ANIMAL FARM

(written by George Orwell)

EXTRACT – CHAPTER 1
‘Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to the
dream later. I have something else to say first. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many
months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired. I
have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that
I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to
speak to you.

‘Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious,
and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those
of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that
our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England
knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of
an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

‘But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot
afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England
is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater
number of animals than now inhabit it.

EXTRACT - CHAPTER 3
But the pigs with their cleverness and Boxer with his tremendous muscles always pulled them through.
Boxer was the admiration of everybody. He had been a hard worker even in Jones’s time, but now he
seemed more like three horses than one; there were days when the entire work of the farm seemed to
rest on his mighty shoulders.

From morning to night he was pushing and pulling, always at the spot where the work was hardest. He
had made an arrangement with one of the cockerels to call him in the mornings half an hour earlier than
anyone else, and would put in some volunteer labour at whatever seemed to be most needed, before
the regular day’s work began. His answer to every problem, every setback, was ‘I will work harder!’ |
which he had adopted as his personal motto. But everyone worked according to his capacity. The hens
and ducks, for instance, saved five bushels of corn at the harvest by gathering up the stray grains.
Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations, the quarrelling and biting and jealousy which had been
normal features of life in the old days had almost disappeared. Nobody shirked | or almost nobody.
Mollie, it was true, was not good at getting up in the mornings, and had a way of leaving work early on
the ground that there was a stone in her hoof.

And the behaviour of the cat was somewhat peculiar. It was soon noticed that when there was work to
be done the cat could never be found. She would vanish for hours on end, and then reappear at meal-
times, or in the evening after work was over, as though nothing had happened. But she always made
such excellent excuses, and purred so affectionately, that it was impossible not to believe in her good
intentions.
EXTRACT – CHAPTER 9

There were many more mouths to feed now. In the autumn the four sows had all littered about
simultaneously, producing thirty-one young pigs between them. The young pigs were piebald, and as
Napoleon was the only boar on the farm, it was possible to guess at their parentage. It was announced
that later, when bricks and timber had been purchased, a schoolroom would be built in the farmhouse
garden. For the time being, the young pigs were given their instruction by Napoleon himself in the
farmhouse kitchen. They took their exercise in the garden, and were discouraged from playing with the
other young animals. About this time, too, it was laid down as a rule that when a pig and any other
animal met on the path, the other animal must stand aside: and also that all pigs, of whatever degree,
were to have the privilege of wearing green ribbons on their tails on Sundays.

The farm had had a fairly successful year, but was still short of money. There were the bricks, sand, and
lime for the schoolroom to be purchased, and it would also be necessary to begin saving up again for the
machinery for the windmill. Then there were lamp oil and candles for the house, sugar for Napoleon’s
own table (he forbade this to the other pigs, on the ground that it made them fat), and all the usual
replacements such as tools, nails, string, coal, wire, scrap-iron, and dog biscuits.

A stump of hay and part of the potato crop were sold off, and the contract for eggs was increased to six
hundred a week, so that that year the hens barely hatched enough chicks to keep their numbers at the
same level. Rations, reduced in December, were reduced again in February, and lanterns in the stalls
were forbidden to save Oil.
 THE GIVER
(written by Lois Lowry)

EXTRACT - CHAPTER 10
In his mind, Jonas had questions. A thousand. A million questions. As many questions as there were
books lining the walls. But he did not ask one, not yet. The man sighed, seeming to put his thoughts in
order. Then he spoke again. "Simply stated," he said, ''although it's not really simple at all, my job is to
transmit to you all the memories I have within me. Memories of the past.''

"Sir," Jonas said tentatively, "I would be very interested to hear the story of your life, and to listen to
your memories. "I apologize for interrupting," he added quickly. The man waved his hand impatiently.
"No apologies in this room. We haven't time.'' "Well,'' Jonas went on, uncomfortably aware that he
might be interrupting again, "I am really interested, I don't mean that I'm not. But I don't exactly
understand why it's so important. I could do some adult job in the community, and in my recreation
time I could come and listen to the stories from your childhood. I'd like that. Actually," he added, "I've
done that already, in the House of the Old. The Old like to tell about their childhoods, and it's always fun
to listen.''

The man shook his head. "No, no," he said. "I'm not being clear. It's not my past, not my childhood that I
must transmit to you. He leaned back, resting his head against the back of the upholstered chair. "It's
the memories of the whole world,'' he said with a sigh. ''Before you, before me, before the previous
Receiver, and generations before him.''

Jonas frowned. "The whole world?" he asked. ''I don't understand. Do you mean not just us? Not just
the community? Do you mean Elsewhere, too?" He tried, in his mind, to grasp the concept.

EXTRACT - CHAPTER 14
It was not unendurable, as the pain on the hill had been. Jonas tried to be brave. He remembered that
the Chief Elder had said he was brave. "Is something wrong, Jonas?" his father asked at the evening
meal. "You're so quiet tonight. Aren't you feeling well? Would you like some medication?"

But Jonas remembered the rules. No medication for anything related to his training. And no discussion
of his training. At the time for sharing of feelings, he simply said that he felt tired, that his school lessons
had been unusually demanding that day. He went to his sleeping room early, and from behind the
closed door he could hear his parents and sister laughing as they gave Gabriel his evening bath.

They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely, and he
rubbed his throbbing leg. He eventually slept. Again and again he dreamed of the anguish and the
isolation on the forsaken hill.

The daily training continued, and now it always included pain. The agony of the fractured leg began to
seem no more than a mild discomfort as The Giver led Jonas firmly, little by little, into the deep and
terrible suffering of the past. Each time, in his kindness, The Giver ended the afternoon with a color-
filled memory of pleasure: a brisk sail on a blue-green lake; a meadow dotted with yellow wildflowers;
an orange sunset behind mountains.

It was not enough to assuage the pain that Jonas was beginning, now, to know. "Why?" Jonas asked him
after he had received a torturous memory in which he had been neglected and unfed; the hunger had
caused excruciating spasms in his empty, distended stomach. He lay on the bed, aching. "Why do you
and I have to hold these memories?"

EXTRACT – CHAPTER 21

He was newly aware that Gabriel's safety depended entirely upon his own continued strength. They saw
their first waterfall, and for the first time wildlife. "Plane! Plane!" Gabriel called, and Jonas turned swiftly
into the trees, though he had not seen planes in days, and he did not hear an aircraft engine now. When
he stopped the bicycle in the shrubbery and turned to grab Gabe, he saw the small chubby arm pointing
toward the sky.

Terrified, he looked up, but it was not a plane at all. Though he had never seen one before, he identified
it from his fading memories, for The Giver had given them to him often. It was a bird. Soon there were
many birds along the way, soaring overhead, calling. They saw deer; and once, beside the road, looking
at them curious and unafraid, a small reddish-brown creature with a thick tail, whose name Jonas did
not know. He slowed the bike and they stared at one another until the creature turned away and
disappeared into the woods.

All of it was new to him. After a life of Sameness and predictability, he was awed by the surprises that
lay beyond each curve of the road. He slowed the bike again and again to look with wonder at
wildflowers, to enjoy the throaty warble of a new bird nearby, or merely to watch the way wind shifted
the leaves in the trees. During his twelve years in the community, he had never felt such simple
moments of exquisite happiness.

But there were desperate fears building in him now as well. The most relentless of his new fears was
that they would starve. Now that they had left the cultivated fields behind them, it was almost
impossible to find food.