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2.2 The Development of Symbolism
Developed in the late 19th century, symbolism is an art movement characterized by the representation of the inner life of people through spiritual or mystical symbols and ideas. It began as a rejection of the purely visual realism of the impressionism. The term, symbolism covers a wide assortment of distinctly dissimilar modes of behavior. In its original senses, it was restricted to objects or marks intended to recall or to direct special attention to some person, object, event or projected activity associated only vaguely or not at all with the symbol in any natural sense. By gradual extensions of meaning, the term, symbolism, has come to include not merely such trivial objects to indicate a negative attitude in voting, and also stars and daggers, to remind the reader that supplementary information is to be found at the bottom of the page, but also more elaborate objects and devices.
In the 20th century, when the new writing skill, symbolism which was spread into America, it aroused a new trend of adopting symbols in literature. Many writers became interested in using this new rhetoric. Symbols can make the theme deeper and give readers a strong feeling for the reason that symbolism can enrich the narrative in the means of pulling its message down to the level of the readers’ unconsciousness and anchoring it there. Many famous writers use symbolism so skillfully that it enhances the artistic effects of the work greatly. Readers are concerned about the symbols in the novels and can figure out the aesthetic meaning of these symbols in which the authors’ philosophical thoughts are expressed in the novel.
George Orwell used symbolism well through Animal Farm. He used many symbols, such as, pigs and horses. These symbols help us deeply understand this novel and build a basis for the further researching on this novel. It deserves a new study on Animal Farm from the perspective of symbolism. This thesis will make a tentative study.
3 The Application of Symbolism in Animal Farm
This story first tells us of the revolt of a group of various animals on a farm against their human master. Then the animals managed the farm and called it Animal Farm. They even set up a republic as a model community in which all animals were created equal, to some extent, it is nearly similar to the American Constitution. We can value this as an animal version of the human social reality. In the rebellion, pigs showed their ability and two of them, Napoleon and Snow ball became the leaders. The belief in Animalism was summarized into Seven Commandment.