare the citizens of District 12. Katniss's best friend, Gale Hawthorne, confesses his love for Katniss, which shocks and confuses her.

Katniss and Peeta tour the districts as victors and plan a public wedding. While they follow Snow's orders and keep up the ruse, Katniss and Peeta inadvertently fuel the rebellion, and the mockingjay pin she wears becomes its symbol. District by district, the citizens of Panem begin to stage uprisings against the Capitol. Snow announces a special 75th edition of the Hunger Games-known as the Quarter Quell -in which Katniss and Peeta are forced to compete with other past victors, effectively canceling the wedding.

Katniss believes that Peeta should survive these Games instead of her, and dedicates her life to saving him. Peeta, in turn, dedicates his life to saving her, and they both acknowledge the other's opposite intentions. At Haymitch's urging, the pair teams up with several other tributes and manages to destroy the arena and escape the Games. Katniss is rescued by rebel forces from District 13, and learns that the Capitol has captured both Peeta and their District 7 ally, Johanna Mason. Katniss ultimately learns-to her surprise-that she had inadvertently been an integral part of the rebellion all along; her rescue had been jointly planned by Haymitch, Plutarch Heavensbee, and Finnick Odair, among others. At the knowledge that Peeta has been captured and will now be tortured and killed, Katniss is furious and loses the will to live.

Gale informs her that the Capitol has destroyed District 12 in retaliation. After some hesitation, Katniss joins the rebels.

Mockingjay, the third and final book in The Hunger Games series, was released on August 24, 2010.

Most of the districts have rebelled against the Capitol, led by District 13 and its President Alma Coin. The Capitol lied about the district being destroyed in the Dark Days. After a standoff with the Capitol, the District 13 residents took to living underground and rebuilding their strength. The District 12 survivors find shelter with them. Katniss also learns that Peeta is alive and is being tortured and forced to speak on national television discouraging the rebellion. She agrees to become the "Mockingjay", the symbol of the rebellion. In return, she demands immunity for Peeta, Johanna Mason, Annie Cresta, and Enobaria, fellow Games victors captured by the Capitol. Katniss also demands the privilege of killing President Snow herself.

When Katniss realizes that the Capitol will keep torturing Peeta as long as she fuels the rebellion, she has a panic attack and loses the ability to function as the Mockingjay. A rescue mission is mounted that succeeds in rescuing Peeta, Johanna and Annie. However, Peeta has been brainwashed to kill Katniss, and he tries to choke her to death upon their reunion. He undergoes experimental treatment to try to cure him. Katniss does not have hope for his recovery, and decides to give her all to the rebellion and die in the process.

Throughout the novel, Katniss sees how ruthless Gale is. He does not seem to value human life as much as she does. He feels no sympathy for the enemies to the rebellion, and he feels fine with torture and murder, even of innocent civilians, to advance the rebellion. She struggles to reconcile this with the fact that she still cares for Gale. Amid her crushing loneliness and her PTSD, she kisses Gale, but he says that the kiss is not real as it is like "kissing someone who's drunk."

After she recovers from Peeta's attack, Katniss and a team known as the "Star Squad", composed of Gale, Peeta, Finnick, a camera crew, and various other soldiers, are assigned to film propaganda in relatively quiet combat zones. Katniss, however, decides to go to the Capitol to kill Snow, pretending Coin gave her that mission. Peeta still struggles with his brainwashing, but he is in recovery and is still in love with Katniss. Most of the squad are killed along the way, including recently married Finnick. As Katniss approaches Snow's mansion, she sees a group of Capitol children surrounding it as human shields. Suddenly a hovercraft drops silver parachutes on the children, who reach for them, hoping they bear food. Some of the parachutes explode, creating carnage. The advancing rebels send in medics, including Primrose Everdeen. Then the rest of the parachutes explode, killing Primrose just as she sees her sister.

Later, Katniss, also injured, awakens from a coma to learn that the rebels have won, and Snow is awaiting execution at her hands. When she meets Snow by chance, he claims that it was Coin who secretly ordered the bombings in order to strip away the support of his remaining followers. This bomb also matches the description of the one Gale was helping to devise, and she breaks off her friendship with Gale. Coin then asks the surviving victors to vote on a final Hunger Games, involving the children of high-ranking Capitol officials (including Snow's granddaughter). In order to gain Coin's trust, Katniss and Haymitch cast the deciding votes in favor of the scheme. However, at what is supposed to be Snow's execution, Katniss instead kills Coin with her bow. Snow laughs, then dies. Katniss attempts to commit suicide, but Peeta stops her and she is instead arrested.

Katniss is tried, but the jury believes she was mentally unfit, and she is sent home to District 12. Both Katniss's mother and Gale take jobs in other districts. Peeta regains his sanity. Katniss settles down with him, and the two "grow back together." After many years, she finally agrees to have children. They have a girl and then a boy, who grow up in a world without the Hunger Games. To cope with her lingering PTSD, Katniss often spends time recounting every kind deed she has ever witnessed anyone do.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

A prequel to the trilogy, titled The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, was released on May 19, 2020. The novel is set 64 years before The Hunger Games events, during the 'Dark Days' which led to the failed rebellion in Panem. The story follows an 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, whose family name has fallen from grace as the remaining Snows live in poverty and struggle to keep up appearances in post-war Panem. Snow becomes a mentor for the 10th annual Hunger Games as his final project before graduating from school. Snow shows great commitment in mentoring his tribute Lucy Gray Baird from the impoverished district 12 because her winning means he will be awarded a monetary prize that will cover his university tuition. Though skeptical at first, Snow believes he can turn the odds of the Games in his favor after seeing Lucy defiantly sing during her reaping ceremony. During his time spent mentoring Lucy, Snow begins to fall in love with her and must choose between her and his promising political future. Collins credits her character Lucy as having introduced the concept of entertainment into the Hunger Games with her performative and musical talent.

Major themes of the novels include distrust of authority (of adults and the government), class discrimination and caste, resistance, the ethics of entertainment, and most notably, the origins and effects of war. Social inequality, unaccountable governance and violence against children have also been suggested as prominent themes. "In the world of the 'Hunger Games', the Capitol lives a life of extravagant wealth and consumption. Meanwhile, out in the 'districts', millions of people work dangerous jobs with low pay. As the Capitol wallows in excess, the districts can barely afford to feed their children." Author Suzanne Collins also mentions the themes of " just war", gladiatorial combat and hunger. War as a result of climate disaster, and the power and illusions of television have also been cited as themes. Others have mentioned revolution and rebellion as themes. "Although it's... aimed at young adults, it presents potentially quite subversive ideas of mass revolution, economic sabotage and the populist fight against oligarchy."

Critical reception

All three books have been favorably received. Praise has focused on the addictive quality, especially of the first book, and the action. Young adult fiction author John Green, writing for The New York Times, compared The Hunger Games with Scott Westerfeld's The Uglies series. Catching Fire was praised for improving upon the first book, and Mockingjay was praised for its portrayal of violence, well-realized worldbuilding, and romantic intrigue.

The series received criticism regarding its reality TV "death game" theme being derivative of earlier works, particularly Battle Royale, as well as The Running Man, The Long Walk, The 10th Victim, and Series 7: The Contenders. The series was also criticized for the romantic plotline: Rollie Welch of Ohio's The Plain Dealer criticized the characters' lack of resolute behavior, and Jennifer Reese of Entertainment Weekly stated that there was little distinction between Peeta and Gale and the series lacked the "erotic energy" seen in the series.

J.C. Maçek III of PopMatters stated, "While the film saga does capture the action of The Hunger Games, the novels are most assuredly the heart of the story. They are nothing less than 'The Writer's Cut' of the films themselves." In his review Mike Ruiz argues that The Hunger Games film does not have the first-person narrative that is in the original novel. As a result, Ruiz contends the novel is better than the film.

The last book, Mockingjay, was criticized by Dan Shade of , who felt that Katniss is a weaker character than her comrades and less resolute in her journey to the Capitol, and that with respect to her vendetta against President Snow, her actions in the finale are inconsistent with her established character.

On November 5, 2019, the listed The Hunger Games on its list of the 100 most influential novels.

Adaptations

Film adaptations

Jennifer Lawrence played Katniss in the film adaptations.

Lionsgate Entertainment acquired worldwide distribution rights to a film adaptation of The Hunger Games, produced by Nina Jacobson's Color Force production company. Collins adapted the novel for film herself, along with director Gary Ross. The cast included Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, and Liam Hemsworth as Gale. The first film began production in Spring 2011, and was released in March 2012. For Catching Fire, Ross was replaced as director by Francis Lawrence; the film was released in November 2013. Lawrence then directed Mockingjay, Part 1 and Part 2, released in November 2014 and November 2015 respectively.

The prequel was adapted for film, with Francis Lawrence as the director. The film was produced by Lawrence himself alongside Nina Jacobson, and Brad Simpson with Suzanne Collins as one of the executive producers. The cast includes Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow, Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, and Hunter Schafer as Tigris Snow. 'It will be released on November 17, 2023.

The Hunger Games, alongside , has been credited with increasing female interest in archery. Immediately following the release of the first Hunger Games film, many archery vendors experienced a significant upsurge in business, with their lessons fully booked and recurve bows on long periods of back-order. In a 2016 report, approximately half of the girl archers surveyed were influenced by The Hunger Games to take up the sport.

The three-finger gesture used in the books to express unity with the rebellion has been used in real-life protests in Thailand (2014, 2020) and Myanmar (2021).

American University in Washington D.C. offered a class 2014-2016 that examined the themes in The Hunger Games world titled "The Hunger Games: Class, Politics, and Marketing". The class was offered for the school's American Studies Program and covered topics of oppression, feminism, food deserts, rebellion, the publishing industry, and social media marketing. The course's professor, Stef Woods, believes that using the fictional world of Panem to discuss real word problems helps students better understand the issues in American society.

The Most Dangerous Game, a 1924 short story about a big game hunter who is hunted down by another hunter on an isolated island

The Long Walk, a 1979 dystopian novel about a deadly contest

Battle Royale, a 1999 dystopian novel with a similar premise

References

External links

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The Hunger Games is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 64 years before the original.

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Read 40k reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his famil...

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The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S.E. Hinton published in 1967 by Viking Press. Hinton started writing the novel when she was 15 and wrote the bulk of it when she was 16 and a junior in high school. Hinton was 18 when the book was published. The book details the conflict between two rival gangs divided by their socioeconomic status: the working-class " Greasers" and the upper-class "Socs" (pronounced -short for Socials). The story is told in first-person perspective by teenage protagonist Ponyboy Curtis. The story in the book takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1965, but this is never explicitly stated in the book.

A film adaptation was produced in 1983 by Francis Ford Coppola, and a short-lived television series appeared in 1990, picking up where the movie left off. A dramatic stage adaptation was written by Christopher Sergel and published in 1990. A stage musical adaptation with a libretto by Adam Rapp and songs by Jamestown Revival is currently in the works as of 2022.

Ponyboy Curtis, a fourteen-year-old boy who is a member of a "gang of greasers", is leaving a movie theater when he is jumped by "Socs", the greasers' rival gang. Several greasers, including Ponyboy's two older brothers-the paternal Darry and the popular Sodapop-come to his rescue. The next night, Ponyboy and two greaser friends, the hardened Dally and the quiet Johnny, meet Cherry and Marcia, a pair of Soc girls, at a drive-in movie theater. Cherry scorns Dally's rude advances, but Ponyboy speaks civilly with Cherry, emotionally connecting with a Soc for the first time in his life.

Afterward, Ponyboy, Johnny, and their wisecracking friend Two-Bit begin to walk Cherry and Marcia home, when they are stopped by Cherry's boyfriend Bob, who badly beat up Johnny a few months back. Bob and the greasers exchange taunts, but Cherry prevents a fight by willingly leaving with Bob. Ponyboy gets home at two in the morning, enraging Darry until he suddenly slaps Ponyboy. Pony runs out the door and meets up with Johnny, expressing his anger at Darry's increasing coldness in the wake of his parents' recent deaths in a car crash.

Running away from home, Ponyboy and Johnny wander into a park, where Bob and four other Socs surround them. After some heated talk, Ponyboy spits at the Socs, prompting them to attempt to drown him in a nearby fountain, but Johnny stabs Bob, killing him and dispersing the rest. Terrified as to what to do next, Ponyboy and Johnny rush to find Dally, who gives them money and a loaded gun, directing them to hide in an abandoned church in Windrixville. During their stay there, Pony cuts and dyes his hair as a disguise, reads Gone with the Wind to Johnny, and, upon viewing a beautiful sunrise, recites the poem " Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost.

Days later, Dally comes to check on them, revealing that violence between the greasers and Socs has escalated since Bob's death into all-out city-wide warfare, with Cherry acting out of guilt as a spy for the greasers. Johnny decides to turn himself in and Dally agrees to take the boys back home. As they attempt to leave, they notice the church has caught fire and several local schoolchildren have become trapped inside. The greasers run inside the burning church to save the children, but Ponyboy is rendered unconscious by the fumes. At the hospital he discovers that he and Dally are not badly injured, but a piece of the church roof fell on Johnny and broke his back. Sodapop and Darry come to the hospital; Darry breaks down and cries. Ponyboy then realizes that Darry cares about him, and is only hard on him because he loves him and cares about his future.

The following morning the newspapers declare Pony and Johnny heroes, but Johnny will be charged with manslaughter for Bob's death. Two-Bit tells them that the greaser-Soc rivalry is to be settled in a final rumble. Ponyboy and Two-Bit are approached by a Soc named Randy, Bob's best friend, who expresses remorse for his involvement in the gang war, lacks confidence about the rumble ending the feud, and says he will not participate.

Later, Ponyboy visits Johnny at the hospital, where he is in critical condition. On their way home, Pony spots Cherry and they talk. Cherry says she is unwilling to visit Johnny in the hospital because he killed her boyfriend. Pony calls her a traitor, but after she explains herself they end on good terms. After escaping the hospital, Dally shows up just in time for the rumble. The greasers win the fight. Afterward, Pony and Dally hurry back to the hospital to see Johnny, but he dies moments later and a maniacal Dally runs out of the room. Pony returns home that night feeling confused and disoriented. Dally calls the house to say that he has robbed a store and is running from the police. The greasers find Dally deliberately pointing an unloaded gun at the police, causing them to shoot and kill him. Overwhelmed, Ponyboy faints and is sick in bed for many days due to the resulting concussion from the rumble. When the hearing finally comes, the judge frees Ponyboy from responsibility for Bob's death and allows Pony to remain at home with Darry and Soda.

Ponyboy returns to school, but his grades drop. Although he is failing English, his teacher, Mr. Syme, says he will pass him if he writes a decent theme. In the copy of Gone with the Wind that Johnny gave him before dying, Ponyboy finds a letter from Johnny describing how he will die proudly after saving the kids from the fire. Johnny also urges Ponyboy to "stay gold". Ponyboy decides to write his English assignment about the recent events, and begins his essay with the opening line of the novel: "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home".

Major characters

Ponyboy Curtis: The narrator and the youngest Curtis brother, Ponyboy is 14 years old, and gets good grades and runs track. He's the most sensitive of the greasers (besides Johnny), and enjoys reading books.

Sodapop "Soda" Curtis: The middle Curtis brother, 16 years old, a popular high school dropout who works at a gas station. He's often described as being attractive and comedic, the reason for his popularity.

Darrel "Darry" Curtis: The oldest Curtis brother, 20 years old, who has been caring for his brothers since their parents died in a car crash. He is the unofficial leader of the gang.

Johnny Cade: Ponyboy's best friend. 16 years old, who is extremely quiet and lives with his alcoholic, neglectful, and abusive parents

Dallas "Dally" Winston: A 17-year-old juvenile delinquent, he is the roughest and most volatile of the greasers, but cares more about Johnny than he does anyone else. He lived on the streets of New York City for three years. Carries an unloaded gun.

Keith "Two-Bit" Mathews: A wise-cracking kleptomaniac.

Steve Randle: Sodapop's best friend since grade school.

Timothy "Tim" Shepard: Leader of another greaser gang: an organized downtown one. He is also a friend of Dally's.

Curly Shepard: Tim Shepard's younger brother, mentioned as a friend of Ponyboy's.

Sandy: Sodapop's disloyal girlfriend, who eventually leaves him.

Sherri "Cherry" Valance: Attends the same high school as Ponyboy. Bob's girlfriend.

Robert "Bob" Sheldon: Considered the leader of the Socs. Cherry's boyfriend who is stabbed and killed by Johnny.

Randy Adderson: Bob's best friend and Marcia's boyfriend.

Marcia: Cherry's best friend and Randy's girlfriend.

Paul Holden: Darry's old friend from high school.

David: A member of the Socs who tries to drown Ponyboy in the fountain.

Other characters

Jerry Wood: The schoolteacher responsible for the children who were in the seemingly abandoned church.

Mr. Syme: Ponyboy's English teacher who assigns him a theme to write that becomes the story of the novel itself.

Controversy

The Outsiders was a controversial book at the time of its publication; it is still currently challenged and debated. It was ranked #38 on the American Library Association's Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-1999. This book has been banned from some schools and libraries because of the portrayal of gang violence, underage smoking and drinking, strong language/ slang, and family dysfunction. However, in many U.S. schools, the book is part of the English curriculum at the middle- or high-school level.

Critical reception

On November 5, 2019, the listed The Outsiders on its list of the 100 most influential novels.

Ponyboy Curtis appears in Hinton's later novel That Was Then, This Is Now (1971).

The 1983 film adaptation was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, since its release it retains a fanbase. The film is notable for casting young actors before their rise to fame, which includes C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, and Diane Lane.

A television series based on the characters of the novel and film aired in 1990. It consists of a different cast playing the same characters. It picks up right after the events of the film's ending and lasted only one season.

In Rockstar Games' 2006 video game , The Greasers and the Preppies/Preps, are based on The Outsiders.

A stage musical based on both the novel and film has been in the works as of 2022 and is expected to hold its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in February/March 2023. The production will be directed by Danya Taymor from a libretto by Adam Rapp, with songs by Jamestown Revival and music supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations by Justin Levine.

Museum and film locations

The Outsiders House Museum opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on August 9, 2019. In 2009, hip-hop artist Danny Boy O'Connor discovered the house that was used for the Curtis Brothers' home. Moving forward O'Connor kept the thought of buying it, which he eventually did in 2016. O'Connor said he bought it sight unseen and when he first went inside that it was falling apart. With the help of friends, the Oklahoma Film and Music Office, the City Council, local business and individuals who volunteered the restoration started. After raising funds the house went through extensive renovations to restore it and maintain its authenticity from the film. A GoFundMe was set up for additional funds, notable donors include Jack White who donated $30,000 and Billy Idol. Also to raise funds, screenings of the film were organized that actor C. Thomas Howell attended. Also in 2016, the street signs on the corner were changed to "The Outsiders way" and "The Curtis Brothers Lane". Since its opening, the museum now contains a collection of The Outsiders memorabilia. Aside from Howell, between its restoration and opening, other stars of the films visited this includes Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, and Matt Dillon. For his efforts on preserving a cultural landmark O'Connor received a key to the city of Tulsa.

In 2022, in Sperry, Oklahoma, the group Upward Sperry restored the now un-operational DX gas station seen in the film. The group's president Gary Coulson said, "It's really growing. I almost hate to say, but it's almost like a cult following. They stream through here - what that does is get people here." With O'Connor they are planning to revitalize Outsiders nostalgia in Sperry.

References

Bibliography

External links

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The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S.E. Hinton published in 1967 by Viking Press. Hinton started writing the novel when she was 15 and wrote the bulk of it when she was 16 and a junior in high school. Hinton was 18 when the book was published.

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Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools.

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The importance of reading can be a hot button topic. When you bring it up, it tends to cause one of two dramatic reactions in adults-both of which probably come from thoughts of their childhood experiences. What is it about reading? Some people will get a dreamy look in their eyes and tell you about the hours they can spend curled up with a book, in a different world, or with a highlighter, dog-earring pages to revisit. For others, they glaze over a bit, and you can almost see the confidence drain out of their body. "Reading was hard," they'll tell you. "I still don't think I'm a good reader."

I'm sure you can relate to one or the other, or maybe both depending on your experience. For some, reading comes easily, they receive and process sound and print associations and can move quickly into more sophisticated structure and content. For many others (more than we previously thought), their teachers did the best they could, but perhaps didn't have the training to offer the direct instruction they needed to really understand the nuances of spoken and written language and how to decipher it. For still others, they had something standing in their way-whether they knew it or not. And sadly, maybe some gave up.

The body of research called the science of reading now helps us understand that virtually all children can learn to read with the appropriate evidence-aligned, direct instruction. And the benefits of being a fluent reader are far greater than just feeling confident in school. So why is reading important? Reading is a lifelong skill that improves memory, builds a robust vocabulary and foundation of knowledge, and adds a richness and depth of meaning to life for all those who can access true, deep comprehension.

How does reading affect the brain?

We all understand that one of the benefits of reading more is that you might know more factual information or understand something more deeply. But as it turns out, reading doesn't just fill your head with information, it actually changes the wiring in your brain.

One of the significant ways reading affects the brain is through perspective taking. When you read and find yourself thinking about the characters in the book as if they are real people, with perspectives possibly very different than your own, it allows for growth of emotional intelligence and empathy. When your brain is deeply engaged in reading, you have a huge increase in brain activity-and not just in the language centers.

According to Maryanne Wolf, literacy scholar and professor of childhood development, deep reading literally nourishes our capacity for attention, empathy, and insight.

"At a basic brain level, we really do experience the same thing the characters do. We don't just understand a book-on a neurological level, we live it. When we read fiction, the brain actively simulates the consciousness of another person, including those whom we would never otherwise even imagine knowing. It allows us to try on, for a few moments, what it truly means to be another person," Wolf sums up.

Deepening of empathy is the first benefit of reading on our list. Keep reading to see the other ways in which frequent and deep reading adds so much value over the course of a lifetime!

13 Benefits of reading

1. Reading helps to develop empathy and foster connection with perspective taking

You can never fully understand what it's like to be in someone else's shoes. But having empathy means you can feel what it might feel like to be in their situation. Or maybe you've experienced something similar and really do know what that particular event feels like. When we are deeply involved in a story, even if we don't agree with many of the characters' thoughts, actions, or words, we are called to consider their perspective. Believe it or not, this type of practice actually does transfer to real life situations. And frequently, connecting to a character's differing beliefs can help you do just that in real life.
They say you can never know a person until you walk a mile in their shoes. But here is a place where you can definitely see the importance of reading. Getting lost in a book is another excellent way to see the world from a different perspective. Even if you disagree with the author on every single page, you're at least taking the time to hear and consider alternate points of view. And more often than not, you'll find that reading about personal experiences can be a trigger to change your own mindset.

2. Reading improves critical thinking skills

Given the availability of all kinds of information via the internet, people might be asking, "Why is reading so important if I can just google it?" Google might give you a lot of information-sometimes factual and sometimes not, but it doesn't tell you how to think. Building critical thinking skills is more important than ever for our children. Especially if they are using the internet. Critical thinking, or the ability to think deeply about a topic, question or idea, is a skill that needs to be practiced like any other.

When children spend a lot of time reading, they strengthen their ability to think about something from another point of view and to problem solve for someone outside of themselves. Finding solutions to a character's problem helps children to think through other issues around them with similar discernment.

3. Reading builds vocabulary authentically and enhances conversation skills

The more time kids spend reading grade-level text, the more likely they are to authentically learn new words. This is true for both books that children read independently and those that are read aloud to them. In fact, reading aloud with children allows for exposure to sophisticated language and content that might be above their independent reading level, but not above their interest level. Not only is it a great way to bring in new vocabulary, it also keeps younger children interested in reading when they are still working towards being able to access higher level text. Additionally, engaging children in dialogic reading, or authentic conversation about the book as we read helps them to understand how to talk about reading and gives them language to be able to try out these types of conversations on their own.

4. Reading teaches social skills and allows for "rehearsal" of universal experiences

Often, informational text or nonfiction books are revered for their learning value in the classroom. But the truth is that reading fiction allows for a whole different set of skills to be developed and strengthened. When kids read about characters they love, they experience the things their characters go through almost as if it is them. Here we see a huge reason reading is important.

Research tells us that when we read about a certain experience or activity, our brain lights up in the same places as when we actually experience those things. This means children can almost practice going through feeling certain feelings or maybe even their first experiences with empathy, teaching them that they can imagine what it's like to be in someone else's shoes.

5. Reading strengthens cognitive processes

Cognitive processes help us learn new things. Neuroscientists say that reading actually strengthens your brain, even after you've moved on to something else. The more you read, the more parts of your brain activate, with lasting effects. Engaging in reading consistently bolsters cognitive processes because it exercises our brains, enhancing critical thinking and analytical skills.

Thinking through complex plots or understanding character motivations helps to foster problem-solving skills, encouraging readers to make connections and draw conclusions. Over time this can lead to improved memory retention, better concentration, and overall, more capacity for in-depth reading comprehension.

6. Reading is important because it helps to build background knowledge

Decades of research has shown that when it comes to reading unfamiliar texts, or reading to learn (as children experience in the upper elementary grades), the more background knowledge they have on a subject, the easier it will be for them to anchor new information to concepts they already have some knowledge of. This is sometimes referred to as Schema Theory, the idea that "comprehending a text is an interactive process between the reader's background knowledge and the text." The more you know, the easier you can learn new information.

7. Reading can help reduce stress for all ages

Here's an incredible statistic: reading for as little as six minutes can decrease stress up to 68%. When you read, you distract your brain from the problems of the day. This allows your muscles to relax, decreasing blood pressure and heart rate. Reading a book is more effective at reducing stress than listening to music or even taking a walk. Studies on brain activity while reading tells us that reading can have the same effects on our brain and body as meditation in many ways. The brain is in a focused state, very similar to a mindfulness practice, reducing stress levels and promoting relaxation. This escape into a book not only offers a break from daily stressors but also helps cognitive function and encourages mental clarity-very similar to the benefits you might get from a regular meditation practice.

8. Reading can improve sleep

Reading can improve your sleep? Seems strange, but it's true! In this age where devices rule, picking up a book at bedtime instead of watching TV or doing something on your phone is an easy way to help your brain power down and cue your body that it's time for sleep. When we engage on anything with a screen before bedtime the bluelight it emits can interfere with the production of melatonin which helps us to naturally become tired and fall asleep. On the other hand, ​​reading is an activity that works your brain without active physical stimulation, because you can read while lying down. It slowly relaxes your body and mind into sleep.

9. Reading helps to build and maintain memory

When you read, your brain actively encodes and stores information, creating new connections between neurons. Visualizing scenes, characters, and details from a story engages the brain's sensory regions, enhancing memory retention through vivid mental imagery. Additionally, the act of repeatedly encountering words, phrases, and concepts while reading reinforces memory pathways, leading to improved recall and retention of information in the long term. According to research, reading strengthens the white matter in your brain, making it easier to concentrate. White matter functions as insulation, wrapping around long nerve cell wires-this serves as communication connections between brain cells.

10. Reading strengthens writing skills

Reading and writing are impossible to separate from one another. The practice of one undeniably improves the skills of the other. For children, reading offers them a window into how authors write. It offers a study in different genres, styles, tones, and use of different vocabulary words. It can also be a creative spark for children who otherwise might have difficulty coming up with their own ideas to write about.

11. Reading also strengthens language and communication skills

This one doesn't seem as obvious, but it's true! Researchers note that reading and speaking involve many of the same parts of the brain. In fact, reading is one of the most effective ways of boosting word recognition and comprehension, and of learning a foreign language.

12. Reading builds sturdier problem solving skills

To solve problems in everyday life, we have to identify the issue clearly, analyze the causes, and come up with creative solutions. Reading teaches all of these skills! Reading comprehension is all about understanding what's happening in a story, then analyzing and evaluating the events and characters' actions. Plus, when we read, we're exposed to new ideas constantly, which can help us innovate when we need to solve problems.

13. Reading can provide a sense of support and belonging-particularly for those who might feel "on the outside"

As connected as we are these days, it's also easier than ever to feel alone. For kids who are going through a hard time (at school, with friends, with a teacher, or with their parents or caregivers) this is especially true. One of the things reading offers is relatability and a reminder that we are not the first or only person to feel this way. Whether fiction or nonfiction, stories help us to process our own experiences-to feel seen and understood when this is missing in our real lives.

Tips for making reading more enjoyable

By now, it's easier to see why reading is important. But for some kids, reading is really challenging. When reading feels difficult, it's hard to enjoy it! Help kids find their love of reading with some of these tips:

Read aloud to all kids: little or big! When you read aloud to kids, it's sometimes easier for them to access the storyline. This is especially true for kids that are having trouble with some of the foundational reading skills. Hearing you read aloud helps them to stay interested in books at a higher level and also models for them what reading should sound like with regards to fluency, expression, and prosody (the patterns of intonation and syllable stress in spoken language).

Look for books that reflect your kids' interests. Do you have sports fans or truck lovers? Maybe you have budding artists or animal activists. Whatever their interests, they are more likely to be excited about reading if it's a topic they love!

Help your readers notice information as you read. Point out new words and phrases or ask them what they think a character will do next or how something makes them feel. Engaging with the story and with unfamiliar language helps kids to understand that reading is more like a conversation with the author than a one-way activity.

Get your kids a library card. There's nothing like roaming the library looking through shelves and getting cozy to have a look at something before you check it out. Share this experience with your kids and then give them ownership over their library card!

Get them hooked into a series. Once you know what your kids are interested in reading, look for a series that involves these things. Finding a series your kids love means they will be excited to get through one so they can move on to the next! Keep reading for some ideas on great series!

Popular book series to begin reading

Finding a good series of books is like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Here are a few series to get you started:

Grades K-2: Magic Treehouse books, Frog and Toad books, Judy Moody, Stella Diaz Series

Grades 3-6: Harry Potter Series (books get more intense as the series continues so knowing your child and what they can handle is important here!), The Chronicles of Narnia, Addison Cooke series, Ranger's Apprentice series, The Giver Quartet

Grades 7-12: Project Nemesis Series, Red Rising Series, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

The final word

Reading isn't just about learning. Some of the reasons why reading is important is to foster a relaxed, inspiring, and enjoyable life filled with incredible stories, relatable characters, and the ability to broaden or deepen your knowledge just by picking up a book.

If you are looking for a comprehensive tool kit to help unlock foundational reading skills for all children, 95 Percent Group™ is your one stop shop for whole group Tier 1 Instruction, small group Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention, or the new Literacy Intervention System. We also offer strategic coaching and professional learning to help launch a change in the way kids learn and teachers teach.

Learn more

Are you interested in learning about how you can bring an effective and efficient structured literacy approach, grounded in the science of reading, to your school or district? Contact us today.

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Animal Farm is a beast fable, in the form of a satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of anthropomorphic farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed and, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon, the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before.

According to Orwell, Animal Farm reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union, a period of time when Russia lived under the communist ideology made by Joseph Stalin. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Barcelona May Days conflicts between the POUM and Stalinist forces during the Spanish Civil War. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin ("un conte satirique contre Staline "), and in his essay " Why I Write" (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".

The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but US publishers dropped the subtitle when it was published in 1946, and only one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime, the Telugu version, kept it. Other title variations include subtitles like "A Satire" and "A Contemporary Satire". Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for "bear", a symbol of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques .

Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when the United Kingdom was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and the British intelligentsia held Stalin in high esteem, a phenomenon Orwell hated. The manuscript was initially rejected by several British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz, which delayed its publication. It became a great commercial success when it did appear as international relations and public opinion were transformed as the wartime alliance gave way to the Cold War.

magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels, and number 46 on the BBC's The Big Read poll. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996 and is included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.

The animal populace of the poorly run Manor Farm near Willingdon, England, is ripened for rebellion by neglect at the hands of the irresponsible and alcoholic farmer, Mr. Jones. One night, the exalted boar, Old Major, holds a conference, at which he calls for the overthrow of humans and teaches the animals a revolutionary song called " Beasts of England". When Old Major dies, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and stage a revolt, driving Mr. Jones off the farm and renaming the property "Animal Farm". They adopt the Seven Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is, "All animals are equal". The decree is painted in large letters on one side of the barn. Snowball teaches the animals to read and write, while Napoleon educates young puppies on the principles of Animalism. To commemorate the start of Animal Farm, Snowball raises a green flag with a white hoof and horn. Food is plentiful, and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and set aside special food items, ostensibly for their health. Following an unsuccessful attempt by Mr. Jones and his associates to retake the farm (later dubbed the "Battle of the Cowshed"), Snowball announces his plans to modernise the farm by building a windmill. Napoleon disputes this idea, and matters come to a head, which culminates in Napoleon's dogs chasing Snowball away and Napoleon effectively declaring himself supreme commander.

Napoleon enacts changes to the governance structure of the farm, replacing meetings with a committee of pigs who will run the farm. Through a young porker named Squealer, Napoleon claims credit for the idea of building the windmill, claiming that Snowball was only trying to win animals to his side. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. When the animals find the windmill collapsed after a violent storm, Napoleon and Squealer persuade the animals that Snowball is trying to sabotage their project, and begin to purge the farm of animals accused by Napoleon of consorting with his old rival. When some animals recall the Battle of the Cowshed, Napoleon (who was nowhere to be found during the battle) gradually smears Snowball to the point of saying he is a collaborator of Mr. Jones, even dismissing the fact that Snowball was given an award of courage while falsely representing himself as the main hero of the battle. "Beasts of England" is replaced with "Animal Farm", while an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who is presumably adopting the lifestyle of a man ("Comrade Napoleon"), is composed and sung. Napoleon then conducts a second purge, during which many animals who are alleged to be helping Snowball in plots are executed by Napoleon's dogs, which troubles the rest of the animals. Despite their hardships, the animals are easily placated by Napoleon's retort that they are better off than they were under Mr. Jones, as well as by the sheep's continual bleating of "four legs good, two legs bad".

Mr. Frederick, a neighbouring farmer, attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the restored windmill. Although the animals win the battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer the workhorse, are wounded. Although he recovers from this, Boxer eventually collapses while working on the windmill (being almost 12 years old at that point). He is taken away in a knacker's van and a donkey called Benjamin alerts the animals of this, but Squealer quickly waves off their alarm by persuading the animals that the van had been purchased from the knacker by an animal hospital and that the previous owner's signboard had not been repainted. Squealer subsequently reports Boxer's death and honours him with a festival the following day. In truth, Napoleon had engineered the sale of Boxer to the knacker, allowing him and his inner circle to acquire money to buy whisky for themselves.

Years pass, the windmill is rebuilt and another windmill is constructed, which makes the farm a good amount of income. However, the ideals that Snowball discussed, including stalls with electric lighting, heating, and running water, are forgotten, with Napoleon advocating that the happiest animals live simple lives. Snowball has been forgotten, alongside Boxer, with "the exception of the few who knew him". Many of the animals who participated in the rebellion are dead or old. Mr. Jones is also now known to be dead, having "died in an inebriates' home in another part of the country". The pigs start to resemble humans, as they walk upright, carry whips, drink alcohol, and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are abridged to just one phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". The maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad" is similarly changed to "Four legs good, two legs better". Other changes include the Hoof and Horn flag being replaced with a plain green banner and Old Major's skull, which was previously put on display, being reburied.

Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and local farmers, with whom he celebrates a new alliance. He abolishes the practice of the revolutionary traditions and restores the name "The Manor Farm". The men and pigs start playing cards, flattering and praising each other while cheating at the game. Both Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington, one of the farmers, play the Ace of Spades at the same time and both sides begin fighting loudly over who cheated first. When the animals outside look at the pigs and men, they can no longer distinguish between the two.

Old Major - An aged prize Middle White boar provides the inspiration that fuels the rebellion. He is also called Willingdon Beauty when showing. He is an allegorical combination of Karl Marx, one of the creators of communism, and Vladimir Lenin, the communist leader of the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet nation, in that he draws up the principles of the revolution. His skull being put on revered public display recalls Lenin, whose embalmed body was left in indefinite repose. By the end of the book, the skull is reburied.

Napoleon - "A large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way". An allegory of Joseph Stalin, Napoleon is the leader of Animal Farm.

Snowball - Napoleon's rival and original head of the farm after Jones's overthrow. His life parallels that of Leon Trotsky, although there is no reference to Snowball having been murdered (as Trotsky was); he may also combine some elements from Lenin.

Squealer - A small, white, fat porker who serves as Napoleon's second-in-command and minister of propaganda, is a collective portrait of the Soviet nomenklatura and journalists, such as of the national daily Pravda (The Truth), able to justify every twist and turn in Stalin's policy.

Minimus - A poetic pig who writes the second national anthem of Animal Farm after the singing of "Beasts of England" is banned; later he composes a poem "Comrade Napoleon". Literary theorist John Rodden compares him to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who eulogized Lenin and the Soviet Union, although Mayakovsky neither wrote anthems nor praised Stalin in his poems.

The piglets - Hinted to be the children of Napoleon and are the first generation of animals subjugated to his idea of animal inequality.

The young pigs - Four pigs who complain about Napoleon's takeover of the farm but are quickly silenced and later executed, the first animals killed in Napoleon's farm purge. Probably based on the Great Purge of Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin, and Alexei Rykov.

Pinkeye - A minor pig who is mentioned only once; he is the taste-tester that samples Napoleon's food to make sure it is not poisoned, in response to rumours about an assassination attempt on Napoleon.

Mr. Jones - A heavy drinker who is the original owner of Manor Farm, a farm in disrepair with farmhands who often loaf on the job. He is an allegory of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917 and was murdered, along with the rest of his family, by the Bolsheviks on 17 July 1918. The animals revolt after Jones goes on a drinking binge, returns hungover the following day and neglects them completely. Jones is married, but his wife plays no active role in the book. She seems to live with her husband's drunkenness, going to bed while he stays up drinking until late into the night. In her only other appearance, she hastily throws a few things into a travel bag and flees when she sees that the animals are revolting. Towards the end of the book, Napoleon's "favourite sow" wears her old Sunday dress.

Mr. Frederick - The tough owner of Pinchfield Farm, a small but well-kept neighbouring farm, who briefly allies with Napoleon. Animal Farm shares land boundaries with Pinchfield on one side and Foxwood on another, making Animal Farm a "buffer zone" between the two bickering farmers. The animals of Animal Farm are terrified of Frederick, as rumours abound of him abusing his animals and entertaining himself with cockfighting. Napoleon allies with Frederick to sell surplus timber that Pilkington also sought, but is enraged to learn Frederick paid him in counterfeit money. Shortly after the swindling, Frederick and his men invade Animal Farm, killing many animals and destroying the windmill. The brief alliance and subsequent invasion may allude to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Operation Barbarossa.

Mr. Pilkington - The easy-going but crafty and well-to-do owner of Foxwood Farm, a large neighbouring farm overgrown with weeds. Pilkington is wealthier than Frederick and owns more land, but his farm needs care as opposed to Frederick's smaller but more efficiently run farm. Although on bad terms with Frederick, Pilkington is also concerned about the animal revolution that deposed Jones and is worried that this could also happen to him.

Mr. Whymper - A man hired by Napoleon to act as the liaison between Animal Farm and human society. At first, he acquires necessities that cannot be produced on the farm, such as dog biscuits and paraffin wax, but later he procures luxuries like alcohol for the pigs.

Boxer - A loyal, kind, dedicated, extremely strong, hard-working, and respectable cart-horse, although quite naive and gullible. Boxer does a large share of the physical labour on the farm. He is shown to hold the belief that "Napoleon is always right". At one point, he challenged Squealer's statement that Snowball was always against the welfare of the farm, earning him an attack from Napoleon's dogs. But Boxer's immense strength repels the attack, worrying the pigs that their authority can be challenged. Boxer has been compared to Alexey Stakhanov, a diligent and enthusiastic role model of the Stakhanovite movement. He has been described as "faithful and strong"; he believes any problem can be solved if he works harder. When Boxer is injured, Napoleon sells him to a local knacker to buy himself whisky, and Squealer gives a moving account, falsifying the circumstances of Boxer's death.

Mollie - A self-centred, self-indulgent, and vain young white mare who quickly leaves for another farm after the revolution, like those who left Russia after the fall of the Tsar. She is only once mentioned again.

Clover - A gentle, caring mare, who shows concern, especially for Boxer, who often pushes himself too hard. Clover can read all the letters of the alphabet, but cannot "put words together".

Benjamin - A donkey, one of the oldest, wisest animals on the farm, and one of the few who can read properly. He is sceptical, temperamental and cynical: his most frequent remark is, "Life will go on as it has always gone on - that is, badly". Academic Morris Dickstein has suggested there is "a touch of Orwell himself in this creature's timeless scepticism" and indeed, friends called Orwell "Donkey George", "after his grumbling donkey Benjamin, in Animal Farm". Benjamin manages to evade the purges and survive despite the threat he potentially poses given his knowledge, his age, and his equivocal, albeit apolitical, positions.

Muriel - A goat who is another of the oldest, wisest animals on the farm and friends with all of the animals on the farm. Similar to Benjamin, Muriel is one of the few animals on the farm who is not a pig but can read. She survives, as does Benjamin, by eschewing politics.

The puppies - Offspring of Jessie and Bluebell, the puppies were taken away at birth by Napoleon and raised by him to serve as his powerful security force.

Moses - The Raven, "Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker". Initially following Mrs. Jones into exile, he reappears several years later and resumes his role of talking but not working. He regales Animal Farm's denizens with tales of a wondrous place beyond the clouds called "Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall rest forever from our labours!" Orwell portrays established religion as "the black raven of priestcraft - promising pie in the sky when you die, and faithfully serving whoever happens to be in power". His preaching to the animals heartens them, and Napoleon allows Moses to reside at the farm "with an allowance of a gill of beer daily", akin to how Stalin brought back the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War.

The sheep - They are not given individual names or personalities. They show limited understanding of Animalism and the political atmosphere of the farm, yet nonetheless, they are the voice of blind conformity as they bleat their support of Napoleon's ideals with jingles during his speeches and meetings with Snowball. Their constant bleating of "four legs good, two legs bad" was used as a device to drown out any opposition or alternative views from Snowball, much as Stalin used hysterical crowds to drown out Trotsky. Towards the end of the book, Squealer (the propagandist) trains the sheep to alter their slogan to "four legs good, two legs better", which they dutifully do.

The hens - Unnamed. The hens are promised at the start of the revolution that they will get to keep their eggs, which are stolen from them under Mr. Jones. However, their eggs are soon taken from them under the premise of buying goods from outside Animal Farm. The hens are among the first to rebel, albeit unsuccessfully, against Napoleon. They are brutally suppressed through starvation.

The cows - Unnamed. The cows are enticed into the revolution by promises that their milk will not be stolen but can be used to raise their calves. Their milk is then stolen by the pigs, who learn to milk them. The milk is stirred into the pigs' mash every day, while the other animals are denied such luxuries.

The cat - Unnamed and never seen to carry out any work. The cat is absent for long periods and is forgiven because her excuses are so convincing and she "purred so affectionately that it was impossible not to believe in her good intentions". She has no interest in the politics of the farm, and the only time she is recorded as having participated in an election, she is found to have actually "voted on both sides".

The ducks - Unnamed.

The roosters - One arranges to wake Boxer early, and a black one acts as a trumpeter for Napoleon.

The geese - Unnamed. One gander commits suicide by eating nightshade berries.

The rats - Unnamed. Classed among the wild animals, unsuccessful attempts were made to civilise them and teach them the principles of Animalism.

George Orwell's Animal Farm is an example of a political satire and an allegory that was intended to have a "wider application", according to Orwell himself, in terms of its relevance. Stylistically, the work shares many similarities with some of Orwell's other works, most notably Nineteen Eighty-Four, as both have been considered works of Swiftian satire. Furthermore, these two prominent works seem to suggest Orwell's bleak view of the future for humanity; he seems to stress the potential/current threat of dystopias similar to those in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. In these kinds of works, Orwell distinctly references the disarray and traumatic conditions of Europe following the Second World War. Orwell's style and writing philosophy as a whole were very concerned with the pursuit of truth in writing.

Orwell was committed to communicating straightforwardly, given the way that he felt words were commonly used in politics to deceive and confuse. For this reason, he is careful, in Animal Farm, to make sure the narrator speaks in an unbiased and uncomplicated fashion. The difference is seen in the way that the animals speak and interact, as the general moral animals seem to speak their minds clearly, while the wicked animals on the farm, such as Napoleon, twist language in such a way that it meets their insidious desires. This style reflects Orwell's proximity to the issues facing Europe at the time and his determination to comment critically on Stalin's Soviet Russia.

George Orwell wrote the manuscript between November 1943 and February 1944 after his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, which he described in Homage to Catalonia (1938). In the preface of a 1947 Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm, he explained how escaping the communist purges in Spain taught him "how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries". This motivated Orwell to expose and strongly condemn what he saw as the Stalinist corruption of the original socialist ideals. Homage to Catalonia sold poorly; after seeing Arthur Koestler's best-selling, Darkness at Noon, about the Moscow Trials, Orwell decided that fiction would be the best way to describe totalitarianism.

Immediately before writing the book, Orwell quit the BBC. He was also upset about a booklet for propagandists the Ministry of Information had put out. The booklet included instructions on how to quell ideological fears of the Soviet Union, such as directions to claim that the Red Terror was a figment of Nazi imagination.

In the preface, Orwell described the source of the idea of setting the book on a farm:

I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat.

In 1944, the manuscript was almost lost when a German V-1 flying bomb destroyed his London home. Orwell spent hours sifting through the rubble to find the pages intact.

Orwell initially encountered difficulty getting the manuscript published, largely due to fears that the book might upset the alliance between Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Four publishers refused to publish Animal Farm, yet one had initially accepted the work but declined it after consulting the Ministry of Information. Eventually, Secker and Warburg published the first edition in 1945.

During the Second World War, it became clear to Orwell that anti-Soviet literature was not something which most major publishing houses would touch - including his regular publisher Gollancz. He also submitted the manuscript to Faber and Faber, where the poet T. S. Eliot (who was a director of the firm) rejected it; Eliot wrote back to Orwell praising the book's "good writing" and "fundamental integrity", but declared that they would only accept it for publication if they had some sympathy for the viewpoint "which I take to be generally Trotskyite". Eliot said he found the view "not convincing", and contended that the pigs were made out to be the best to run the farm; he posited that someone might argue "what was needed ... was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs". Orwell let André Deutsch, who was working for Nicholson & Watson in 1944, read the typescript, and Deutsch was convinced that Nicholson & Watson would want to publish it; however, they did not, and "lectured Orwell on what they perceived to be errors in Animal Farm". In his London Letter on 17 April 1944 for Partisan Review, Orwell wrote that it was "now next door to impossible to get anything overtly anti-Russian printed. Anti-Russian books do appear, but mostly from Catholic publishing firms and always from a religious or frankly reactionary angle".

The publisher Jonathan Cape, who had initially accepted Animal Farm, subsequently rejected the book after an official at the British Ministry of Information warned him off - although the civil servant who it is assumed gave the order was later found to be a Soviet spy. Writing to Leonard Moore, a partner in the literary agency of Christy & Moore, publisher Jonathan Cape explained that the decision had been taken on the advice of a senior official in the Ministry of Information. Such flagrant anti-Soviet bias was unacceptable, and the choice of pigs as the dominant class was thought to be especially offensive. It may reasonably be assumed that the "important official" was a man named Peter Smollett, who was later unmasked as a Soviet agent. Orwell was suspicious of Smollett/Smolka, and he would be one of the names Orwell included in his list of Crypto-Communists and Fellow-Travellers sent to the Information Research Department in 1949. The publisher wrote to Orwell, saying:

If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators [Lenin and Stalin], that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships.

Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.

Frederic Warburg also faced pressures against publication, even from people in his own office and from his wife Pamela, who felt that it was not the moment for ingratitude towards Stalin and the Red Army, which had played a major part in defeating Adolf Hitler. A Russian translation was printed in the paper Posev, and in permitting a Russian translation of Animal Farm, Orwell refused in advance all royalties. A translation in Ukrainian, which was produced in Germany, was confiscated in large part by the American wartime authorities and handed over to the Soviet repatriation commission.

In October 1945, Orwell wrote to Frederic Warburg expressing interest in pursuing the possibility that the political cartoonist David Low might illustrate Animal Farm. Low had written a letter saying that he had had "a good time with Animal Farm - an excellent bit of satire - it would illustrate perfectly". Nothing came of this, and a trial issue produced by Secker & Warburg in 1956 illustrated by John Driver was abandoned. The Folio Society published an edition in 1984 illustrated by Quentin Blake and an edition illustrated by the cartoonist Ralph Steadman was published by Secker & Warburg in 1995 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first edition of Animal Farm.

Orwell originally wrote a preface complaining about British self-censorship and how the British people were suppressing criticism of the USSR, their World War II ally:

The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary ... Things are kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervenes but because of a general tacit agreement that "it wouldn't do" to mention that particular fact.

Although the first edition allowed space for the preface, it was not included, and as of June 2009, most editions of the book have not included it.

Secker and Warburg published the first edition of Animal Farm in 1945, without an introduction. However, the publisher had provided space for a preface in the author's proof composited from the manuscript. For reasons unknown, no preface was supplied, and the page numbers had to be renumbered at the last minute.

In 1972, Ian Angus found the original typescript titled "The Freedom of the Press", and Bernard Crick published it, together with his introduction, in The Times Literary Supplement on 15 September 1972 as "How the essay came to be written". Orwell's essay criticised British self-censorship by the press, specifically the suppression of unflattering descriptions of Stalin and the Soviet government. The same essay also appeared in the Italian 1976 edition of Animal Farm with another introduction by Crick, claiming to be the first edition with the preface. Other publishers were still declining to publish it.[clarification needed ]

Contemporary reviews of the work were not universally positive. Writing in the American The New Republic magazine, George Soule expressed his disappointment in the book, writing that it "puzzled and saddened me. It seemed on the whole dull. The allegory turned out to be a creaking machine for saying in a clumsy way things that have been said better directly". Soule believed that the animals were not consistent enough with their real-world inspirations, and said, "It seems to me that the failure of this book (commercially it is already assured of tremendous success) arises from the fact that the satire deals not with something the author has experienced, but rather with stereotyped ideas about a country which he probably does not know very well".

The Guardian on 24 August 1945 called Animal Farm "a delightfully humorous and caustic satire on the rule of the many by the few". Tosco Fyvel, writing in on the same day, called the book "a gentle satire on a certain State and on the illusions of an age which may already be behind us". Julian Symons responded, on 7 September, "Should we not expect, in Tribune at least, acknowledgement of the fact that it is a satire not at all gentle upon a particular State - Soviet Russia? It seems to me that a reviewer should have the courage to identify Napoleon with Stalin, and Snowball with Trotsky, and express an opinion favourable or unfavourable to the author, upon a political ground. In a hundred years perhaps, Animal Farm may be simply a fairy story; today it is a political satire with a good deal of point". Animal Farm has been subject to much comment in the decades since these early remarks.

Between 1952 and 1957, the CIA, in an operation codenamed Aedinosaur, sent millions of balloons carrying copies of the novel into Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, whose air forces tried to shoot the balloons down.

Time magazine chose Animal Farm as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996 and is included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.

Popular reading in schools, Animal Farm was ranked the UK's favourite book from school in a 2016 poll.

Animal Farm has also faced an array of challenges in school settings around the US. The following are examples of this controversy that has existed around Orwell's work:

The John Birch Society in Wisconsin challenged the reading of Animal Farm in 1965 because of its reference to the masses revolting.

New York State English Council's Committee on Defense Against Censorship found that in 1968, Animal Farm had been widely deemed a "problem book".

A censorship survey conducted in DeKalb County, Georgia, relating to the years 1979-1982, revealed that many schools had attempted to limit access to Animal Farm due to its "political theories".

A superintendent in Bay County, Florida, banned Animal Farm at the middle school and high school levels in 1987.
The Board quickly brought back the book, however, after receiving complaints of the ban as "unconstitutional".

Animal Farm was removed from the Stonington, Connecticut school district curriculum in 2017.

Animal Farm has also faced similar forms of resistance in other countries. The ALA also mentions the way that the book was prevented from being featured at the International Book Fair in Moscow, Russia, in 1977 and banned from schools in the United Arab Emirates for references to practices or actions that defy Arab or Islamic beliefs, such as pigs or alcohol.

In the same manner, Animal Farm has also faced relatively recent issues in China. In 2018, the government decided to censor all online posts about or referring to Animal Farm. However, the book itself, as of 2019, remains sold in stores. Amy Hawkins and Jeffrey Wasserstrom of The Atlantic stated in 2019 that the book is widely available in Mainland China for several reasons: censors believe the general public is unlikely to read a highbrow book, because the elites who do read books feel connected to the ruling party anyway, and because the Communist Party sees being too aggressive in blocking cultural products as a liability. The authors stated: "It was - and remains - as easy to buy 1984 and Animal Farm in Shenzhen or Shanghai as it is in London or Los Angeles". An enhanced version of the book, launched in India in 2017, was widely praised for capturing the author's intent, by republishing the proposed preface of the First Edition and the preface he wrote for the Ukrainian edition.

Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into "a complete system of thought", which they formally name Animalism, an allegoric reference to Communism, not to be confused with the philosophy of Animalism. Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer partake in activities associated with the humans (drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading), which were explicitly prohibited by the Seven Commandments. Squealer is employed to alter the Seven Commandments to account for this humanisation, an allusion to the Soviet government's revising of history to exercise control of the people's beliefs about themselves and their society.

Squealer sprawls at the foot of the end wall of the big barn where the Seven Commandments were written (ch. viii) - preliminary artwork for a 1950 strip cartoon by Norman Pett and Donald Freeman

The original commandments are:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.

These commandments are also distilled into the maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad!" which is primarily used by the sheep on the farm, often to disrupt discussions and disagreements between animals on the nature of Animalism.

Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear themselves of accusations of law-breaking. The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded:

1. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.

2. No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.

3. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.

4. All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

Eventually, these are replaced with the maxims, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and "Four legs good, two legs better" as the pigs become more anthropomorphic. This is an ironic twist to the original purpose of the Seven Commandments, which was supposed to keep order within Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans and preventing animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda.

The Hoof and Horn flag described in the book appears to be based on the hammer and sickle, the Communist symbol. By the end of the book when Napoleon takes full control, the Hoof and Horn is removed from the flag.

Orwell biographer Jeffrey Meyers has written, "virtually every detail has political significance in this allegory". Orwell himself wrote in 1946, "Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution ... [and] that kind of revolution (violent conspiratorial revolution, led by unconsciously power-hungry people) can only lead to a change of masters [-] revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert". In a preface for a 1947 Ukrainian edition, he stated, "for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement. On my return from Spain [in 1937] I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages".

The revolt of the animals against Farmer Jones is Orwell's analogy with the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The Battle of the Cowshed has been said to represent the allied invasion of Soviet Russia in 1918, and the defeat of the White Russians in the Russian Civil War. The pigs' rise to preeminence mirrors the rise of a Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR, just as Napoleon's emergence as the farm's sole leader reflects Stalin's emergence. The pigs' appropriation of milk and apples for their own use, "the turning point of the story" as Orwell termed it in a letter to Dwight Macdonald, stands as an analogy for the crushing of the left-wing 1921 Kronstadt revolt against the Bolsheviks, and the difficult efforts of the animals to build the windmill suggest the various Five Year Plans. The puppies controlled by Napoleon parallel the nurture of the secret police in the Stalinist structure, and the pigs' treatment of the other animals on the farm recalls the internal terror faced by the populace in the 1930s. In chapter seven, when the animals confess their non-existent crimes and are killed, Orwell directly alludes to the purges, confessions and show trials of the late 1930s. These contributed to Orwell's conviction that the Bolshevik revolution had been corrupted and the Soviet system become rotten.

Peter Edgerly Firchow and Peter Davison contend that the Battle of the Windmill, specifically referencing the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Moscow, represents World War II. During the battle, Orwell first wrote, "All the animals, including Napoleon" took cover. Orwell had the publisher alter this to "All the animals except Napoleon" in recognition of Stalin's decision to remain in Moscow during the German advance. Orwell requested the change after he met Józef Czapski in Paris in March 1945. Czapski, a survivor of the Katyn Massacre and an opponent of the Soviet regime, told Orwell, as Orwell wrote to Arthur Koestler, that it had been "the character [and] greatness of Stalin" that saved Russia from the German invasion.

Front row (left to right): Rykov, Skrypnyk, and Stalin - 'When Snowball comes to the crucial points in his speeches he is drowned out by the sheep (Ch. V), just as in the party Congress in 1927 [above], at Stalin's instigation 'pleas for the opposition were drowned in the continual, hysterically intolerant uproar from the floor'. (Isaac Deutscher)

Other connections that writers have suggested illustrate Orwell's telescoping of Russian history from 1917 to 1943, including the wave of rebelliousness that ran through the countryside after the Rebellion, which stands for the abortive revolutions in Hungary and Germany (Ch. IV); the conflict between Napoleon and Snowball (Ch. V), parallelling "the two rival and quasi-Messianic beliefs that seemed pitted against one another: Trotskyism, with its faith in the revolutionary vocation of the proletariat of the West; and Stalinism with its glorification of Russia's socialist destiny"; Napoleon's dealings with Whymper and the Willingdon markets (Ch. VI), paralleling the Treaty of Rapallo; and Frederick's forged bank notes, parallelling the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939, after which Frederick attacks Animal Farm without warning and destroys the windmill.

The book's close, with the pigs and men in a kind of rapprochement, reflected Orwell's view of the 1943 Tehran Conference that seemed to display the establishment of "the best possible relations between the USSR and the West" - but in reality were destined, as Orwell presciently predicted, to continue to unravel. The disagreement between the allies and the start of the Cold War is suggested when Napoleon and Pilkington, both suspicious, each "played an ace of spades simultaneously".

Similarly, the music in the novel, starting with "Beasts of England" and the later anthems, parallels " The Internationale" and its adoption and repudiation by the Soviet authorities as the anthem of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s.

According to Masha Gessen, the metamorphosis of the eighth commandment ("some animals are more equal") was likely inspired by similar change of a party line which declared all Soviet people equal: the Russian nation and language suddenly became "first among equals" in official CPSU publications in 1936-1937.

In 2021, during pandemic restrictions, the National Youth Theatre toured a stage version of Animal Farm; this run included outdoor performances on a farm at Soulton Hall.

A solo version, adapted and performed by Guy Masterson, premiered at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in January 1995 and has toured worldwide since.

A theatrical version, with music by Richard Peaslee and lyrics by Adrian Mitchell, was staged at the National Theatre London on 25 April 1984, directed by Peter Hall. It toured nine cities in 1985.

A new adaptation written and directed by Robert Icke, designed by Bunny Christie with puppetry designed and directed by Toby Olié opened at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 2022 before touring the UK.

Animal Farm has been adapted to film twice. Both differ from the novel and have been accused of taking significant liberties, including sanitising some aspects.[citation needed ]

Animal Farm (1954) is an animated film, in which Napoleon is eventually overthrown in a second revolution. In 1974, E. Howard Hunt revealed that he had been sent by the CIA's Psychological Warfare department to obtain the film rights from Orwell's widow, and the resulting 1954 animation was funded by the agency.

Animal Farm (1999) is a live-action TV version that shows Napoleon's regime collapsing in on itself, with the farm having new human owners, reflecting the collapse of Soviet communism.[citation needed ]

Andy Serkis is directing an upcoming animated film adaptation.

A BBC radio version, produced by Rayner Heppenstall, was broadcast in January 1947. Orwell listened to the production at his home in Canonbury Square, London, with Hugh Gordon Porteous, amongst others. Orwell later wrote to Heppenstall that Porteous, "who had not read the book, grasped what was happening after a few minutes".

A further radio production, again using Orwell's dramatisation of the book, was broadcast in January 2013 on BBC Radio 4. Tamsin Greig narrated, and the cast included Nicky Henson as Napoleon, Toby Jones as the propagandist Squealer, and Ralph Ineson as Boxer.

Foreign Office copy of the first instalment of Norman Pett's Animal Farm comic strip. This example was commissioned by the Information Research Department, a secret wing of the Foreign Office which dealt with disinformation, pro-colonial, and anti-communist propaganda during the Cold War

In 1950, Norman Pett and his writing partner Don Freeman were secretly hired by the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret wing of the British Foreign Office, to adapt Animal Farm into a comic strip. This comic was not published in the UK but ran in Brazilian and Burmese newspapers.

1. Orwell, writing in his review of ^ Franz Borkenau's The Spanish Cockpit in Time and Tide, 31 July 1937, and "Spilling the Spanish Beans", New English Weekly, 29 July 1937

2. According to ^ Christopher Hitchens, "the persons of Lenin and Trotsky are combined into one [i.e., Snowball], or, it might even be ... to say, there is no Lenin at all."

3. ^ Struve, Gleb. Telling the Russians, written for the Russian journal New Russian Wind, reprinted in Remembering Orwell

4. A Note on the Text, Peter Davison, ^ Animal Farm, Penguin edition 1989

5. In the Preface to ^ Animal Farm Orwell noted, however, "although various episodes are taken from the actual history of the Russian Revolution, they are dealt with schematically and their chronological order is changed."

6. Preface to the Ukrainian edition of ^ Animal Farm, reprinted in Orwell:Collected Works, It Is What I Think

1. "Great Books of the Western World as Free eBooks". Prodigal no more. 5 March 2019 - via WordPress.

2. ^ Crick, Bernard (31 December 1983). "The real message of '1984': Orwell's Classic Re-assessed". Financial Times.

3. Shakespeare, Nicholas (24 August 2019). "Novel explosives of the Cold War". The Spectator. Retrieved 20 December 2022.

4. ^ Getzels, Rachael (12 September 2012). "Plaque unveiled where George Orwell's Animal Farm almost went up in flames".

5. ^ "George Orwell's Animal Farm tops list of the nation's favourite books from school". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022.

6. ^ Wojtas, Joe (2 February 2017). "'Animal Farm' not banned, school officials say; parents not satisfied". The Day.

7. ^ Oppenheim, Maya (1 March 2018). "China bans George Orwell's Animal Farm and letter 'N' from online posts as censors bolster Xi Jinping's plan to keep power". The Independent. ProQuest 2055087191.

8. ^ "Book Review: George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' Received Mixed Reviews from across the World, Enhanced Version now Available on Pirates". The Policy Times. 23 September 2020. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020.

9. ^ Senn, Samantha (1 October 2015). "All Propaganda is Dangerous, but Some are More Dangerous than Others: George Orwell and the Use of Literature as Propaganda". Journal of Strategic Security. 8 (5): 149-161. doi:10.5038/1944-0472.8.3S.1483. ISSN 1944-0464. S2CID 145306291.

"12 Things You May Not Know About Animal Farm". Metro. 17 August 2015.

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"Animal Farm: Sixty Years On". History Today. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017.

Bloom, Harold (2009). Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations: Animal Farm (new ed.). Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60413582-4. Archived from the original on 22 November 2016.

Carr, Craig L. (2010). Orwell, Politics, and Power. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4411-5854-3.

Davison, Peter (2000). "George Orwell: Animal Farm: A Fairy Story: A Note on the Text". England: Penguin Books. Archived from the original on 12 December 2006.

Eliot, Valery (6 January 1969). "T.S. Eliot and Animal Farm: Reasons for Rejection". . UK. Archived from the original on 15 October 2009.

"The Fall of Mister Jones and the Russian Revolution of 1917". Shmoop University. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013.

"GCSE English Literature - Animal Farm - historical context (pt 1/3)". . Archived from the original on 3 January 2012.

Giardina, Carolyn (19 October 2012). "Andy Serkis to Direct Adaptation of 'Animal Farm'". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013.

Grossman, Lev; Lacayo, Richard (16 October 2005). "All-Time 100 Novels". . Archived from the original on 13 September 2008.

Meyers, Jeffrey (1975). A Reader's Guide to George Orwell. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-15016-0.

"One man Animal Farm Show On the Way to Darwen". Lancashire Telegraph. 25 January 2013. Archived from the original on 6 January 2014.

Orwell, George (1945). "The Freedom of the Press: Orwell's Proposed Preface to 'Animal Farm'". Archived from the original on 16 January 2013.

Orwell, George (March 1947). "Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm". Archived from the original on 24 October 2005.

Orwell, George (1979) [First published by Martin Secker & Warburg 1945; published in Penguin Books 1951]. Animal Farm. England: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-000838-8.

"The Real George Orwell, Animal Farm". BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 27 January 2013.

Rodden, John (1999). Understanding Animal Farm: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-30201-5.

Roper, D. (1977). "Viewpoint 2: The Boxer Mentality". Change. 9 (11): 11-63. doi:10.1080/00091383.1977.10569271. JSTOR 40176954.

"The Scheming Frederick and how Hitler Broke the Non-Aggression Pact". Shmoop University. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013.

Soule, George (1946). "1946 Review of George Orwell's 'Animal Farm'". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 14 January 2017.

"SparkNotes 'Literature Study Guides' "Animal Farm" Chapter VIII". SparkNotes LLC. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013.

Sutherland, T. (2005). "Speaking My Mind: Orwell Farmed for Education". The English Journal. 95 (1): 17-19. doi:10.2307/30047391. JSTOR 30047391.

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Bott, George (1968) [1958]. Selected Writings. London, Melbourne, Toronto, Singapore, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Nairobi, Auckland, Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books. ISBN 978-0-435-13675-8.

Menchhofer, Robert W. (1990). Animal Farm. Lorenz Educational Press. ISBN 978-0787780616.

O'Neill, Terry, Readings on Animal Farm (1998), Greenhaven Press. ISBN 1565106512.

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Animal Farm is a beast fable, in the form of a satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of anthropomorphic farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy.

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Ethan Frome is a 1911 book by American author Edith Wharton. It is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The novel was adapted into a film, Ethan Frome, in 1993.

The novel is a framed narrative. The framing story concerns an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield while in the area on business. He spots a limping, quiet man around the village, who is somehow compelling in his demeanor and carriage. This is Ethan Frome, who is a lifelong resident and a local fixture of the community. Frome is described by the narrator as "the most striking figure in Starkfield", "the ruin of a man" with a "careless powerful look...in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain". Curious, the narrator sets out to learn about him. He learns that Frome's limp arose from having been injured in a "smash-up" twenty-four years before, but further details are not forthcoming, and the narrator fails to learn much more from Frome's fellow townspeople other than that Ethan's attempt at higher education decades before was thwarted by the sudden illness of his father following an injury, forcing his return to the farm to assist his parents, never to leave again. Because people seem not to wish to speak other than in vague and general terms about Frome's past, the narrator's curiosity grows, but he learns little more.

Chance circumstances arise that allow the narrator to hire Frome as his driver for a week. A severe snowstorm during one of their journeys forces Frome to allow the narrator to shelter at his home one night. Just as the two are entering Frome's house, the prologue ends and the framed story begins. The narration switches from the first-person narrator of the prologue to a limited third-person narrator. We then embark on the "first" chapter (Chapter I), which takes place twenty-four years prior.

In Chapter I, Ethan is waiting outside a church dance for Mattie, his wife's cousin, who has for a year lived with Ethan and his sickly wife, Zeena (Zenobia), in order to help out around the house and farm. Mattie is given the occasional night off to entertain herself in town as partial recompense for helping care for the Fromes, and Ethan has the duty of walking her home. It is quickly clear that Ethan has deep feelings for Mattie. Passing the graveyard, he thinks in an intense moment of foreshadowing that, "We'll always go on living here together, and some day she'll lie there beside me." It also becomes clear that Zeena has observed enough to understand that he has these feelings and, understandably, she resents them.

When Zeena leaves for an overnight visit to seek treatment for her various complaints and symptoms in a neighboring town, Ethan is excited to have an evening alone with Mattie. During this evening, the narrator reveals small actions that show that they each have feelings for the other, including a lingering of touching hands on the milk jug, although neither openly declares their love. Mattie makes supper and retrieves from a high shelf Zeena's treasured pickle dish, which Zeena, in a symbol of her stingy nature, never uses, in order to protect it. Mattie uses it to present Ethan with a simple supper, and disaster ensues when the Fromes' cat jumps on the table and knocks it off, shattering it beyond repair. Ethan tries to help by setting the dish's pieces neatly in the cupboard, presenting the false impression of wholeness if not examined closely, with plans to purchase some glue and fix it as soon as he can.

In the morning Ethan's hopes for more private time with Mattie are foiled by the presence of his hired man. Ethan then goes into town to buy glue for the broken pickle dish, and upon his return finds that Zeena has also come home. Zeena retreats upstairs, proclaiming her illness, and refusing supper because she is not hungry. There, she informs Ethan that she plans to send Mattie away and has already hired another girl to replace her, claiming that she needs someone more efficient because her health is failing more rapidly than ever.

Ethan is angry and frustrated to the point of panic by the thought of losing Mattie, and he is also worried for Mattie, who has no other place to go and no way to support herself in the world. He returns to the kitchen and joins Mattie, and tries to eat, but he is distraught and suddenly blurts out Zeena's plans to send Mattie away. Mattie reacts with shock but rapid acceptance, trying to calm Ethan, while Ethan becomes more agitated and begins to insist that he will not let her go. Ethan kisses her. Moments later, they are interrupted by Zeena, who has decided that she is hungry after all. After supper, Zeena discovers the broken pickle dish and is heartbroken and enraged; this betrayal cements her determination to send Mattie away.

Ethan, miserable at the thought of losing Mattie and worried sick about her fate, considers running away with Mattie, but he lacks the money to do so. He feels that he cannot abandon Zeena because he knows that she would neither be able to run the farm nor sell it (the poor quality of the place has been discussed at several points in the story already). Every plan he thinks of is impossible to carry out, and he remains in despair and frantically trying to think of a way to change this one more turn of events against his ability to have a happy life.

The next morning, Zeena describes her specific and imminent plans for sending Mattie on her way. Panicked, Ethan rushes into town to try to get a cash advance from a customer for a load of lumber in order to have the money with which to abscond with Mattie. His plan is unhinged by guilt, however, when his customer's wife expresses compassion, understanding, and empathy for Ethan's lot, which has involved the repeated duty to care for others, first his parents, then his sickly wife. He realizes that, of all people, he cannot cheat this kindly woman and her husband out of money, since she is one of the few people who have ever seemed to have seen or openly acknowledged Ethan's lifelong plight, as well as his honor in fulfilling his duties.

Ethan returns to the farm and picks up Mattie to take her to the train station. They stop at a hill upon which they had once planned to go sledding and decide to sled together as a way of delaying their sad parting, after which they anticipate never seeing each other again. After their first run, Mattie suggests a suicide pact: that they go down again, and steer the sled directly into a tree, so they will never be parted and so that they may spend their last moments together. Ethan first refuses to go through with the plan, but in his despair that mirrors Mattie's, he ultimately agrees, and they get on the sled, clutching each other. On the way down, a vision of Zeena's face startles Ethan into swerving a bit, but he corrects their course, and they crash headlong and at high speed into the elm tree. Ethan regains consciousness after the accident but Mattie lies beside him, "cheeping" in pain like a small wounded animal. Ethan is also injured, and the reader is left to understand that this was the "smash-up" that left Ethan with a permanent limp.

The epilogue returns to the framing story and the first-person narrator point of view of the prologue. The framing story resumes precisely where it left off: just as Frome and his visitor, the narrator, enter the Frome household in the story's present. The narrator hears a complaining female voice, and it is easy to assume that it belongs to the never-happy Zeena, but in the final twist of the story, it emerges that it is in fact Mattie, who now lives with the Fromes due to having been paralyzed in the accident. Her misery over her plight and dependence has embittered and "soured" her, and, with roles reversed, Zeena is now forced to care for her as well as Ethan. Further illustrating the psychosomatic nature of most of Zeena's previous complaints, she has now found the strength through necessity to be the caregiver rather than being the invalid. In an agonizing irony, Ethan and Mattie have gotten their wish to stay together, but in mutual unhappiness and discontent, with Mattie helpless and paralyzed, and with Zeena as a constant presence between the two of them.

The story of Ethan Frome had initially begun as a French-language composition that Wharton had to write while studying the language in Paris, but several years later she took the story up again and transformed it into the novel it now is, basing her sense of New England culture and place on her ten years of living at The Mount, her home in Lenox, Massachusetts. She would read portions of her novel-in-progress each day to her good friend Walter Berry, who was an international lawyer. Wharton likely based the story of Ethan and Mattie's sledding experience on an accident that she had heard about in 1904 in Lenox, Massachusetts. Five people total were involved in the real-life accident, four girls and one boy. They crashed into a lamppost while sledding down Courthouse Hill in Lenox. A girl named Emily Hazel Crosby was killed in the accident. Wharton learned of the accident from one of the girls who survived, Kate Spencer, when the two became friends while both worked at the Lenox Library. Kate Spencer suffered from a hip injury in the accident and also had facial injuries. It is among the few works by Wharton with a rural setting. Wharton found the notion of the tragic sledding crash to be irresistible as a potential extended metaphor for the wrongdoings of a secret love affair.

Lenox is also where Wharton had traveled extensively and had come into contact with at least one of the victims of the accident; victims of the accident are buried in graves nearby Wharton family members. In her introduction to the novel, Wharton talks of the "outcropping granite" of New England, the austerity of its land and the stoicism of its people. The connection between land and people is very much a part of naturalism; the environment is a powerful shaper of man's fate, and the novel dwells insistently on the cruelty of Starkfield's winters.

The New York Times called Ethan Frome "a compelling and haunting story." Edith Wharton was able to write an appealing book and separate it from her other works, where her characters in Ethan Frome are not of the elite upper class. However, the problems that the characters endure are still consistently the same, where the protagonist has to decide whether or not to fulfill their duty or follow their heart. She began writing Ethan Frome in the early 1900s when she was still married. The novel was criticized by Lionel Trilling as lacking in moral or ethical significance. Trilling wrote that the ending is "terrible to contemplate," but that "the mind can do nothing with it, can only endure it."

Jeffrey Lilburn notes that some find "the suffering endured by Wharton's characters is excessive and unjustified," but others see the difficult moral questions addressed and note that it "provides insightful commentary on the American economic and cultural realities that produced and allowed such suffering." Wharton was always careful to label Ethan Frome as a tale rather than a novel. Critics did take note of this when reviewing the book. Elizabeth Ammons compared the work to fairy tales. She found a story that is "as moral as the classic fairy tale" and that functions as a "realistic social criticism." The moral concepts, as described by Ammons, are revealed with all of the brutality of Starkfield's winters. Comparing Mattie Silver and Zeena Frome, Ammons suggests that the Matties will grow as frigid and crippled as the Zeenas, so long as such women remain isolated and dependent. Wharton cripples Mattie, says Lilburn, but has her survive in order to demonstrate the cruelty of the culture surrounding women in that period.

The book was adapted to the 1993 film of the same name, directed by John Madden, and starring Liam Neeson, Patricia Arquette, Joan Allen and Tate Donovan.

Cathy Marston adapted the book to a one-act ballet titled Snowblind for the San Francisco Ballet. The ballet premiered in 2018, with Ulrik Birkkjaer as Ethan, Sarah Van Patten as Zeena and Mathilde Froustey as Mattie.

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Ethan Frome is a 1911 book by American author Edith Wharton. It is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The novel was adapted into a film, Ethan Frome , in 1993. The novel is a framed narrative. The framing story concerns an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield while in the area on business.

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5 Reasons Reading is So Important for Student Success

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Student literacy is more important than ever for student success. Graduates of Merrimack's M.Ed. program can help students succeed in this area.

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The library is at 125 Putnam Street in downtown Pinckney! In November 1977, the Village of Pinckney and Putnam Township resolved to jointly provide library services to their residents. The service agency is known as the Pinckney Community Public Library. Bylaws for the library indicate that it shall be overseen by a Board of Directors […]

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Use this thread to ask and answer any questions you or your peers have!

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Use this thread to talk about different poems you have found interesting. Everyone is expected to share at least one poem on this thread AND respond to at least 2 peers on here as well.

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Please use this thread to write down one fact for TWO different presidents you learned about. Do not repeat facts for any presdient that your peer has already wrote.