Ways of Viewing "Animal Farm": Historical Allegory, Fable, and Suspension of Disbelief

Animal farm tells the story of a group of animals rebelling successfully against the previous owner, Mr Jones, who was considered to be a tyrant of animal/manor farm.

The farm was planned to be communist place but because of most of the animals gullibility and unintelligence the pigs who where smarter took control and made a hierarchy and exploited the animals. Then eventually the pigs became more like humans doing things like walking on two legs and wearing cloths. However would animal farm be more interesting as a historical allegory of a simple fable?

For this story to work the writer, George Orwell, asks us to suspend our beliefs and imagine that animals can talk, have and show human characteristics and emotions. Also we are told to believe that animals can build machines such as the windmill and plan it out.

It can be argued that Animal Farm would be more interesting as a fable which is a story with a moral where the main characters are often animals. Commonly in fables the characters are usually animals like the Tortoise and the Hair which is a fable also like it Animal Farm has a moral teaching to people that power corrupts. As a fable with a moral Animal Farm would be interesting to younger kids because of the moral and it uses animals so kids can relate to it in different situations in the book and adults can remember it. As well as this Fables also represent human characteristics clearly though the animal’s characters like a sly fox or a sheep being stupid just like the sheep in Animal Farm. These would all be more interesting than an allegory and comparing it to a historical event from the past and making Animal Farm into a symbolic story.

However Animal Farm as a historical allegory is more interesting as a ...

... middle of paper ...

...uld do in the animal’s situation.

When writing Animal Farm I think George Orwell’s intensions were to write a book containing crosses between a fable and a historical allegory when writing the plot according to the Russian Revolution events. Due to his use of language Orwell wanted the reader to feel different emotions at different points in the book like animals dying, Napoleons take over of the farm, Squealers speeches and the battles in Animal Farm, Battle of the Cowshed and the Battle of the Windmill. I think Orwell wanted to say more Mr Jones after the rebellion, Benjamin’s thoughts, Napoleons thought later on in the book and snowball after expulsion. Furthermore I think Orwell wanted to be more open about what his thoughts were about the different animals and how Orwell thought they would behave and express them more in the book and give more detail.