Two Novels George Orwells Animal Farm and F. Scott Fizgeralds The Great Gatsby - Book Report/Review Example

Looking at the use of Protagonist and Antagonist In Animal Farm and The Great Gatsby In most stories, the protagonist is the good character trying to help himself and others. The antagonist usually either is the opposite or he tries to stop the protagonist from doing what needs to be done. George Orwell’s Animal Farm and F. Scott Fizgerald’s The Great Gatsby are written like this also, but in these books, the antagonists beat the protagonists. Orwell’s book is a story about animals taking over a farm, while really talking about the Russian Revolution, while Fitzgerald writes about the end of the roaring Twenties, the period between the end of World War I and before the Great Depression. To understand what they are really trying to say, one must look closer at their use of the heroes and villains. Snowball is the protagonist of Animal Farm because he actually cares about the animals and equal rights between them all. He is the one who rights the Seven Commandments on the wall of the farm so that all of the animals can see them and know what they are. He organizes the animals into committees and even has classes to teach the all of the animals to read. Since the sheep cannot learn to read, Snowball shortens the Seven Commandments to something simpler for them, "Four legs good, two legs bad," which the sheep say constantly. In general, Snowball is the brains behind the revolution, but he is not afraid to act: he successfully defends Animal Farm when the humans try to take it back and gets a medal because of his actions. Snowball tries to get the animals to work for the good of the farm, using Mr. Jones’s books to learn the best ways to farm and how the farm could use a windmill. Snowball tells the animals how the revolution will spread to other farms. Napoleon, who now disagrees with Snowball about everything, calls for attack dogs he has trained and they chase Snowball away. Orwell makes Snowball the protagonist of Animal Farm because he is the dreamer who wants to make the farm work like the perfect idea he dreams of for it. The fact that Snowball is chased away by Napoleon means that in almost any revolution, the noble ideas are chased away by greedy people who want control for themselves. Napoleon takes over the farm. Anytime something goes wrong, like when the windmill falls down, he blames it on Snowball. Orwell is saying that not only do noble ideas at the beginning of a revolution get lost, but the people who dreamed the ideas and took action almost always get blamed. Napoleon has the pig Squealer convince the other animals of this, by saying such things as, “…remember how… when Mr. Jones and his men had got inside the yard, Snowball suddenly turned and fled?” Soon the other animals also blame Snowball for anything that goes wrong. This is what Napoleon wants, because he is the antagonist. He has participated in the revolution, but really wants to replace the control of men with himself. He does not care about the best things for the rest of the animals. He and the other pigs are soon living in the farmhouse. The commandments begin to change when "No animal shall sleep in a bed,” has the words “with sheets" added to the end. By the end of the story, the pigs are dressing like men, drinking alcohol, and walking on two feet. Napoleon says that the farm is now a Republic with him being in charge. Most of the commandments have had words added to them, the last one that said "All animals are created equal,” now also says “…but some animals are more equal than others." In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is the protagonist, mainly because the antagonist, Tom Buchanan, is so much worse. The story is told through Nick Carraway, a second cousin of Daisy Buchanan, Tom’s wife. Soon after meeting Nick, Tom takes him to meet Tom’s mistress and they go into New York City for the evening. Tom also was in an accident while riding with another woman soon after he and Daisy got married; his mistress now is always calling him at home. Tom seems bigoted as well, since he keeps referring to the threat to white man’s security by other races… a subject he has recently read about in a book somewhere. The party Nick goes to with Tom and Tom’s mistress is the first party in the book and people drink a lot of alcohol, but there are a lot of parties in the book and people drink too much most of the time. Gatsby is a rich neighbor of Nick’s who constantly has large parties with many people that show up uninvited. No one knows much about him, but there are many rumors - most of them bad. Gatsby begins to spend time with Nick after learning that he is related to Daisy Buchanan. Nick slowly learns the truth about Gatsby’s history: he is from the Mid-west, spent some time in the army, went to Oxford for a short time, and then made most of his money bootlegging (smuggling) alcohol into the United States. He still has connections to criminal bootleggers. Gatsby knew Daisy five years ago and they fell in love before he left to fight in World War I. Gatsby has had two dreams in his life. He has always wanted to have money and the thing money can buy; he has also continued to love Daisy all through the years. Nick gets Gatsby and Daisy together and they begin to have an affair. Gatsby stops having the parties, as they were mainly excuses in the hope that Daisy would attend. When she does and doesn’t like the people (who don’t really like Gatsby anyway, but like his alcohol) the parties stop. Tom finds out about the affair and tells Daisy about Gatsby’s history. She is so upset driving home that she runs into and kills Tom’s mistress by accident. Tom tells his mistress’s husband it was Gatsby’s car and the husband kills Gatsby and himself. Gatsby is the protagonist because he is more innocent than the rest of the people; Tom is the antagonist because he hates Gatsby for things he does himself, such as have affairs and drink alcohol. While Gatsby is a criminal, everything he does is done to chase his dreams. Even Nick comparing Gatsby to everyone they know, says “They‘re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” Tom is mean and jealous, doing whatever he can to make only himself happy and does what he can to hurt others if they have hurt him. In both of these books, the antagonists win. Orwell describes how the Russian Revolution went wrong: Snowball’s dreams melt like his name while Napoleon takes over the farm by force. Fizgerald shows how people want to have a good time and forget their troubles, but are bitter with anyone who does what they do better and larger: Tom Buchanan makes himself and Daisy unhappy rather than let her leave while Gatsby is killed directly because of the Buchanan’s (Tom’s mistress ran in front of the car Daisy drove because she though Tom was in it). Snowball and Gatsby are similar because they get punished for dreaming. Fitzgerald and Orwell agree on this lesson, pointing out that the protagonists often fall down because they are looking too far ahead, when they should be watching to make sure no one is going to trip them. The villains don’t always win, but they do too much of the time. Works Cited Fizgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Collier Books, 1992. Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1946. Read More