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“And Everyday We’ll Turn Another Page”: Literary Influences on Early Jethro Tull

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An Annotated Discography

Christopher Rush

Early Days, 1968-70: This Was, Stand Up, Benefit

Like many if not most mid-’60s British bands, Jethro Tull began in a musical admixture of upstart American blues and early rock, European classical heritage, jazz, skiffle, folk, and whatever one was supposed to do about the Beatles.  Also like most British bands of the era, Jethro Tull was not the first incarnation of the group nor did its personnel lineup stabilize until many years into fame (though “lineup stability” for Jethro Tull is a complicated notion).  Each of these first three albums featured different lineups, if not formally: John Evan and David Palmer may not have been “official” members on Benefit, but they contributed significantly (David Palmer also contributes in minor ways to the first two albums … I said it was complicated).

This Was is easy to call atypical Jethro Tull, looking backward at fifty years of output, but “typical” Jethro Tull is just as complicated an issue as who is in Jethro Tull.  It is clearly a heavily blues-inspired album, which is what Mick Abrahams wanted Jethro Tull to be, but it was not what Ian Anderson wanted, and history clearly shows who won that debate.  Many of the songs are effectively community property of the British blues scene at the time, many numbers are instrumentals, and Ian Anderson did not write the lyrics to many of the other songs, so identifying influences here is rather fruitless.

Stand Up sounds now like a transition from the mandatory blues origin to what established Tull was going to be, though that is also from the benefit, so to speak, of hindsight.  While some blues influences remain, notably on “A New Day Yesterday,” a song not-too-subtly comments on the band’s new direction, it is still an album of a band finding its footing, and many of the songs are about Anderson and the new group discovering that direction.  That is not to say it is autobiographical, but there is, still, very little literary influence on this not-quite-yet progressive rock album.  Glenn Cornick, fifty years later, indicates much of the album is autobiographical in a different way: “Half of Stand Up was about Ian’s family….”  One notable future live favorite song, “Bourée,” “was the first recording clearly to indicate Anderson’s interest in music from earlier historical periods,” which will be helpful for the band’s forthcoming musical and lyrical influences.

Benefit is another unusual album marked by growing pains: pressures of recording and touring now as a headline act instead of a supporting act, personnel burnout, and Anderson’s development as composer and lyricist.  Many fans seem to enjoy it more for the songs that are not technically on it: “Sweet Dream,” “17,” “The Witch’s Promise,” and “Teacher.”  Glenn Cormick says the autobiographical tendencies from Stand Up are still on Benefit.  Ian Anderson confirms this on songs such as “For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me” and “To Cry You a Song.”  Audiences seem to assume the non-autobiographical songs are the ones about Anderson (the future cover paintings on albums all featuring miscreants looking just like Anderson did not help that misconception throughout the ’70s.)  Other lyrics, such as in “Play in Time,” Anderson flat out reviles as jejune.  For our purposes, as fine as it is, Benefit does not live up to its name.

Concept Days, 1971-73: Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, A Passion Play

Aqualung is undoubtedly Tull’s “breakout” album, many fans’ favorite, and greatly misunderstood, either by fans or by Anderson himself.  Despite more personnel turnover, Tull begins the ’70s with a masterpiece, which may or may not be a concept album.  Side one, called “Aqualung” on the album, features an almost Chaucerian cavalcade of characters, if the Tabard Inn had been in the red light district.  More importantly, we finally have actual literary influence on the lyrics: Anderson paraphrases “a line from the introduction of Robert Burns’ [sic] poem ‘The Holy Fair,’” foreshadowing Anderson quoting Burns on Heavy Horses.  “Mother Goose” references the eponymous character and Long John Silver, but since Anderson admitted he had never read Stevenson and the no nursery rhyme characters appear in the song, it is likely just Anderson’s general awareness of things that inspired this song over direct literary influences.  (The newspaper album cover for Thick as a Brick has a reference to Silver, a parrot, and “Jim Lad,” so perhaps Anderson was recalling the Disney movie more than the novel itself.)

The second half, “My God,” is a fascinating half of an album as a Christian to listen to, but if Scott Nollen is correct, it does not help us here at all: “The material on the album’s second half resulted from Anderson’s personal observations about organized religion, not from any deliberate bookish study. … Anderson proves that he came to the same conclusion as did Freud and [Bertrand] Russell … without reading any of their famous works….”  That ends that.  Though this quest for the literary influences on Prog Rock may not be as fruitful as I had initially hoped, perhaps it will lead to a more worthwhile exploration in another course about the relationship between Prog Rock and religion.  This is also the first Tull album that suffers, in a sense, from the medium limitations of vinyl albums: “Lick Your Fingers Clean” was supposed to end the album but cut for time; now on the cd and digital releases, the song reshapes the album with a much more upbeat and self-effacing ending as opposed to the downcast “Wind-up.”

Thick as a Brick is Anderson’s response to those who considered Aqualung a concept album: here is a genuine Tull concept album, albeit a parody of the form, complete with newspaper and persona singing the song (considered at times two only because of the limitations of the medium – the liner notes treat the whole thing as one poem by Gerald Bostock), all as a satirical sendup of British education.  Barrie Barlow, who had played with Anderson and Evan in pre-Tull days replaces Clive Bunker on drums, either solidifying “classic Tull lineup pt. 1” until John Glascock replaces Jeffrey Hammond on bass for Too Old through Stormwatch.  Lyrically, TaaB is complex, perhaps too much so, but the album really is an impressive unity between the music and the lyrics, certainly more than any Tull album before and possibly since, depending on how one views Songs from the Wood.  More than Aqualung, TaaB fulfills the multi-movement suite typical of Prog Rock, and this is likely better understood today in disc and especially digital versions of the album that break the sections down into more accessible sections.

The song features a number of allusions to literary types, if we can consider comic book heroes such as Superman and Robin “literary,” and it references poets as a social class, though that does not give us much direct assistance.  Anderson/Bostock references Biggles, from the British childrens’ book series, though it may be a stretch to call that a literary influence, since it is possible Anderson is mentioning it the same way I might reference to TeleTubbies or Bluey, only as a kids’ pop culture thing I have vaguely heard about without any specific knowledge.  Likewise, a reference to the Boy Scout Manual cannot be considered for our purposes as an “influence.”  The album cover and newspaper are also rife with clever allusions to general knowledge, such as a “silent prayer” by Billy Graham to close the broadcast day of BBC2 and Alaister Crowley as a special guest on the program “Bible Stories,” though it is, again, hard to call these literary influences.  The song features brilliant lyrical moments, as Anderson often does, such as the “wise men” not knowing how it “feels” to be “thick as a brick,” cleverly combining wisdom, feelings, and intellect, but the search continues for major literary influences.

A Passion Play is a somewhat hastily salvaged album from terrible experiences in Switzerland following the success of TaaB.  Whereas Deep Purple turned their Swiss discomfort into the incomparable Machine Head, Tull scrapped most of their Swiss creativity until decades later for the rarities album Nightcap and the 40th anniversary box set of Passion Play.  Like TaaB, Passion Play is a Tull concept album, but unlike TaaB it takes itself seriously (excepting the beast fable smack in the middle), which is likely why critical response to this is less positive, despite its criticism of religion.  The album is intelligently structured, using classical epic ring composition or chiastic structure, as the songs mirror each other until the turning point of “The Hare that Lost its Spectacles.”  The album opens with dying heartbeat sounds and closes with reborn heartbeat sounds, mixing the classical epic chiasmus with the its namesake of a medieval passion play thematically.  Rolling Stone writer Stephen Holden recognized “a pop potpourri of Paradise Lost and Winnie the Pooh, among many other literary resources,” but that only returns us to what we are trying to avoid, merely recognizing literary similarities in the lyrics.  The song asks “how does it feel to be in the play?” but that does not prove Anderson is conjuring up his inner Jacques from As You Like It.  There is, though, at the end, the line “Flee the icy Lucifer.  Oh he’s an awful fellow!”  Aside from the Andersonian downplaying of the seriousness of perdition, if this is not a reference to Dante’s depiction of Lucifer trapped in ice in the Divine Comedy, I would be astounded, for who else conceives of Lucifer as icey?

Eclectic Days, 1974-76: War Child, Minstrel in the Gallery, Too Old…

War Child is an odd, eclectic album, sandwiched among four very unified albums, distinct from Passion Play in part due to the band’s poor reception of critics’ poor reception.  Even though the album is structurally distinct from Passion Play, it is thematically similar: songs discuss mortality, morality, femininity, masculinity, VD, tea, musical critics and other beasts, patriotism, and more.  Lyrics even allude to life’s “passion play,” as a couple of songs were salvaged and repurposed from the disastrous days before Passion Play, so it is a bit arbitrary to designate War Child into a new “era” of Tull albums.  The cover picture, central to many other Prog Rock bands and album meanings, here presents Anderson’s “jester” persona, which becomes a staple of albums and concerts for several years (“Back-Door Angels” has the lines “Think I’ll sit down and invent some fool / some Grand Court Jester” – most likely this is, at least in part, typical Andersonian religious criticism.  For someone who claims to be an atheist, he spends a lot of time writing, singing, and thinking about religion).  While featuring the first overt nods to his homeland of Scotland that will be more developed in Stormwatch, lyrically, on the whole, it is hard to discern any meaningful literary inspiration here.

Minstrel in the Gallery is an entry somewhere on that ambiguous Venn diagram of concept album, thematically unified album, frame story, or just Prog Rock-era multi-movement suite.  It also features the first overt reference to mythology in “Cold Wind to Valhalla.”  As discussed earlier, calling even overt references to mythology “literary influence” is a stretch, at least until we get to Genesis.  “This is based on old folklore,” says Anderson. “In Norse mythology Valhalla was a huge afterlife hall of the slain, overseen by the god Odin, to which Valkyries took warrior heroes when they died.”  So Anderson has a working knowledge of Norse myth, at least.  The rest of the songs are primarily fabrications of Anderson’s creativity.  We are well beyond his need for lyrical autobiography, and nothing else on the album can be considered literarily inspired.

Too Old to Rock’n’Roll… finally sees the arrival of John Glascock and the “classic” Tull lineup for many, or at least its final phase.  It is also a candidate for the aforementioned Venn diagram, as perhaps an obvious concept album, though no one seems to think of it that way, or perhaps a heavily unified album, but it was also originally intended to be a stage musical that somehow transformed into a comic strip illustrated by Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame) and a television special.  When Anderson sang “Nothing is Easy,” he was not kidding.  Much of the album is more Anderson observations of real life, teevee, and car racing, but side one ends with an acknowledgment of literary and musical influences.  Anderson says of “From a Dead Beat to an Old Greaser” “the two characters are archetypal social stereotypes from my formative years – the dead beat, in other words the kind of Jack Kerouac follower and imitator, … someone who is into jazz and poetry and whatever but is just fantisising [sic] and has become a bit of a down-and-out; and the old greaser who is the rock‘n’roller motorbike guy. … It’s a sort of Jethro Tull three-minute quickie Waiting for Godot.”  Though we may have to collate his reference to Beat Poets with the general references to Mother Goose and mythical characters, we will gladly take his mention of Beckett’s play as a direct literary influence.

Folk Days, 1977-79: Songs from the Wood, Heavy Horses, Stormwatch

The three final Tull albums of the ’70s are, in a sense, their own world, both in their musical style of “folk rock” as significantly distinct from the already-diverse Tull sounds before them, and as, for many, the apex of “classic Tull.”  Songs from the Wood can also be added to the Venn diagram: I have never heard or read about it being considered a concept album, but the album bears great unity in lyrics and music.  It is also delightfully optimistic, containing very little cynicism, satire, or even sorrow.  Anderson had moved to the countryside during the band’s long hiatus from touring after throat surgery, which clearly influenced the content of this album, but more importantly here, Tull’s new manager, Jo Lustig, gave “a gift to Ian Anderson of a 1973 book titled ‘Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain,’ a collection of stories and essays about ancient superstitions, festivals, places, and creatures.”  Anderson says of this book,

When I read it it certainly gave me thoughts about the elements of characters and stories that played out in my songwriting for the Songs From the Wood [sic] album, which then carried on over to the Heavy Horses album, and even beyond that into the Stormwatch album.  It wasn’t the only reference I had, it was just something new for me to learn from.  Other than a smattering of knowledge from history lessons or hearsay I didn’t really have a definitive literary guide to that world until Jo gave me this book.

That book taught Anderson about Jack-in-the-Green, but other songs, such as “Cup of Wonder,” feature “a lot of historical and pagan references here, resulting from my delving into our history as an island nation, the forces of religion and primitive beliefs, and so on.”  Anderson, unfortunately, does not list the specific sources of those historical and pagan references.

Heavy Horses is a very natural follow-up to Songs from the Wood (at its release Anderson referred to it as “Songs from the Wood, Part II, plus a little more Jethro Tull”), though it is also noticeably distinct.  Nollen distinguishes them: “Songs from the Wood can be situated primarily within an English Elizabethan influence, Heavy Horses borrows more from 18th-century Scottish music.”  It is also darker, with Stormwatch the darkest (and saddest) of the trilogy.  The eponymous track is a superlative return, in more concise form, to the multi-movement suite so characteristic of Prog Rock (a label, we should admit, Jethro Tull abjured), though it does embody the album’s darker tone, with the days of the plow horse dwindling with the advent of the tractor.  In fact, animal themes dominate the lyrics.  The bonus tracks on the 40th anniversary release show this could have been an excellent double album, as most of the associated recordings could fit the album perfectly, along with most of the bonus tracks from Songs from the Wood.  At least we have them now.

For our purposes, we also have a long-awaited jackpot of literary influences on Anderson’s lyrics.  “Moths,” says Anderson, “was actually inspired by the John Le Carré novel The Naive and Sentimental Lover.  I’m a big fan of John Le Carré’s work.”  “One Brown Mouse” was “very much inspired by the Robert Burns poem ‘To A Mouse.’”  While we should likely stop while we are clearly ahead, Anderson does speculate that “Heavy Horses” may also have had literary (if nonfiction) influences: “maybe I also had the Observer’s Book of Heavy Horses!”  The book is actually called The Observer’s Book of Horses & Ponies, so he is either recalling a forty-year-old memory in bits and pieces, or he is making it up unintentionally, but it does have just enough truth in it to seem authentic.  Similarly, bonus track “Horse-Hoeing Husbandry,” was written “as a paean to the original Jethro Tull, who in 1731 published a book called Horse-Hoeing Husbandry.”  Perhaps an oblique literary influence, but it is at least a Jethro Tull song, if long dormant, written in direct response to a book and its author.  Considering the band’s name was foisted upon them by an early agent and Anderson had no idea who he was at first, this track is a fine example of Anderson’s and the band’s growth, in part by willing to look backward as well as forward.

Stormwatch is the darkest of the trilogy, as we have said, both in the lyrics and in the real-life context of the album.  Not only did David Palmer’s father pass away, inspiring the album’s closing number “Elegy,” but John Glascock passed away during the tour promoting the album, upon which he appears very little due to his declining health.  His death cast a pall on the band, especially in the callous way Anderson broke the news to them, and things were never the same.  David Palmer, John Evan, and Barrie Barlow left the band, and the ’70s and “classic Tull” came to an end, with “Elegy” becoming a poignantly fitting finale to the era.  The album features mostly more mythology and Scottish rural history (“Orion,” “Dark Ages,” “Old Ghosts,” “Dun Ringill,” “Flying Dutchman”) as well as current Scottish social commentary (“North Sea Oil”), a prescient song of change (“Something’s On the Move”), a rare beautiful and uncynical Anderson song (“Home”), and the first two instrumental numbers on a Tull album since This Was (“Warm Sporran” and “Elegy”).  Lyrically, aside from the general mythology and history influencing the songs, and album candidate cut for time “Kelpie,” Stormwatch is not significantly influenced by literature.

Bibliography

Anderson, Ian. “He Brewed a Song of Love and Hatred (and of quite a few other things too …).” Interviewer Martin Webb. Minstrel in the Gallery: 40th Anniversary: La Grande Édition. Chrysalis, 2015.

—. “I’ll Sing You No Lullabye.” Interviewer Martin Webb. Heavy Horses: New Shoes Edition. Parlophone Records, 2018.

—. “Kitchen Prose and Gutter Rhymes.” Interviewer Martin Webb. Songs from the Wood: 40th Anniversary Edition: The Country Set. Parlophone Records, 2017.

—. “May You Find Sweet Inspiration….”  Too Old to Rock‘N’Roll: Too Young to Die! Chrysalis, 2015.

—. “To Cry You a Song.” Interviewer Martin Webb.  Benefit: The 50th Anniversary Enhanced Edition. Chrysalis, 2021.

Cornick, Glenn. “To Cry You a Song.” Interviewer Martin Webb.  Benefit: The 50th Anniversary Enhanced Edition. Chrysalis, 2021.

Nollen, Scott Allen. Jethro Tull: A History of the Band, 1968-2001. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002.

Thick as a Brick: 40th Anniversary Set. Liner notes. Parlophone Records, 2012.

Webb, Martin. “And the Stormwatch Brews….” Stormwatch: The 40th Anniversary Force 10 Edition. Parlophone Records, 2019.—. “Let Me Bring You….” Songs from the Wood: 40th Anniversary Edition: The Country Set. Parlophone Records, 2017.

A Snowball’s Chance …

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Christopher Rush

Page numbers are taken from the digital version of the Great Books of the Western World set, second edition.

Animal Farm has become such a well-known book, trying to conjure new, fresh insights about this story is challenging.  Even people who haven’t read it likely know that it is a cautionary tale of fascism as an anthropomorphic recreation of Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky and actual history, since by now its message and influence have become ubiquitous.  For this exploration, then, let us put the genuine horror and heartbreak of the Russian Revolution and Stalinist Russia aside, much as we set aside aspects of World War II when we want to enjoy Hogan’s Heroes or The Great Escape, and look at Animal Farm just as it is: a mostly funny story.  True, it does have a couple of very unfunny moments, particularly the confession scenes in which the dogs kill many of their fellow farm denizens. But aside from those brief moments, the rest of the story can be (with a fair amount of suspension of disbelief) a fairly good time.

The opening description of Mr. Jones and the state of the farm gives us a good reason to root for the animals: Mr. Jones is a drunkard who doesn’t always ensure the animals are protected and locked up (477) or even fed; the farm has piles of equipment, wood, building materials and all sorts of things scattered, dare we say, higgledy-piggledy around.  These animals have an almost respectable motivation for wanting autonomy.

Old Major’s address gives Orwell the chance to bring in most of the characters in an almost mock Homeric or Pope-like fashion, which is fun by itself, but Boxer’s introduction is especially intriguing.  In one sense, Boxer is the horse considered a noble, self-sacrificing character, perhaps the unsung hero of the story, but from the beginning Orwell gives us permission to think he is just a brainless goof (or a punchy ex-prize fighter?).  He is respected for being a workhorse, but we are told he is not very bright, so he is no shoe-in for the hero (if this story even has one).  Clover the mare, likewise, is presented humorously as the general mother of the farm, though she is no longer as spry as she used to be since she has lost her figure after having so many children, which also has affected her ability to remember.  When this description, particularly of her wounded vanity at having lost her looks from her children, is applied to a horse, it is quite humorous.  Moses the raven is not present, and it does not take a theology major to know whom he represents, and while Christian readers may feel they should be at least irritated by this character and Orwell’s presentation of religion, Moses doing no work and being the one who proclaims that the afterlife for hard-working animals is a place called Sugarcandy Mountain is so preposterous it is hard not to laugh, especially when we read how hard the pigs have to work to convince the others Sugarcandy Mountain does not exist (482).

Taken at face value, Old Major’s description of humans’ lack of utility is both accurate and ludicrously animal-centric.  Man “does not give milk” (though the astute reader will know this is not a completely and permanently accurate statement of all humanity – though it likely flies over the head of most seventh graders, who inexplicably seem to be the major audience of this novel in America), “he does not lay eggs” (which is true, but neither do most of the animals at that conference), “he is too weak to pull the plough” (but he would not have to invent the plough if he were strong enough without it), and “he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits” (478).  This last condition of man’s inferiority is wonderfully irrelevant – is catching rabbits a hallmark of value among animals?

Certainly one of the undercurrents for this novel is the poor memory of the animals.  If we continue our premise of looking lightheartedly at the novel, we see Old Major has forgotten that he, as a pig, has likely contributed nothing substantial to the operation of the farm qua farm (and is guilty of the same four qualities with which he took issue with humans), and has forgotten that he used to be treated very nicely by Mr. Jones, even presented earlier in his life as a prized pig named Willingdon Beauty (477). He has also somehow gotten hefty in his old age, which likely indicates he has had access to plenty of food and has had to do very little work in response for quite some time.  Thus the novel sets out on the premise of the animals forgetting the past and not appreciating the present and continues on this theme throughout.

His closing words that most animals “are not allowed to reach their natural span” yet he is a lucky exception, since he has lived a long life and gotten many sows pregnant (this he remembers), and then dies peacefully in his sleep after a long, successful life is reminiscent of Swift at the end of “A Modest Proposal.”  Do as I say, not as I do – the great pig motto.  But this is then topped by “Beasts of England” sounding like a mix of “Clementine and La Cucaracha” (480) – that must be quite a tune as well.

As the animals acclimate to Animalism, the systematic philosophy Snowball and Napoleon turn Old Major’s dying dream into, the narrator is quite overtly on the side of the pigs, calling questions about the afterlife and the inevitability of the revolution “elementary remarks” (481), as if the pigs are presenting something so obviously helpful but the slow-witted animals cannot get on board, which is further evidenced by their inability to become meaningfully literate.  (Pigs becoming literate and learning how to write and read with their hooves is a fantastical element.)  Additionally, Mr. Jones is continually described as a bad person and an increasingly worse farmer.  He drinks excessively, mistreats and neglects the animals, and overreacts in anger when the hungry animals simply want the food they are supposed to have, since he should take care of these important aspects of his livelihood at the very least, if not out of Christian stewardship (482).  The book gives us many reasons to think the animal rebellion is a good thing.  “His men were idle and dishonest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing, the hedges were neglected, and the animals were underfed” (482).  We should root for the animals just like the narrator does.

The rapid success of the initial rebellion and impressive defense during the farmer’s second attack are perhaps the most humorous scenes in the book.  The rebellion is successful because of its swift and surprising nature.  Despite their initial pseudo-bravado at whipping seemingly defenseless animals, when the animals offer even the most basic resistance, Mr. Jones and the farmhands skedaddle after “only a moment or two” (482).  Mrs. Jones’s silent reaction through the window, in her only moment in the novel while awake, is to pack up and flee not only the farm but her husband (483) – it is hard to envision this episode without “Yakety Sax” accompanying it.

The later defense of the farm from the humans’ perspective begins by showing us the humans’ increasing anger that the animals are succeeding at operating a farm without human leadership and that their own animals are starting to whistle and sing “Beasts of England” – to which the humans naturally respond by whipping and attacking the animals, again giving us reason to side with the animals (489).  We are also pleased that the animals are succeeding on their own initiative and industry.  The defense from the animals’ perspective on the farm begins with a casual remark that Snowball “had studied an old book of Julius Caesar’s campaigns which he had found in the farmhouse” (490).  Mr. Jones having a copy of Caesar is ludicrous enough, but picturing this pig pouring over Caesar’s Gallic Wars is just delightful.  While Orwell likely envisions this in English, the temptation to picture Snowball reading it in pig Latin is difficult to fight – certainly more difficult than the farmers prove to be.

The defense is a fine comic scene for two main reasons: the ease of the defense and the absence of significant death on either side.  With Caesar’s tactics firmly in place, the animals gull the farmers into a false sense of security and early success, only for the animals to attack in earnest.  That the humans forget they have sticks and a shotgun (for the most part) adds to the farcical atmosphere.  Of course, if they had brought more guns and used them, it would be difficult to pretend this was a comic story, but on the other hand the story would not have been written or have had such a lasting effect.

While it is sad that a sheep dies, it is not a sheep we know, which thus does not require much emotional response on our part – war is tough, and since the sheep have been presented as primarily mindless (and annoying) echoes for Napoleon’s ideas, losing only one sheep against armed men feels like an overwhelming victory.  This is abetted by the fact the human boy, who seemed dead and threatened to make Boxer feel bad, was just stunned and recovers.  The animals have done, in effect, nothing wrong, and no harm was done all around (491).

The fate of most of the main named characters could lend support to our admittedly tenuous premise of the book being a dark comedy.  Snowball, despite his initial ringleader status and his anti-human rhetoric (though, again, the book does not present this as necessarily a bad thing), starts to offer many positive and hopeful goals for the animals and their farm, giving the animals purpose and reasons to keep working hard to make the farm prosper for themselves and future generations (putting them in committees, no doubt for their own good, another rueful aside).  This is mostly seen in the windmill, of course, and the association of this major symbol with Don Quixote and his windmills is another comedic aspect of the book (though that may likely need to be explained to the junior high students reading it).  Snowball’s growing quarrels with Napoleon are presented as genuine disagreements, not a dissembling act, so the reader naturally starts to align with Snowball over Napoleon, the clear villain even in the comic interpretation here – though the animals, laughably, believe whichever pig they heard last (493-94).  Despite the failed assassination attempt on his life and subsequent successful assassination of his character, Snowball successfully flees Napoleon’s farm and lives a happier life.  This incongruity of the humans being mostly presented as evil or at least malicious and Snowball’s happier life among them and away from the farm is presented as a relief for the reader, and comedies, especially in the Shakespearean tradition, expect our heroes (and even the redeemed villains) to live to see another day after the final curtain or tableaux.

While Mollie the mare is not presented as a leader or hero, she is mainly a kind of low comic relief, fond of ribbons and sugar, symbols of her subservience to human oppression, and while the book gives us a growing sense of tension that something bad is going to happen to her, she, too, escapes the farm and returns to a life of sugar and ribbons – free from Napoleon (492).

The fate of Boxer will likely be a major stumbling block for many readers in thinking Animal Farm could be a comic tale, since he has a sad fate (517).  Admittedly, the scene of Boxer being tricked into the glue factory van and the sound of his desperate hoof clangs are hard to laugh at, and it is a scene of sorrow and mild horror – but we also know Boxer is not long for this world, anyway.  His simplemindedness and stalwartness are praised throughout the book, but he is also overly loyal to Napoleon, who is clearly the villain, and that he cannot see that is no mark in his favor.  In his most perplexing moment, Boxer, and even he should know the dogs are under Napoleon’s control, is attacked by the dogs then looks to Napoleon to see how he should respond to the dogs that have clearly just tried to assassinate him (504).  The desire to think of Boxer as a noble hero should be tempered by his devotion to the villain, even if it is done through ignorance (but a stubborn ignorance, since he willfully refuses to listen to anything said against Napoleon).  He does work himself to death for the farm, which is admirable, but since is also effectively done for anyway, from a dark comic perspective, by going to the knacker’s, at least his corpse will provide for others, which is more than could be said if he had just finished dying on the farm and became a burden by making the animals either have to dig a massive grave for him or leave his corpse out to rot.

Admittedly, the fate of several non-named characters, as acknowledged at the beginning of this examination, does yield a pair of frightening moments, both of them entailing the dogs viciously killing animals that confess to being rebellious and in league with Snowball after he is excommunicated from the farm (and eventually the scapegoat for all the ills that befall the farm).  It is hard to dismiss these scenes or find the potential humor in them, though it is interesting that the animals in the first scene are those that do admit they were rebellious and complaining and thus disruptive to the united efforts of the farm (504).  The book is tacit on why they make their confessions – likely we are to assume Napoleon or Squealer intimidated them behind the scenes into confessing publically, but the narration does not even hint at that, so it is somewhat possible the animals felt genuine guilt and are sacrificing themselves for the greater good.  And the first victims are pigs, which is surprising, considering Napoleon has no reason to demonstrate “equality” for guilt among “equal animals” at this point in the novel.  Still, the confessions result in a “pile of corpses,” which is difficult to laugh away.  Even trying to interpret Animal Farm as a “dark” comedy is strained by the pile of corpses, pervasive aroma of blood in the air, and the increasingly vicious dogs under Napoleon’s ever more hypocritical rule.  Trying to categorize Animal Farm as a Shakespearean “problem play” like Troilus and Cressida, for example, may be more credible in other circumstances.

Still, aside from these moments, the majority of the novel and the final scene may give us tenuous permission to look at Animal Farm comically (even Hogan’s Heroes has a few serious moments).  New animals come to the farm and make it a success in the intervening years before the denouement of the novel (518), even if it is a pale shadow of what was dreamed of at the beginning.  And while we know they are likely somewhat worse off living condition and food-wise, Orwell does allow for great dignity for the animals, since “they never lost, even for an instant, their sense of honour and privilege in being members of Animal Farm. They were still the only farm in the whole county—in all England!—owned and operated by animals” (520), and thus the book itself allows for a fairly happy (or at least content) ending even without the strain we have been placing on it.

We have alluded to Shakespearean comedy already, and one of the hallmarks of Shakespearean comedy is the occurrence of transformation.  The hypocrisy of the pigs embracing all of the rules initially deemed punishable by death can be a source of humor, particularly the great lamentation for Comrade Napoleon on his deathbed … only to find out it is just a hangover (512).  The pigs starting to walk on two legs and wearing clothes can similarly be viewed easily in a comic vein (especially if the reader accompanies these scenes with lighthearted incidental music).

The apex of the transformation in the final tableaux with the pigs fully becoming indistinguishable from the humans with whom they have just allied, and the farm returning to its original name, may be intended to be horrific, as all their sacrifice for autonomy has been undone, but it can also be darkly comic, as the very ringleaders of the rebellion who seemed quite sincere at breaking away from human influence have now become the very thing they initially despised, coupled with the fact the first thing these new allies do is start arguing over accusations of cheating at gambling.[1]  The reader may have genuine permission to picture the beleaguered but hopeful veterans staring through window at this final transmutation with an almost ’80s-sitcom ending shrug and laugh track explosion.

This is not to belittle the moment, of course, but if looking at Animal Farm not as a dire warning or fantastical cautionary tale, such a finale could be possible.  If we are willing, at least for a time, to set aside the genuine sorrow that George Orwell was writing about, and if we, a century later can acknowledge his purpose but indulge ourselves for a few moments, we can view this novel as a beast fable perhaps in the vein of Aesop or Fontaine, with a Shakespearean twist here and there.  In this light, with mostly happy(ish) endings for the characters, a sense of pride and continuing hope for many of the animals, and the villains becoming what they initially despise (and thus perhaps a more fitting punishment than outright death), it may be possible to enjoy Animal Farm as a comedy, if a dark comedy at best.

[1] When Pilkington and Napoleon both play the ace of spades, it is hard not to think of Harpo Marx’s never-ending supply of aces of spades in Animal Crackers, ironically enough.