Animal Farm George Orwell's novel Animal Farm does an excellent job of drawing parallels from the situation leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Animal Farm is a satire that uses its characters to symbolize leaders of the Russian Revolution. The animals of "Manor Farm", the setting of this novel, which symbolizes Russia, overthrow their human master after years 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 their human master, Farmer Jones. Slowly over time the pigs gain power and take advantage of the other animals. They gain so much power that they become just as power hungry and corrupt as their human master. The theme in the novel being that in every society there are leaders who will, if given the chance, likely abuse their position. Old Major is a prize white boar who helps point out to the animals that no animal in England is free. He continues to tell the animals that the their labor is stolen by man, who benefits alone. The animals in return get near nothing, just enough to keep them away from starvation. Old Major gave many speeches to the farm animals about hope and the future. He is the main animal who got the rebellion started even though he died before it actually began. Old Major's role compares to Lenin and Marx whose ideas would spark the communist revolution. Lenin became the leader and teacher of the working class in Russia, and their determination to struggle against capitalism. Like Old Major, Lenin and Marx wrote essays and gave speeches to the working class poor. The working class in Russia, as compared with the barnyard animals in Animal Farm, were a laboring class of people that received low wages for their work. Old major tells the animals that the source of the problem is man, they must overthrow man to abolish tyranny and hunger. Soon Old Major does die, but his words still echo in the hearts of all the animals. With the leadership of the pigs, the smartest animals, they repel against the human and gain complete control of the farm. This would symbolize the Russian Revolution. Another parallel represented in the book is Farmer Jones. His character is similar to the politician Czar Nicholas who treated his people similar to how Farmer Jones treated his animals. The animal rebellion on the farm was started because Farmer Jones was a drunk who never took care of the animals. This made them very angry, fed by the words of Old Major the animals decided to rebel like the Russians. Czar Nicholas was a very weak man who treated his people similar to how Farmer Jones treated his animals. The Czar made his working class people very uneasy with the way he used his authority and preached all the time, and the people suffered and finally demanded reform by rebelling. The animal Napoleon can be compared as a character representing Stalin in Russia. Both were very mean looking, didn't talk very much but always got what they wanted through force. In one part of the book Napoleon had the dogs charge Snowball, another animal, as soon as he thought that the pigs were becoming corrupt. Stalin became the Soviet Leader after the death of Lenin. He was underestimated by his opponents who always became his victims, and he had one of the most ruthless, regimes in history. In was not till very many years later that the world found out about the many deaths that Stalin created in Russia during the Revolution. Another strong parrael would is the character of Snowball with the Russian leader Trotsky. Snowball was very enthusiastic and was a leader who organized the defense of the farm. He gave speeches and instructions but was not very beneficial. All the other animals liked him, but he was outsmarted by Napoleon. Trotsky and Stalin's relationship was very much like Snowball's and Napoleons. Trotsky organized the Red Army and gave speeches and everyone in Russia thought he would win power over Stalin. After Lenin's death Trotsky lost all his power to Stalin and was expelled from the communist party. George Orwell has created a masterpiece which is excellent if it is read without any prior knowledge to the situation in Russia. However the added element does wonders for this novel. Orwell is a genius and he has cleverly hidden the satire in such an excellent way, that everything fits into the picture like a jigsaw puzzle. I give this book five stars. This rating is given for many reasons. It is a very easy read and quite enjoyable to many levels of education.
George Orwell's goal in writing the novel Animal Farm was to portray the events surrounding the Russian revolution that took place in 1917. Orwell's tale of Animal Farm is seemingly a story of how a group of farmyard animals plot to overthrow their owner and seize control of the land. The novel seems to be a simple story, however Orwell wrote this book as an allegory, a story that has a clear secondary meaning beneath is literal sense. Everything in Animal Farm is used to represent people and events that took place during the Russian revolution from 1917-1939. Orwell chose to represent Russia's three famous leaders during this time with three pigs. Each three are drastically different and have dissimilar beliefs. Snowball representing Leon Trotsky, Napoleon by Josef Stalin and Old Major by Karl Marx. Orwell wrote this and many other books as warnings. The warning is that people must change their ways, or we are most surely doomed.
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Old Major, who is a respected animal on the farm, had given a speech to stir the animals emotion into rebellion. He used his power of respect and trust to persuade the others to pursue the vision in his dream. “Old Major was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say” (Orwell 15). Old Major’s dream was for the earth to be ruled by animals. Old Major strongly believed that animals have only one adversary. “Man is the only real enemy we have” (19). His oration inspired and energized the listeners. “At this moment there was a tremendous uproar” (21). Old Major had all the power and history has proven that dictatorship does not work, due to the fact that, power leads to corruption in a communism style government. The power Old Major held led his friends into taking action in what he desired to do, which led to rebellion and future tragedies. Power corrupted society and absolute power that is eventually obtained becomes corrupt within. (Lord Acton).
In Animal Farm, the pigs relate and connect to Joseph Stalin and the Russian Revolution because they both had power and gained leadership through agitprop technics (Stults). “How easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people.” -George Orwell. This famous piece of literature, Animal Farm, was written by George Orwell himself around 1917 to 1945 after WWII because peasant farmers wanted to have a better life in general. In the book, Napoleon shortly becomes the leader after the rebellion. Just as Stalin had done, Napoleon used military force onto the animals and intimidates them. Snowball represents Trotsky because he is a forward-thinking politician that wants to improve and help out with the windmill, but is chased out by vicious dogs Napoleon sends before he can do so. Like Stalin, the pigs build up and gain their power by manipulating the animals with propaganda techniques.
George Orwell’s foremost objective when composing Animal Farm was to depict the Russian Revolution of 1917 as an affair that produced a government more repressive, totalitarian and lethal than the one it replaced. Various components of the text including the setting, characters and plot were created intentionally to parallel key figures and events surrounding the communist territory of Russia during the revolution. Manor Farm – where the plot unfolds – is based on the country of Russia. The character of Mr Jones is a replica of Tsar Nicholas II, the final Russian emperor. Throughout Nicholas’ rule, the Russian people were faced with horrendous poverty and turmoil, just like the animals in Orwell’s novel lead lives of starvation and desire, as revealed when the creatures rebel against Mr Jones due to the fact that he hadn’t fed them in days (page 12)...
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Old Major, the creator of animalism, represents both the original revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin, and the founder of communism, Karl Marx. Like these Russians, Old Major wants all individuals to be equal. Old Major is symbolic of Marx because, like Marx, he has a dream about the revolution. He says, "'That is my message for you, comrades: Rebellion! And among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship, in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades'" (Orwell 4). Also, neither of the two live to see the revolution put into effect ("Animal" 1). Old Major is also symbolic of Lenin because while he introduces the idea of a revolution, Lenin introduces the New Economy Plan to Russia (Urban 1).
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One of the main characters of Animal Farm is an allegorical parallel of Joseph Stalin. Napoleon is the pig that emerges as the leader of Animal Farm after the Rebellion. He represents the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Animal Farm, but can easily stand for any of the great dictators in world history. Napoleon seems at first to be a good leader, but he is eventually overcome by greed and becomes power-hungry. Stalin was the same in Russia, leaving the original equality of socialism behind, giving himself all the power and living in luxury while the peasants suffered. While Stalin’s national and international status flourished, the welfare of Russia remained unchanged. In Animal Farm, Orwell writes a similar thing: “Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves richer – except of course the pigs and the dogs.” In the novel, Napoleon openly seizes power for himself by using the dogs he trained to chase Snowball off Animal Farm. He banishes Snowball with no justification and rewrites history in order to further his own ends. Similarly, Stalin forced Trotsky from Russia and seized control of Russia. Stalin used his secret police ...
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