Self Preservation In Animal Farm By George Orwell

Self Preserving or Society Hurting “Animal Farm”, written by the famous Eric Blair under the pen name George Orwell, portrays themes of Capitalism, along with the animals’ need for self preservation. One character that illustrates a form of preserving his life is Benjamin the donkey. Throughout the book he, although very intelligent compared to the other animals on the farm, decides to stay out of all matters debated there and instead just watch as things play out. This seemed to be very smart, but if this book had taken place in a society like ours today, then people would instead consider this as an attribute of laziness and being antisocial. Benjamin often shows self preservation throughout Animal farm in a way no other character really …show more content…
Benjamin often showed how intellectual he really was, but never made the decision to stand up for the rights of the animals. In today’s society, we are taught from a very young age that when you see an act of injustice occurring you need to do something about it and never just ignore it. And yet, we as humans still sit back and watch when things happen, refusing to interfere for a variety of reasons. Benjamin’s reason seems to be that it had nothing to do with him so he wouldn’t make any attempt in helping. He could’ve believed that if he just didn’t say anything, the whole thing would go right past him and he could continue living but “the reality is that ignoring the problem does not make it go away, and just like a wound left unattended, the problem will actually grow, fester, and become more dangerous” (Weisensel). While Benjamin kept living his life like nothing happened, the tyranny just grew and grew until the pigs had all control of everything on the farm. Benjamin also claimed to be a neutral party to preserve himself and just sat back and did nothing. But in reality, doing nothing is not part of being a neutral party if by not helping directly helps the toxic environment continue and expand into something greater (Weisensel). Believing the world ruled by Napoleon would never directly touch him, caused Benjamin to disregard anything that happened. We live in a democratic society where getting involved and expressing opinions is typically encouraged. Benjamin goes against what we would consider moral by attempting to save himself and his image by not communicating his thoughts on the changes being made. In America, many consider democracy is, “about us engaging the political process on an ongoing basis through dialogue with lawmakers and government servants, lobbying or petitioning for change in a certain policy, and even protests” (Fann). When someone doesn’t make any attempt