George Orwell's Animal Farm and the Metaphor of Dirt
The image above is a depiction of the amended 'seven commandment' the animals in George Orwell's Animal Farm create when forming their human free society. The first, which initially read "whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy," has been eliminated all together. The second, originally "whatever goes upon forelegs, or has wings, is a friend," has been amended to "four legs good, two legs better". The third commandment has also been removed, while the fourth through the sixth make technical changes to lessen the chance of breaching the rules. The seventh commandment, and possibly the most well known from this novel, reads "all animals are equal but some are more equal than others". This change contradicts the original second commandment directly, which strived for equality among the farm animals while the amended seventh creates an inequality.
Mary Douglas's metaphor of dirt, or "matter out of place," is used to explain how people and communities attempt to organize their environments (Douglas 2002). Douglas clarifies that the removal of dirt is not inherently a negative practice, but rather a positive attempt to created boundaries for a system. The presence of dirt or displaced matter suggests a state of disorder, which in itself is not a threat. Douglas herself recounts feelings of unsettledness when faced with a perfectly clean bathroom, suggesting that the presence of dirt can be more welcome in some context than others (Douglas 2002).
In the context of Animal Farm, the animals create the commandments to establish order within their new society. This coincides with Douglas's definition of removing dirt or disorder in an attempt to organize one's environment. Though Douglas emphasizes that this is not a negative practice, in the case of Animal Farm it turns into one. Although the initial commandment promote equality amongst animals as the basis of the environmental organization, the amendments made to the commandments by the pigs upsets this order. The division created mirrors the separation between the sacred and profane as defined by Durkheim, Douglas's academic predecessor. Furthermore, the commandments function as pollution of ideas, which Douglas defines two levels of (Douglas 2002). The commandments would be considered the first level, which includes an attempt to influence the behaviors of others. Thus, the pigs who assume control of the farm society create social pressures that allow them to oppress other types of animals while they slowly become the beings they initially labeled enemies.
"Animal Farm by George Orwell." BBC Bitesize, Retrieved April 3, 2025 https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zw2r96f
Douglas, Mary. 2002. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge Classics.
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