Animal Farm , written by George Orwell , is a political fable that tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their cruel human master, hoping to create a society where all animals are equal, free, and happy. Inspired by the dream of the wise old pig Old Major, the animals overthrow the farmer Mr. Jones and take control of the farm, renaming it Animal Farm. At first, the animals work together to build an egalitarian community based on the principles of Animalism, summarized in the Seven Commandments painted on the barn wall. However, over time, the pigs—led by the cunning and power-hungry Napoleon—begin to seize control. They gradually assume privileges, manipulate language and truth, and use fear and propaganda to maintain power. Eventually, they become indistinguishable from the humans they once overthrew. This allegory clearly reflects the events of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the rise of Stalinism. The animals represent different social and political groups...
The plot
The king of Denmark is dead.
Queen Gertrude has almost married the dead king's brother Claudius.
The dead king's son Hamlet, prince of Denmark, meets his father's ghost on the battlements of Elsinore Castle; the ghost tells his son that Claudius is guilty of his murder and asks Hamlet to take revenge.
Hamlet pretends to be mad in order to gain time and observe the behaviour of king and queen.
The king's confusion seems to confirm the ghost's revelation: king Claudius is guilty of murdering Hamlet's father.
However, Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, king's adviser and Ophelia's father (Hamlet's lover).
Ophelia doesn't understand Hamlet's behaviour. She, thinking he doesn't love her anymore, goes insane and drowns herself in a river.
Laertes, Ophelia's brother, swears revenge and challenges Hamlet to a duel in throne room.
King Claudius manipulates Laertes to carry out his own plan to murder Hamlet: he creates two poisoned swords and a poisoned cup if Hamlet wins the duel.
So, next day duel starts: the challengers hit each other.
Hamlet is winning and king offers him the poisoned cup but the prince refuses it.
So, queen Gertrude mistakenly drinks the cup and dies.
Then, Laertes, repentat of having devised an ignoble plan, reveals everything to Hamlet and dies from the poisoned of the sword.
Hamlet, previously hit by Laertes, begins to feel bad and kills Claudius with poisoned sword.
So, Hamlet, before to die, proposes to Horace, Hamlet's best friend, as future king of Denmark Strongarm and the new king of Denmark is Strongarm (prince of Norway) who wants to take back the territories that he has lost in a duel with the Hamlet's father.
Finally, Strongarm becomes king of Denmark.
Comment
Hamlet was well-known to Shakespeare's contemporaries through chronicles and, also, through a stage version of it: the so-called Ur-Hamlet.
The hero's doubts and indecisions are familiar to the modern man, who is equally tormented by a lack of certainties and an inability to communicate.
Hamlet's indecisions must be placed against the background of the revenge tragedy, a popular genre at that time.
In his famous soliloquies he analyses the meaning of life and especially the ideas of love and death: he reflects if action is preferable to inaction, and life to suicide.
Hamlet is the tragedy of will: thought kills action.
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