Category: Thesis

Here are my notes from re-reading chapters 6 to 10 of the anthropomorphic novel Animal Farm, by following my last week’s blog:

Chapter 6: 

• (P60) Although animals started building the windmill with even hard working labors, they still enjoyed it most of the time as they trusted they were working only for themselves and the result would not be stolen by any human beings.
• (P62) Boxer had been worked hard to make sure everything could be achieved through the building of the windmill. 
• (P63) Napoleon started breaking earliest resolutions by allowing the engagement in trade with the neighboring farms. 
• (P64) Mr Whymper, the solicitor from willingdon behaved as intermediary between animal farm and the outside world.
• (P65) humans’ hatred and anger are raised to the animal farm due to its prospering growth, they thought the windmill would be a failure, but they also appreciated the efficiency of how the animals were well managing their own affairs.
• (P66) when pigs started business with human beings, they moved into the farmhouse for their residence, on the excuse of working as the brain of the farm. They ate their meal in the kitchen, used the drawing room as a recreation room and slept in the bed, which broke the initial 4th of the seven commandments of the animal farm (P67).
• (P68) Only Benjamin had no interests with the build of the windmill.
• (P69) The windmill was in ruins due to the gale in a night with its thin layers, but Napoleon assumed it was snowball came in the night and destroyed their work of nearly a year. And animals still needed to carry on their work on the windmill. 

Chapter 7:

• (P74) animals are in struggles with the need of grain since spring, a context of 400 eggs a week had been signed by Napoleon in the deal with Whymper.
• (P75) To punish the disagreement of hens, Napoleon ordered the hen’s rations to be stopped, and so none hens died at the same time in a day.
• (P77) Squealer pointed out that Snowball had sold himself to Frederick of Pinchfield, which the farm decided to attack the animal farm again. And Napoleon thought Snowball was Jones’ agent (P80) from the very beginning by ignoring other animals’ confusion. 
• (P82) four pigs confessed they had been secretly get in touch with Snowball had been slaughtered by Napoleon’s dogs.
• (P85) Squealer announced the abolishment of the song of ‘Beats of England’ after pigs thought the rebellion had completed through making all the execution of ‘traitors’ to the animal farms. 

Chapter 8:

• (P87) Animal realized pigs broke the 6th of the initial commandment through killings to achieve the exemption. Clover noticed the 6th commandment had been changed to ‘no animal shall kill any other animal without cause.’ 
• (P88) through the rebuild of the windmill project, animals somehow noticed they were been feed less than old Jones’ day: 
• (P91) Napoleon kept good friendship with Mr Pilkington who owns the farm Foxwoods which caused more jealousy of Mr Frederick, who is the owner of Pilkington. It brings back Frederick to against them with guns and his men, to knock the windmill down which animals worked on it for 2 years long (p100).
• (P101) chapter 8 is talking about the battle of the windmill happened in the animal farm.
• (P102) The boar Napoleon starts wearing Mr Jones clothes after the windmill battle. (P103) At the same time squealer announced animals with alcohol drinking should be punished to death, whereas Napoleon asked Whymper to purchase some booklets on brewing and distilling for himself. And over night, Squealer’s act of changing the fifth commandment had been caught by the other animal. 

Chapter 9:

• (P106) Even there are always adjustment of rations, animals believe the important is still bigger than the days controlled by Jones. 
• (P107) Privilege and good education had only been assigned to new born pigs instead of any other animals.
• (P109-110) Sheep’s represent devotee and the rabble to the society led by Napoleon, therefore they always stoped the protest by the others in the story.
• (P112) Boxer eventually went fallen after overworked himself for over years.
• (P113-115) Napoleon and Squealer said Boxer would be sent to the hospital at Willington, instead, it had been noticed that he would be sent to the horse slaughterer. 
• (P116) A scene shows animals from the farm try to beg for horses in charge of the cart not sending boxer to slaughterer in an emotional way, but the pleading had been brutally ignored.

Chapter 10:

• (P125) squealer was being seen eventually that he walked in a human being way, following up with a file of pigs walking with their hind legs.
• (P126) The scene shows a moment where animals finally start protesting against the hierarchy and horror by the pigs in the animal farm.
• (P127) The constantly change of commandment set by pigs reasoned everything they wanted to take advantages of from since the beginning of the story, and eventually they behaved more like humans to be in charge of the whole farm. 

Here are my notes on the paper:

In the coming two weeks, I will re-read The Animal Farm and do some notes to assist me use them as a reference in my thesis in the future–

Here are my notes between the first and the fifth chapter:

Chapter 1:

• By reading Animal Farm, the first chapter depicts the rebellion was led by the ‘old major’ in Mr Jones’ farm with other animals, which they agreed beings with two legs like their lord Jones are bad, who is doing no labors but only set them to work.  The old major led the farm animals to sing the song ‘beasts of england’ in this topic, which represented their determination of seeking of freedom in their life.

Chapter 2:

• The second chapter talks about two young boars, snowball and napoleon took most duty left by the old Major after his death. They structured a system called ‘animalism’, and letting the other animals trust it is a must to expel Mr Jones and his men in the farm through the successful action of fight. Without being physically controlled anymore, they listed main principles of animalism to seven commandments through the three months studies of read and write.

Chapter 3:

• The third chapter points out pigs took the leadership in the farm with their superior knowledges, while they were not doing any practical work. 
• For the other animals, they overcame difficulties of using human being’s tools and received a lot of pleasures by getting more food to eat, working with a more balanced task allocation.
• Pigs painted their flag on an old green table cloth to represent their future republic of the animals with the weekly meeting started running.
• Main boars in this novel, Snowball and Napoleon always have opposite arguments in their plans and decisions of the farm.
• Harness room became a headquarters for pigs to learn and study, pig Snowball formed most committees for the farm such as the egg production committee for the hens. However, due to the gap of intelligence quotient between different animals in the farm, not every one of them knew the whole alphabet. 
• (P38-39) Apples were being commented to bring to the harness room for pigs, due to they assumed themselves as the most important brain workers in the farm. Also, the milk was mixed into pig’s mash in everyday. 
• (P39) On the sake of gaining more food, pigs threatened the other animals that Mr Jones would be back with their failures in arranging the farm.

Chapter 4:

• This chapter shows about how did Mr Jones moan of the animal farm and his experience in the red look at willing-don (P40). And how the owners Mr Pilkington and Mr Frederick respectively from the adjoined farms Foxwood and Pinchfield (P41) were terrified by the animal farm, or Manor Farm, from what they called it. 
• Meanwhile, human beings raised up their hatred to the  song of ‘Beast of England’ (P42). 
• Another war carried by Mr Jones and his men were happening in early October, which was been expected and well prepared to defense by the animal farm, it ended up with retreating human beings, the death of the sheep; and the wound of Snowball.  

Chapter 5:

• This chapter starts with Mollie, the foolish and pretty mane, had been seen with a Mr Pilkington’s man in a morning (P47). With her drastically disagreements in responding to the truth, she reappeared on the other side of Willing-ton to work for a smart dog cart ran by a fat red faced man who feed her with sugars (P48).
• (P49) The ongoing argument between Snowball and Napoleon: Napoleon was better at canvassing support from the sheep, Snowball was more successful with his brilliant speeches and ideas learnt from ‘Farm and Stockbreeder’.
• (P51) Napoleon held aloof with Snowball’s plan of building up a dynamo in the farm, and he was strongly against the windmill publicly from the start.
• (P52) Benjamin the donkey, was the one not voting for either side of plans of two boars. 
• (P53-55) Snowball had been attacked and expelled by nine enormous dogs reared privately by Napoleon through the meeting, after he let most animals believe on his plan of building up a windmill. 
• (P55) After snowball had been expelled, weekly meeting in Sunday morning had been replaced by special committee of pigs. 
• (P56) The control taken by mainly pigs had raised up protests by the other animals, however, all arguments were terminating with sheep’s tremendous bleating of ‘four legs good, two legs bad!’
• (P57) The porker pig Squealer, his trick of turn black into white had been constantly used to persuade the other animals with Napoleon’s plans. 
• (P58) Napoleon copied the windmill plan and creation organized by Snowball after expelled the latter. 

Here are my notes on the paper:

In this week I have mainly checked two books written by Paul Well:

1. Understanding Animation
2. Animation and America

Through the help of the index, I could look straight on the paragraph talking about my chosen topic ‘Anthropomorphism’ in them. And below are the notes I have made + the relating questions I could think about to research and answer in my essay in different topics:

Key words: Anthropomorphism 

Potential question 1:

How anthropomorphism was structured under the historic background?

Relating to the historic background, Animation and America, p24 points out the influence caused by Second World War and modernity altered the way how humans view their physical and material world. Which encouraging art practice during the period to challenge traditional orthodoxies with constant change, to achieve the revolution and renovation of modernism.

(Quote from any book of the depiction of modernism is needed. )

Correspondingly, anthropomorphic characters support audiences to explore different scenarios through changing identities, metamorphosis, dehumanising and restructuring themselves in the story; without bounding into any industrial orthodoxies, they are living in an uncertain reality and working for the need of gags to structure more possibilities and values. 

Talk about how the abstractions inspire the appearance of anthropomorphic characters. Animation and American, p20, the animator pioneers under the time experiment the limits of graphic space, ‘playing out narration of perception and memory in rapid metamorphosis.’ They play ‘lines, shapes, forms in the enunciation of time, space, weight and flow’ at the same period.

Potential question 2:

How the anthropomorphic characters signify meaning behind political issue?

Animation and American: p22, the abstraction of anthropomorphism in early American animation achieved through developing technologies in the industry, which explores the relationship between humanity and animality and the expression of humans after being challenged. It reflect the possible lack of humanity in society, philosophy and mechanisation.

Films: Bambi (1942), Animal farm (1954), Watership Down (1978), The Lorax (1972) (Understanding Animation p63) The tale of the Fox (1937).

The revolt of the toys (1945) anti-nazi film, reflecting the oppression of the wartime Nazi

The king and the mockingbird (1980).

The turning point (2020), showing the destruction of habitat through animal perspective. 

Relating back to the benefits of adding anthropomorphic gags to the film to talk about why they can easily be understood. Such as building up connections through performances, no political references under the sensitive topics, animal behaviour is an internal sources to be read with foibles and flaws in the film. 

Potential question 3:

How anthropomorphic characters help to create gags in the film??

However, their representation as ‘animal forms’ work well for gags in films.

Understanding Animation: p129: In the early ‘trick’ films, audiences were mostly unallied with characters which create random humours as gags in a story with a lack of continuity and empathy. However, the added human personalities of anthropomorphic characters allows audiences to be emotionally attached by the way how stories are being told and how their characteristics are being expressed with freedom. 

Examples (Case study textual Analysis by using key elements) in early films: 

Key elements of building up personalised characters in films include:

1. Eye contact between characters and audiences to break up the 4th wall. 
2. Facial expressions to deliver emotions and expressions.
3. Recognised physical poses in the set.
4. Clear motivation set and acted by the anthropomorphic character itself within narrations.
5. Physical rhythms show indicate the attitude of the character.
6. The character is taking responsibility of the film as an actor.

Windsor McCay

Mosquito in ‘How a mosquito operates (1912)’

Dinosaur in’ Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)’

Meanwhile, in Disney films, Walt’s seek for anti-stereotype of traditional gags functioned through the use of ‘caricature’ and ‘exaggeration’ in anthropomorphic characters to address human flaws and human foibles. The anthropomorphism helps to build up the natural shortcomings which brings up comedy from internal sources in the film, in which this feature had extended from McCay’s animation. 

Hence, Disney tried to adopt the working process which used by Windsor McCay in Ub Iwerks characters, instead of drawing from one image to the next one, he tended to add ‘in-between’ in the middle of two ‘extreme’ poses. (Animation and American, P21).

Potential question 4:

How do Anthropomorphic characters been designed??

P23, early animation uses Anthropomorphic characters include:

1. Gertie the Dinosaur 
2. Felix the Cat
3. Mickey Mouse

Disney company has developed the concept into achieving the hyper-realism in their future work. However, scholars Patrick D. Murphy and Richard Schickel argues these characters hide their natural terrors or wildness through cuteness, joke and musical cues in the performance. 

Understanding animation p203: character designs within Anthropomophrism in Disney films 

Potential question 5:

The benefits and drawbacks of anthropomorphism??

In next week I will try to develop potential questions listed above into a draft of the essay structure and let the lecturer to look at it to gain feedback. Meanwhile, I will be looking at specific case study with doing textual analysis to answer each question I have set. Beside, I will be looking at the other books I borrowed from the school library.

In this week’s session we have been introduced the main points of structuring the thesis of the course, and here is my notes:

Due to I was interesting in the topic of anthropomorphic creatures, I have been recommended to read essays written by the author Claire Molloy online:

Meanwhile I start borrowing library books which connect this concept to the animation.

In this week’s session, our lecturer roughly talked about the structure of writing the research proposal in this term and the topic we could potentially think about academically.

Here is the note I wrote in the online class:

During the class the lecturer mentioned the technical domain within 3D is not considered a topic for academic writing, hence I am considering choosing concept as my theme. For now, I am thinking of how ‘Anthropomorphism’ has been delivered through different animation films and how anthropomorphic characters relate to their mise-en-scene, connotations and story background.

Here are some case studies I was also thinking:

1: The boy and the beast (anthropomorphic animals).

2: Wall-E (anthropomorphic robots)

3: Toy Story (anthropomorphic toys)

4: Inside Out (anthropomorphic emotions)

Here are some potential topics I think can be discussed in my future thesis:

• The source of anthropomorphism, early work.
• The psychology behind using anthropomorphic characters.
• The creation of anthropomorphiccharacterss in animation films.

Also, in the conclusion of the future thesis, I think I can use the topic to link back my own concept work.

I also found that in the book Understanding Animation, Paul Well writes that the anthropomorphism used in McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur informs the traditional animation produced by Walt Disney on page 15. Page 28 talks about how the early animation film Bambi applied the anthropomorphic character to move beyond the realistic traditions. Page 63 mentions how Starewicz used anthropomorphic characters in his film to exaggerate the characteristics of the rat and deliver a strong natural feeling to audiences’ emotional memory.

In google scholar, this concept has been referred to animation films in lots of writings which I am expect to read and research and see how the others to discuss them: