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political allegory in animal farm
parallels between animal farm and actual historical events and characters
Analysis a novel animal farm by george orwell
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In George Orwell's novel Animal Farm he writes a fairy tale with a meaning. In other words, it is about a bunch of animals living on a farm that decide to rebel against all humans starting with running their owner off by attack. This is compared to the Russian Revolution which is what I will be talking about in the paper. I will state which animal played which role and compare the animal to the person for whom they portray. The book starts off with hopes of an empire where everyone is equal and the unfair unjust leader is thrown out. Then it moves on to where some animals are smarter than others and claim more power than they rightfully deserve. And by the end those animals took over like they were the original leaders from the start leading to mayhem. Pigs are the ranking animals on the farm starting with Old Major, or Lenin, who starts by gathering all of the animals on the farm late at night for a meeting. Old Major was an ideologist who came up with an idea of this great government where all of the animals were equal and all of the humans, or the czars, where to be ran out, but was not able to live his dream. So he relied on his "comrades" to come threw and get everything organized to make this revolution possible. First was Snowball, Snowball was the Trotsky who completely believed in everything Old Major had to say and wanted to live up to it one hundred percent. Or, you can compare it to Lenin and Trotsky, when Lenin died Trotsky wanted to continue everything he did. Which leads up to Napoleon, Napoleon was another animal who appeared to be interested in what Old Major had in mind but ended up being selfish and greedy. Napoleon and Snowball would debate over the decisions that had to be made but eventually Napoleon grew sick of that and decided he can make the decisions by himself, leading him to turn on Snowball and spread lies about him forcing him to be kicked out of the farm and having all of the animals against him. This is compared to Trotsky and Stalin, Stalin did the same thing to Trotsky which forced him into hiding in Mexico which would soon lead to his assassination (class video, 9-23).
George Orwell (1903-1950 ), whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair, was born in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, India. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair was a civil servant for the British colonial government. In 1904 he moved with his mother and sister to England and was educated at Eton. He began to write at an early age, and was even published in college periodicals, but he did not enjoy school.
One of the main characters of Animal Farm is the heartless and merciless leader Napoleon. Napoleon is a leader that prefers to have things his way and not cooperate with others, in other words really obnoxious. For example “He declared himself against the windmill from the start. One day, however, he arrived unexpectedly to examine the plan. He walked heavily round the sled, looked closely at every detail of the plans and snuffed at them once or twice, then stood for a little while contemplating them out of the corner of his eye; then suddenly lifted his leg, urinated over the plans and walked out without uttering a word.”(Page 33, chapter5) Thus, this proves that Napoleon is an obnoxious pig because just because he was against Snowball’s windmill idea he urinated all over his work so he could get his way.
Pigs walking on two feet, horses and sheep talking. This is how George Orwell satirizes human nature in his classic novel Animal Farm. Animal Farm is an allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The title of the book is also the setting for the action in the novel. The animals in the story decide to have a revolution and take control of the farm from the humans. Soon the story shows us how certain groups move from the original ideals of the revolution to a situation where there is domination by one group and submission by all the others. The major idea in this story is the political corruption of what was once a pure political ideal. Orwell uses satire to ridicule human traits in his characters such as Napoleon and Squealer. There are several different characters in the novel utilizing animals as symbols of people in real life during the Russian Revolution. Napoleon is the leader of the pigs that ultimately come to dominate the farm. The characteristics that we associate with pigs , lazy, greedy, and pushy are meant to symbolize the characteristics that the leaders of the Russian Revolution exhibited. Napoleon is admired by all of the animals because he is their leader. All of the animals believe that their leader wants to fulfill all of their needs. They also are convinced that Napoleon’s decisions are made the best interest of the animals. Napoleon’s piglike qualities are shown throughout the story. He exhibited greediness when he sold the dying horse, Boxer to a slaughterhouse for money so that he and the other pigs could purchase whiskey. Orwell ridicules human nature through Napoleon in the sense that he is trying to show how the greedy and power hungry eventually end in corruption.
Napoleon and his new friends sat down while taking a sip of their beers, we all
The sun rises. It’s a new day, soon to be filled with hard work. Animals are working hard, overcoming many difficulties by mere determination and work. But it all falls back to the way it was, going absolutely nowhere. In the book Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, this is exactly what happens. The animals work to tremendous extents, especially the horse named Boxer, but their hard work gets them nothing. They give their blunt work for years on a windmill that falls down twice, they work past specific difficulties in order to bring in the harvest that eventually leads them to lower food rations and, specifically, Boxer sacrifices his health for the sake of hard work to only be killed, as if he was nothing. Because the animals work hard to overcome struggles and difficulties but receive nothing good from it, it is clear that the theme in Animal Farm is that working hard can sometimes go nowhere.
There is a substantial amount of conflicts that occur in this satirical story. Often these conflicts are between the pigs and the rest of the animals. Only a minute portion of the animals didn’t really have some sort of conflict with Snowball, Napoleon, Squealer, or the rest of the dominating pigs. Overall, Snowball was a better leader than Napoleon, yet the animals reacted differently to Napoleon than to Snowball.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a political satire of a totalitarian society ruled by a mighty dictatorship, in all probability a fable for the events surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1917. The animals of “Manor Farm” overthrow their human master after a long history of mistreatment. Led by the pigs, the farm animals continue to do their work, only with more pride, knowing that they are working for themselves, as opposed to working for humans. Little by little, the pigs become dominant, gaining more power and advantage over the other animals, so much so that they become as corrupt and power-hungry as their predecessors, the humans.
Although he agreed with many of the Marxist principles, he disagreed with the Communist method of addressing these problems. This idea is conveyed in Animal Farm. The animals’ original action of overthrowing their tyrannical overlords and working for themselves is not an inherently evil course to take. However, as the pigs start to take more power for themselves, problems start to arise (Guidorizzi 72). Animal Farm is an allegory; most of the events and animals described in the book represent some historical event or person. The pigs in the book represent communist leaders. Old Major, the boar, represents Marx and Lenin as the one who lays the foundation of their philosophy. Mr. Jones, the farmer, represents the Czar who is abruptly overthrown in a fit of fury from the people. The pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, the two of whom are constantly disagreeing on how the farm should be run, represent Stalin and Trotsky. The dogs represent the various agencies used to force compliance with Soviet rule, while Squealer represents communist propaganda. The original reason that the animals revolt is because the humans take without producing anything; they leech off the labor of the animals. Kicking the humans out of the farm allows the animals to feel better about their work because now they know that all of their labor is for their own benefit. However, the pigs soon started abusing this work ethic for their own gain
Animalism is betrayed when Napoleon orders to manipulate the commandments to expedient himself, and the superior pigs. Subsequently the inequality is increased, the animals are treated with vindictiveness they had not experienced with Mr. Jones, yet they believe they live in freedom for their trust in Napoleon and the founded customs of Animalism.
In the last couple of paragraphs of Animal Farm by George Orwell, many things happened. The chapter mostly provided an ending for what happened at the Animal Farm years later. In the ending it talked about, how the pigs had suddenly changed their thought system and started walking on two legs like humans. The pigs also get the sheep to say, “Four legs good, two legs better. During the last couple of paragraphs, the pigs and humans were together. They were playing a game of cards, and they were also very drunk. In that section, the animals were watching from far away to see what was going on. The animals notice that something was changing. Something felt very strange to the animals. As they went closer for the second time, the animals witness
In Animal Farm Mollie, the ribbon loving horse, finds a way to escape the farm without being noticed to go live amongst the humans, instead of continuing the rebellion with her fellow comrades. Her desire to obtain attention from the humans outweighs the “evil” of man.
George Orwell writes Animal Farm as a criticism about the Revolution in Russia during the First World War and when Joseph Stalin takes over the Soviet Union and converts it to Communism. The book is a direct reflection of real life people and events that happened during this time. Fear and ignorance has a great effect on the way people lived their lives and similarly the way the animals lived their lives on the farm under their leader. It also shows that any rebellion against their country proved to be fatal and therefore, they were unable to break away. In Animal Farm, Orwell uses symbolism, irony, and imagery to convey the violence, corruption, and real life in Russia during this time through the animals on the farm.
Animals planned to rebel, and then take action. Winning the farm over was great for the animals, but then things got complicated. Leaders were chosen, Napoleon, a boar, being the head leader. The animals worked together on several projects such as building a windmill to make their work easier. Animals died working, and times got rough for the animals. In the end they decided to keep pushing through, continuing to work hard and looking forward to a better, new life. Reading this book was hard, because it wasn’t very interesting. Focusing on what was happening seemed difficult because it went from problem to problem. It was like it was never going to end. This story had too much detail and would be recommended for a younger age.
This summer, I wanted to read a classic. I typically don’t enjoy reading classics for leisure, however, I wanted to step out of my “comfort zone”. As I began searching online for books, I stumbled on the popular Animal Farm. I had read this previously (in 6th grade), but I realized that I could not recall most of the plot and ideas, so I created a goal to go back and fill in the large gaps that stood in my memory.
Old Major is a prize-winning boar whose dream of a socialist utopia provides the inspiration for a rebellion. After