Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal farm is a story about animals who take over a farm and run it

Animal Farm

Animal farm is a story about animals who take over a farm and run it.

That is the surface meaning of the book, for it is really based on the

Russian revolution when the people over threw the TSAR, king, and took

control of Russia. It was a story of working class people uniting.

Napoleon the main pig was Stalin, Snowball was Trotsky. These were

the two main leaders of the Russian Revolution. The reader is given an

insight into how these individuals behaved after they were given

power.

What happened over the course of history was that the people who took

over eventually became like the people they took power from. The

animals in Animal Farm were living a dreadful life which Old Major

(Lenin) told them could get better if they got rid of human beings, he

also laid the foundations of Animalism by stating that animals should

not take part in certain things common to humans. These things were

divided into the following categories:

Animals should not

· Sleep in beds

· Wear clothes

· Trade with humans

· Kill another

· Drink alcohol

· Smoke tobacco

· Touch money

· All animals are equal

Old major made the animals feel like they had dignity, they were not

just dumb animals whose lives were for the good of human beings. Three

days after he gave his historic speech Old Major died. The animals

became more bonded and felt pride they had never felt before.

The first chapter opens with Old Major who is a pig, saying that he

would like to have a meeting with all the animals in the shed after Mr

Jones the owner of the farm fell asleep. The animals on the farm

gathered round to hear Old Majors speech.

The opening chapter influences the rest of the book as once Old Major

died the animals became more united. They always helped one another

when it was necessary. Then six months after Old Major’s speech when

Mr Jones did not feed them it was easy to revolt as a group. The

animals were supposed to live a peaceful, contented existence. This is

what meant by all the animals were equal. Fortunately the pigs emerged

as natural leaders and gradually inequality took place. Over time the

opening rules that were made were broken.

The two characters that I found most marvellous are Napoleon, this

character, was silent but deadly, he had the insight to take the

puppies away from there mother at birth then he raised them to be his

guards. He was sneaky not intellectual but it was very astonishing