Reading Animal Farm as a Work of Translation

In exploring Orwell’s authorial intent, this dissertation has thus far set forth the two different spheres of influence which culminates in Animal Farm: politics and aesthetics. In his attempt to blend the two together in one text, an argument would be made that Orwell’s literary methods can be appraised through the lens of theories of translation, in light of the fact that Orwell was essentially translating his politics into his aesthetics by seeking to achieve a fine balance of a literary work motivated by political inclinations that will nonetheless be able to stand on its own foot as a true work of literature.

To be more specific, approaches that view the act of translation as a metaphorical process, and do not relegate translation to a simple act of a

linguistic transfer of meaning across two languages, will apply to the perspective of Animal Farm as a translation. Such theories do not fall solely in the camp of either prescriptive or descriptive translation theories, as critics from both sides have provided arguments which allows for an interpretation of writing as translation. Critics such as the linguistic-based translation theorist Peter Newmark, arguably more entrenched in the ‘prescriptive camp’ than the

‘descriptive camp’, opined that “[g]ood writing, which encompasses the aesthetic

truth of a translation, is an essential component of a comprehensive translation theory, if only because it indicates the one creative way to compensate for the many lexical gaps and deficiencies which exist in all languages” (1). Newmark’s point might have been more about the need to emphasize the linguistic quality of a translated text in prescriptive translation theories, but at the same time, this underscores the fact that the act of writing is inherent in the act of translation – a logical conclusion considering that both are fundamentally linguistic acts. On the other side in the ‘descriptive camp’, critics such as Susan Bassnett and Lefevere, both of whom were credited with promulgating the cultural turn in translation, expounded on viewing translation (both as an act and as a product) through theories and critical lenses outside of linguistic theories (Constructing Cultures, Bassnett and Lefevere 2).

On the subject of translation, the critic Vincente Rafael argues that

“translation…involves not simply the ability to speak in a language other than one’s own but the capacity to reshape one’s thoughts and actions in accordance with accepted forms” and that this was a process undertaken when there is a need to “either [affirm] or [evade] the social order” (149, italics added for

emphasis). This was a sentiment commensurable with Orwell’s own approach to creating literature: he had to attain an ability (“the capacity”) to be able to mold his politics (“reshape one’s thoughts and actions”) into a literary form that was more attuned to reach mass readership (“accepted forms”) at a time when the general consensus in publishing circles was not to produce works that were in line with Orwell’s political leanings (“evasion of the social order”) (Rafael 149). It

is as though Rafael was speaking in tandem with Orwell, though in truth the connection is anachronistic, given that the critic was basing his statements on a post-colonial examination of Tagalog translations by the Spanish Christians during the time of the Spanish East Indies.

When taken as a metaphor, the act of translation becomes more than a language-to-language transfer, instead encompassing a ‘meaning-to-meaning’

transfer, a notion which is not as apparent given an understanding of translation as necessarily an act that takes place across languages; it will be thoroughly pointless if a text was translated from one language to another semantically, if the value of meaning that comes inherently bound to a text is lost in the act of translation. To illustrate, a common anecdote in translation circles is the

conundrum that befell biblical translators in their attempt to render the phrase “as white as snow”, into a language whereby the concept of snow is lost due to the fact that meteorologically, snow is non-existent in said culture. A simplistic solution would have been to replace snow with another object of whiteness, but the very reasons why the biblical translators then were in a dilemma are the same reasons why translation is not simply a linguistic act: replacing snow with another object of whiteness would mean sacrificing the notion of purity. The word

“snow” carried several levels of signification, including signifying complete purity, a sense of the power of creation, and last but not least the aesthetic image of gently falling snow itself. Translation simply goes beyond language itself.

When considering Animal Farm as a work of translation, the symbiosis between Orwell’s politics and his aesthetics is viewed as the relationship shared

between a source text and its target (translated) text. If Animal Farm is taken to be representative of the symbiosis of Orwell’s politics and Orwell’s aesthetics, then the process of fusing his political purpose with his literary aesthetics into one is akin to the act of translation (“Write” 5). In seeking to fulfil his political purpose, Orwell turned towards literature as a means of carrying out this purpose – translation essentially serves this same function of a transfer of meaning, as can be derived from the etymology of the word itself. Orwell’s translational act was to represent his politics through his aesthetics, by creation of a text that balanced, or at the very least attempted to balance, the two. Once again, neither was valued over the other in the authorial process.

This notion of Orwell’s writing as a translation of his politics into his

aesthetics is further augmented by the literary device that the author employed in the creation of Animal Farm – an allegory, as defined by the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, is “a story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation”. There cannot be a more accurate and succinct summary of what Animal Farm fundamentally is. The characters of Snowball and Napoleon, lead protagonist and antagonist respectively, represented leaders of different convictions, while the remaining characters of Manor Farm represented the average citizen, each with their varying levels of political awareness and political leanings. An allegory is at its core an extended metaphor – extended in the sense that the metaphor persists throughout the narrative that is Animal Farm, in contrast with that of a vanilla metaphor, which is applicable only to a singular instance. The metaphorical

nature of the novella delineated for the readers that Animal Farm was symbolic of things outside of the text, and its constant echoing of real-world politics – a

deliberate narrative technique employed and thoroughly intended by Orwell – was a fundamental element of the novella that cannot, and should not, be ignored.

It is no coincidence that Orwell employed the use of metaphors heavily in Animal Farm. Just as it is in the case of translating between two languages, the sheer difference between the fields of politics and aesthetics meant that a

blending of the two cannot be presented in a straightforward and direct manner, if the desired outcome is to culminate in a form that could be accepted and

understood by a reader, who would not have been privy to the idiosyncratic links that are formed in the mind of an author. This same problem applies to the field of translation as well. A monolingual reader would not be able to comprehend the nuances of another language, therefore a bilingual translator worth his/her salt will not only have to possess a keen awareness for these nuances, he/she will also have to possess the writing (translating) acumen to be able to carry over these foreign language nuances and present them in a form that is not jarring to the monolingual reader.

Writing metaphorically, in the form of an allegory, was arguably the only way Orwell could have fused his politics and literary aesthetics together without tipping the scales too much in favour of one over the other, which as previously stated, was an undertaking that was of great importance to the author. Too direct, and Animal Farm would have become a political treatise; too vague, and

Animal Farm would have lost that ever present echo of realism, and be reduced generically to a text closer to magical realism than a political satire.

2.3 Historical & Political Context to Animal Farm

Every story you try to tell, where you decide the starting point is, is a matter of how you see things; it’s not empirical reality, as it were.

– Mona Baker, Interview with Mona Baker

What follows is a short exposition of the historical context that set into motion the writing of Animal Farm. Understanding the history behind the circumstances that led to the novella is helpful for two reasons. Firstly, it checks off two of the boxes that Orwell himself stipulated as the factors that led writers to write: historical impulse and political purpose (“Write” 3). That the two fields are intertwined is unsurprising, perhaps even expected for an author like Orwell, who is motivated by real-life events in creating literature. Yet this does not take away the salutary effect of looking at the historical backstory to the novella in an appraisal of both the author and the work. Orwell himself noted that “in a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties” (“Write” 3). In that statement, Orwell delineated the significance of history on his writing (“in a peaceful age”), which was to an extent that it not only stimulated the motivation to write, but also dictated the form and nature of the writing itself (“might have written ornate or merely descriptive books”) (“Write” 3). As history would have it, we never got to witness how a descriptive Orwell would have read like, though it likely would not have been a major

loss, given the author’s plausibly self-deprecatory assessment of his attempt at a short story as being “a ghastly failure” (“Write” 1).

The second reason why it would prove useful to examine the history behind Animal Farm would be to underscore the specific set(s) of historical events which contributed significantly to the creation of the narrative that is Animal Farm. The Orwell biographer Ingles opined that the first set of historical events which “[composed the allegory that is the] story of Animal Farm is, in short…the Russian Revolution and post-Revolution” (82). These were the events which were reflected in the form of an allegory in the novella, and is an ever present echo in the reading of the fictional events of Animal Farm. It is to be noted though that Orwell took liberties with historical fact in his writing of Animal Farm; the events of the Russian Revolution were not presented chronologically in its allegorical reflection that is Animal Farm. The second set of historical events refers to the Second World War, and the series of events which erupted as a result of WWII, leading all the way past Orwell’s death into the Cold War.

Without the occurrence of such historical incidents, Animal Farm would never have seen the light of day. Sans the events of WWII and the Grand Alliance which was formed as a result of it, Orwell would have lacked an impetus to write. Likewise, without the chain of events that is the Russian Revolution and Stalin’s eventual rise to power, Orwell would have no material to allegorise in his satire. More significantly, even after the novella was written, it will never have reached a level of influence it enjoys today if not for the impact that the Cold War had on the sensibility of readers of that time.

Orwell ruminated over a description of his growth as an author in his essay “Why I Write”, and it would be apparent to readers of the essay that the young Orwell was an

experimental writer spreading his literary wings, with the form and nature of his works seemingly dictated by the present great author that Orwell was enamored with at each stage of his life, from Blake to Aristophanes, to H.G. Wells, who Orwell considered “the hero of his youth” (Ingles 1). Crucially, this mimicking/homage style of writing was intertwined with “the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind” (“Write” 2). Orwell was essentially on a journey of self-identification both as a writer and as a person, and the historical happenings of the world as he was undergoing this journey became an outer narrative, an influence that was just as impactful as the stories and works of other authors he admired throughout his life.

Even at this pre-writing stage, the commensurability of the concept of translation vis-à-vis the act of writing for Orwell could be derived easily: just like a translator who constantly refers back to his/her source text as the muse for his/her literary creation (the target text), Orwell constantly looked to at least two sets of narrative as his literary muse(s), namely the works of authors he admired, as well as the historical experiences he was living through. That Orwell chose to speak of his growth as a writer by

explicating on his childhood years in “Why I Write” (which was published in 1946, a year after Animal Farm’s publication), even singling out Animal Farm as the first book he attempted to write “with some clarity [as to] what kind of book I want to write” makes it clear that Orwell should not be read solely as a political writer (“Write” 5). He injects his own individual personality into his writing, as evident from his notion of a “self-story” that occupied his literary mind during his youth (“Write” 2). This points back again to the shared basis of a relationship between individual against society, and a relationship

between source text and target text. Individuality as a construct is informed by the larger society, yet it is not wholly a product of society. A target text is a narrative work in its own right, yet it cannot be free of the influences of the source text. Each shapes the other.

Animal Farm was first published in 1945, but Orwell penned the novella in late 1943. The chronological difference is noteworthy, because by 1945, the Grand Alliance – the wartime alliance between the Soviet Union, the United States, as well as the United Kingdom – was on its last throes, with the Second World War coming to an end.

Yet in 1943, the military alliance was at its peak, with the common enemy being Nazi Germany, and the sense of comradeship was especially pronounced between the Soviets and the United Kingdom. The latter was the originator of the alliance; following the fall of France in June 1940, British policymakers reached a consensus that “the resources of the United States had to be sought”, whilst the former was fighting its own war against Nazi Germany prior to the alliance (Rise xi). Keeping in mind that the attack on Pearl Harbor was not until 1941, the genesis of the alliance was arguably much more desired by the UK and the Soviet Union, whilst America took a backseat as war had not reached their shores as yet.

It was in this climate of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ that the alliance was formed – perhaps no other set of circumstances would have resulted in such

cooperation between the greatest capitalist state, the greatest communist state, and the greatest colonial power (Ambrose and Brinkley 15). Understandably then, that with a common enemy significant enough to warrant overlooking (at least temporarily) the overt differences in the way that each member of the alliance governed its own

sovereign state, there was a certain degree of pandering amongst the three nations.

Each country (notably the UK and the Soviets, as aforesaid) realised the need they had of each other, and each was careful to maintain a level of cooperation and acceptance of the other which would allow the alliance to proceed as was needed.

Curiously, this notion of not being critical of the other nations belonging to the Grand Alliance extended beyond the governmental agencies, as Orwell himself noted that around the end of 1943, when Orwell sought to publish Animal Farm, “what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia…

Any serious criticism of the Soviet regime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable” (“Freedom” 2).

Taken prima facie, one would have assumed that this was largely due to governmental pressure. Yet this penchant to censor was an affront to Orwell principally because as Orwell argued, “…it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and

inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban…not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact” (“Freedom” 2). This phenomenon then, was the impetus which spurred Orwell to create a work like Animal Farm, as the author opined that “the prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group” (“Freedom” 2-3, italics added for emphasis).

This ‘spontaneity’ was by all accounts regarded by Orwell as a serious affliction, because it suggested that British intelligentsia at that time was being woefully ignorant of Soviet Russia, adopting a pack mentality of not publishing works which reflected

opinions that ran counter to what was ‘popular’ opinion at that time; quite simply, this was unintelligent behaviour by the British intellectuals from Orwell’s perspective. On this point, historians diverge on whether this ignorance was an intentional diplomatic move, given the circumstances of the alliance, or if it was simply a case of a lack of an interest in the eyes of British intellectuals then to closely examine an ally – put bluntly, there were more pressing issues that deserved attention. Yet effectively, whether the ignorance was deliberate or otherwise was beside the point for Orwell; that it existed, regardless of the background to its genesis, was a serious thorn in Orwell’s flesh. His abhorrence for such a blinded perspective vis-à-vis the British intellectuals could be traced back to his own experiences with the Empire; Orwell opined that “the

English…feel no need for any philosophy or systematic ‘world-view’”:

Nor is this because they are ‘practical’, as they are so fond of claiming for themselves. One has only to look at their methods of town planning and water supply…to see how little they care about mere efficiency. But they have a certain power of acting without taking thought. Their world-famed hypocrisy – their double-faced attitude towards the Empire, for instance – is bound up with this. (“England” 2, italics added for emphasis)

One could certainly make the argument that Orwell’s deep-rooted distaste for what he considers the vices of the English, specifically the vices of the well-educated, may be traced back to his run-ins with British imperialism.

One could certainly make the argument that Orwell’s deep-rooted distaste for what he considers the vices of the English, specifically the vices of the well-educated, may be traced back to his run-ins with British imperialism.