Discuss the use of
visions and dreams in “Animal Farm” and “Watership Down” at the beginning of
the novels. CANDIDATE 8
Within both “Animal Farm” and “Watership Down”, the idea of
dreams and visions is what triggers events later on. The idea is rather more focused on in
“Watership Down” due to Fiver’s clairvoyance, but is arguably just as important
a theme in “Animal Farm”.
One interesting comparison that can be made immediately is
that the initial roles of dream and vision in the two novels are inverse: in
“Animal Farm”, Old Major puts forward a utopian ideal in which the animals are
treated fairly and work together in equality, yet the outcome is horrific; in
“Watership Down”, the vision that Fiver has is nightmarish, to say the least,
and shows a scene of danger and death – yet it is this that causes the rabbits
to find their own utopia on Watership Down.
Another similar comparison is the reaction of those who hear those
predictions: Old Major’s polemic is listened to with great ceremony, and his
ideas are set as a goal, while Fiver is patronised by the Threarah, and most of
the other rabbits don’t believe him.
However, this could be explained by their social standings – Old Major
is a highly respected character, while Fiver is seen as weak and jumpy.
The biggest difference between the two novels in the theme
of dreams and visions is how they are portrayed. In “Animal Farm”, there is a notable level of
theatre in how Old Major uses his dream: he builds it up, saying that “he will
come to the dream later” and “has something to say first”. It may indeed by true that there was a dream
he had, but he uses the animals’ curiosity in the dream to get them to listen
to his speech. The dream itself gives
the animals a revolutionary song to sing: as a result, it could almost be said
that Old Major had thought this out deliberately to put forward his ideas of
revolution with the other animals’ full attention. On the other hand, Fiver’s vision cannot be
read into easily in such a way: his sudden hysteria beings a fairly immediate
sense of alarm into the scene, and his desperation is rather more clear and
intense than Old Major’s clearly set-out speech.
It can almost be said, when comparisons are made, that the
use of visions and dreams is quite drastically different in the two novels –
even later on in the books, this stays the same: in “Watersip Down”, visions
are still of high influence, whereas in “Animal Farm”, the theme practically
never comes up, with the exception of Moses’ parody of heaven, Sugarcandy
Mountain, that he talks about to the farm animals.
Despite this, though, the roles of dreams and visions in
both books have the same initial result – they cause change. In “Animal Farm”, the change is wider-scale,
as a vast majority of the animals believe in the utopia prophesised by Old
Major. In “Watership Down”, only a
minority believe in Fiver, but it’s his vision that has the biggest
impact. This could possibly relate to
the differences in the visions themselves.
It could be that the theatre and preparation of Old Major’s ideas made a
huge impression, but only gained a weak following held together by hope and the
will to follow: it almost seems obvious that, in reality, the animals could
never work together to build their ideal world, and, as such, the story comes
full circle when the pigs betray the others.
On the other side of it, it could be that the outcome of “Watership
Down” could only happen because, although Fiver had less of a following, those
who believed him believed strongly, instead of going along with it because it
was presented well. In short, there was
more trust in Fiver, despite his visions having no structure: the rabbits who
left Sandleford were the ones who felt there may be reason to. The animals in “Animal Farm” had never
considered another way of life, and were simply going along with what the pigs
said because they couldn’t think for themselves. This is what makes the biggest impact in the
stories, and it can be traced back almost directly to the situations in which
the two prophecies arose.
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