"The Bag of Winds" or "Why did those fools do that!?"

Continuing after Odysseus' dooming act of hubris, he went to the island of Aeolus. Aeolus liked Odysseus and wanted him to return home, so he gave Odysseus the winds. He was somehow able to make uneven heating all over the world into matter and sealed it into a bag large enough to hold a lot of gold at the most. Anyway, he let out a little of the West wind so Odysseus would be able to get home to Ithaca and gave him the rest of the winds.

Unfortunately, his group members started to wonder what was in that bag that Odysseus had by him for the last week or so, he made pretty nice time without the other winds interfering. The crewmembers thought it was gold and Odysseus wouldn’t tell them what was in it, so a crewmember opened up the bag and wind all of a sudden came blasting out and they were blown way off course.

What were those fools doing!? Ithaca was in sight and they open up some suspicious leather bag after there was good wind for a long time. They should have at least asked Odysseus before opening it! Then again, if Odysseus told them what was really in it, their might be mixed reactions. There was never a ban on telling them as far as I know. They really should have talked about it. It’s their fault!

I think Odysseus might have done some ship switching after that, in case anything bad might have happened. However, I somewhat doubt this. Anyway, what happened next really made some people wish they hadn’t opened the bag.

Imagine this. You slowly sail for the island of the Laestrygonians. Your captain asks you to go ashore. You spot a tall girl and ask her where the palace is she points the way to a very large palace. You go inside and see the queen, but she is a giant, scale-wise. Then, she rushes out to get her husband the king. Suddenly, he rushes in and immediately hoists up and devours one of your friends. You quickly run away back to your ship. You try and sail away, but you notice that all the other Laestrygonians are tossing rocks at the ships. One goes down. Another sinks into the abyss. You look up, see a rock headed right at you, and all is dark.

Only one ship survived those gigantic cannibals. You guessed it, Odysseus’ ship. What kind of story would it be if they killed off the main character like that? Anyway, wouldn’t it be kind of weird if you found out that a ghost was telling you a story…

Animal Farm Movie

As I said last week, I will be discussing the Animal Farm Movie. It may come as a surprise to some book lovers, but a movie can be better than a book. They tend to each have their advantages. Sometimes make detail issues when adapting the book; however this one met is purpose, in my opinion.

I find one real change that was bad, but it didn’t affect my opinion of the movie much. Mollie did not run off with a different human in this one. In the book, as stated, she grew disappointed at the lack of benefits that used to be around when humans were there, so she ran off. In this, they minimized her character and she only said that she liked bows, not much else happened.

Now, there’s Moses. Moses is a tame raven kept by Jones, the farmer. He is supposed to represent Orwell’s view of the church. He seems far more irritating in the movie; he was just there in the book. He also seemed to ally himself with Napoleon more visibly here. I know that ravens should be smarter than that. Eventually, Napoleon gets tired of him and sticks him on the flagpole to show his true maniacal nature.

I will also talk about the humans. They seem to be somewhat important. I think that Jones is portrayed similarly, but slightly more sympathetically. In the movie he has a wife. She didn’t seem to do anything wrong, but was still forced out along with her husband. Now, Frederickson is bad, in the movie anyway. Once he discovered that the pigs could talk, he started trading with them and gave them whiskey. When he brought his wife over, it seemed to me like she was flirting with Napoleon.

Now, my favorite change was definitely the better characterization of Jessie. Earlier, she was just the dog who gave birth to the puppies that Napoleon took. Now, she is the only main character that is not a pig, excluding Boxer. I think making the dog a more important character increases the emotional nature of this. In the novel, it is bad when Napoleon takes the puppies and “educates” them. Now, imagine that those were your puppies that it happened to. You would feel desperation as your puppies were his servants and no longer recognized you as a parent.

Also, the modernization of the story was helpful. With cars, Boxer’s fate seems more plausible. In the book, he is taken away by horse carriage. If you ask me, I find it hard to believe that the horses wouldn’t hear the animals yelling, or they had become so used to it that they just sadly went forward. In addition, the addition of “the box where humans watch humans,” aka television, seemed to increase Napoleon’s rule as they became transfixed on the screen.

The final good change was the ending. It is nice to know that Napoleon’s reign was brought to an end, but it was even nicer when there were new owners. It changes the meaning of the movie to a slightly more optimistic view. The book seems to say that humans were the enemy in general and that utopian societies can not exist due to sin. This new ending seems to say, “Humans weren’t the enemy at all, the problem was who was in charge.”

Animal Farm

If you have never read this book before, read the book before you read the post. I mean the book, not the movie, that is a separate matter. If you have read the book as part of a class assignment, don't flee in horror, read this post first.

Anyway, Animal Farm was written by George Orwell, the same person who wrote 1984. I haven't read the book, but I know enough about it that Big Brother wouldn't want me to read it.
Jokes aside, I will not compare this to 1984, but instead to "Lord of the Flies," another name that might cause people to run. I will not spend this entire post comparing them, instead I will summarize the main point. The point of these is that while sin exists, any utopian project will fail. Both groups are given a fresh start, and they end up even worse, than before. These books are pessimistic, but the general things are true, while there is sin, every system will have its flaw. I am sure you can think of at least one example, so I don't need to delve into that much.

However, I don't like to think of this as just symbolism. I like to bond (and anti-bond) *snicker* with the characters and if you view it as merely symbolism or satire, you lose the sense that they are supposed to be something to focus on instead of just "being there." As so, I will talk more about the individual characters instead of just focusing on symbolism.

First, I will talk of Old Major. He is the old, wise pig who first spread Animalism, where animals govern themselves and are not supposed to adopt human vices. He seems to have good intentions, but he seems to be old and quite content, as a prizewinning boar, he doesn't have to worry about these things. Other than this, he is wise and respected, and dies 3 days after giving this speech. He is not accidentally shot in the rear like the movie. The movie is a side issue that will be brought up next week, Jessie will not be referenced until then as well. I will tell you the diferrences when necessary so you don't have to watch the movie.

Anyway, on to Snowball :), as evidenced by the emoticon, I like Snowball. He tries to help the animals learn, has good character, and is braver than the other pig. Some may ask why I like him, while it is true he has his faults, he ate the apples and drank the milk along with the other pigs. Everyone has faults, but he wanted to improve life for the other animals in the long run. SparkNotes has said this about Snowball,"For example, Snowball basically accepts the superiority of the pigs over the rest of the animals. Moreover, his fervent, single-minded enthusiasm for grand projects such as the windmill might have erupted into full-blown megalomaniac despotism had he not been chased from Animal Farm." Orwell did say that power corrupts, so that is the problem. Snowball was somewhat corrupted by power, but other than that he is pretty nice. As for the "single-mindedness," he does show enthusiasm, but I don't think that would happen. I will explain my reasoning for this later.

Next, Napoleon. He is pure badness!!!! He is a puppy snatcher! He really did, he took them and made them obey him! He didn't want to lead Animal Farm for the others' benefit, it is for the benefit of him and the other pigs. The other pigs willingly went on with Napoleon, he knew that Snowball would never let that happen, so he got rid of him and called him a traitor to remove suspect. Eventually, he changed all of the laws one by one and eventually, it was hard to tell him and the humans apart. He went to complete pig superiority and none of the other animals had much food. He even said that it shouldn't be called "Animal Farm" anymore. Now, onto why Snowball wouldn't become a megalomaniac, he was devoted to the projects in mind of the other animals, not his own gain, this could lead to him doing these amazing projects without the consent of others. However, Napoleon would debate with him enough that his projects would not go unchallenged. But, thinking about it, Napoleon somewhat did Snowball an unintentional service. When Snowball is out of power, he would have more time to reflect on the milk and apples and other mistakes he may have made when he was in power.

Next, Boxer. He wanted to do a good job and be a hard worker, but did not understand what was really going on. When he received a greivous injury, he was shipped off to the glue factory and the other animals were told that he was taken to a hospital. I would like to imagine that he somehow escaped. Many would say it was hopeless and that it is the harsh fact of reality. Well, do you read fiction for reality? No. I like happy endings, and they never described Boxer being turned into glue, so I can assume that he by some miracle escaped all I want to.

Now that my rant is over, Squealer is next. You would probably assume that I am going to vicously rant about how bad Squealer is. You would be correct. He twists his words to make others believe that Napoleon did this for a good reason and "edits" the laws so that he and Napoleon aren't breaking any and even convinces people that Napoleom bravely fought when Snowball was either hiding or on the other side, when Napoleon really hid.

Benjamin is an elderly donkey. He is cynical and could very well challenge the pigs if he wanted to, but he doesn't. He probably does this because he doesn't want to, he has a feeling things would become worse, or he knows very well what will happen if he goes against them. Personally, I think the last choice is the most likely.

The last character I will talk about is Mollie. She liked the ribbons that she could wear and the sugar that was given to her as Farmer Jones' carriage horse. She did not like not being in contact with humans and eventually left to pull the carriage of another person. After this, she was never mentioned again.

Moses did not have much of a role. He will be discussed in the movie with Jessie, where their roles are increased. For that, you will have to wait till next week.

One final comment, this whole post is over 1,100 words, hopefully it makes up for my other 2 bad posts.