Summary And Allegory In George Orwell's Animal Farm

Animal farm is an Orwell’s masterpiece that is usually studied in school. It’s a very simple book to read even if all the allegories are not understood but the main plot will stay in your head. Also for such a good book it is surprisingly short and considered a fast read. It’s basically the historical analysis of why communism and the Russian Revolution failed.

"Animal Farm" tells the very simple and very tragic story of what happens when the neglected lesser animals protest, drive out Mr. Jones, and try to rule the farm themselves, on an equal form. They are aiming to get a perfect utopian communistic life, where every animal would work according to his abilities, respecting the needs of others and sharing with others. The attempt was unfortunately unsuccessful, and "Animal Farm"(Manor farm once again in the end) ended up being a dictatorship ruled by pigs, who were the brightest, and laziest of all the animals. Orwell describes how power turned the pigs from "comrades" to ruthless dictators who managed to walk on two legs, and carry whips. The book ends with a big warning to all humankind. All the animals outside the house looked from the pigs to the humans and again from the humans to the pigs, but already it was impossible to differentiate the two.

The book successfully shows how propaganda and brainwashing is used in totalitarian regimes by showing the way the “lesser animals” believe in everything they hear from the almighty pigs. In the book Squealer (who is the main brainwasher), is known to be a pig that "could turn black into white". This was the media’s job in Stalin’s time. He even managed to change the rule from "all animals are equal" to" all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others". Then when ...

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...e beginning, even though it began in a great optimism as shown by their "Seven Commandments" which ensure equality and prosperity for all the animals. The greedy pigs, however, being the natural leaders and cheaters, managed to change all the commandments, and through implanting terror and using propaganda establish the rule of an elite pig society, under the leadership of Napoleon, the most scary, fat and sinister pig.

I personally really enjoyed it for the good plot and the way corruption evolved throughout the whole book.

As just a mere fairy-tale it tells a good story that aims to show that human nature prevents people from being equal and happy, or at least equally happy because someone is always more.

The moral of Animal Farm is from a famous quote by Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.

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