Frederic Warburg also faced pressures against publication, even from people in his own office and from his wife Pamela, who felt that it george orwell animal farm essay not the moment for ingratitude towards Stalin and the heroic Red Armygeorge orwell animal farm essay, [55] which had played a major part in defeating Adolf Hitler. This is an indication that for a revolution to occur in the society, some people have to suffer. He also had secret police whose work was to assassinate his opponent as well as protecting him from any danger. Stalin was shrewd, once Lenin died in he ganged up with his supporters and Trotsky had fled from Russia. Eloquent to a fault, he can make the animals believe almost anything.
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How do the pigs maintain their authority on Animal Farm? From the Rebellion onward, the pigs of Animal Farm use violence and the threat of violence to control the other animals. On Animal Farm, it quickly becomes clear that language and rhetoric can be much more effective tools of social control than violence. The pigs rely on slogans, poems, and commandments to both inspire the animals and keep them subservient. Crucially, the george orwell animal farm essay understand that their songs and sayings must be easy to memorize and repeat if the other animals are to internalize their precepts.
In george orwell animal farm essay to the songs, slogans, poems, and commandments, Napoleon and the pigs also rewrite the oral and written histories of the farm in order to serve their needs and maintain their authority, george orwell animal farm essay. When Napoleon violently seizes power, he quickly justifies his takeover by falsely denouncing his former ally and fellow revolutionary, Snowball, as a human-sympathizer and enemy of Animalism. Despite the fact that many of the animals remember Snowball receiving a medal for his bravery in the Battle of the Cowshed, Squealer convinces them that Snowball had actually fought alongside Mr.
Jones against the animals. Loyal Boxer, who has trouble believing the official tale, is convinced otherwise when Squealer tells him that Napoleon knows it to be true. Orwell argues, however, that language can be used just as effectively for more sinister purposes, as a device of social manipulation and control, and that such rhetoric is often far more powerful than state-sanctioned violence or the threat of physical force. Ace your assignments with our guide to Animal Farm! Search all of SparkNotes Search Suggestions Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.
No Fear Literature Translations Literature Study Guides Glossary of Literary Terms How to Write Literary Analysis. Biography Biology Chemistry Computer Science Drama Economics Film Health History Math Philosophy Physics Poetry Psychology Short Stories Sociology US Government and Politics. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook, george orwell animal farm essay. Character List Napoleon Snowball Boxer Squealer Old Major Mr. Pilkington Benjamin. Themes Motifs Symbols Protagonist Antagonist Setting Genre Allusions Style Point of View Tone Foreshadowing Metaphors and Similes.
Why is Animal Farm an allegory? What is Animalism? How does Napoleon george orwell animal farm essay power? What does Boxer represent? How does Mr. Frederick trick Napoleon? Why does Mollie leave Animal Farm? Why does Snowball want to build a windmill? Why do the animals confess to being traitors? Why does Napoleon blame Snowball for everything that goes wrong on the farm? How is the windmill destroyed? Why does Napoleon change the Seven Commandments? How does Squealer manipulate the animals so the pigs can better control them?
Important Quotes Explained By Symbol Animal Farm The Barn The Windmill By Setting The Farm. Book Full Book Quiz Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 More Character List Analysis of Major Characters Themes, Motifs, and Symbols. Suggestions for Further Reading Related Links Movie Adaptations George Orwell and Animal Farm Background. Please wait while we process your payment. Unlock your FREE SparkNotes Plus Trial! Unlock your FREE Trial! Sign up and get instant access to save the page as your favorite. Previous section Mini Essays Next section Suggested Essay Topics.
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In Russia there were power struggles between Stalin and Trotsky. These were the chief allies of Lenin who was the leader of Russia at that time. Stalin was shrewd, once Lenin died in he ganged up with his supporters and Trotsky had fled from Russia. He held public executions of the people who supported his competitors. All the land was owned by the Jones who controlled the economy. The animals were given anthems and rules such as all animals are equal but there are animals which are more equal than others. The book shows the way it is human nature for people to create classes in the society which leads to oppression of the poor. The pigs and the dogs are corrupted by power. The working class are naive, uneducated and gullible and do not question the intentions of the government.
In the book Orwell shows the way totalitarian governments use terror and violence to control the people. Jones overworks the animals and even takes their food. He beats them up and slaughters them. The pigs and dogs like their master do not hesitate to use this cruel tool of control. Jones exploits the animals for the physical labour. He also exploits the pigs and dogs though they are not aware. He uses them to scare the animals to do his bidding. Orwell through the book predicted that communism would not last long and would fail economically to achieve social equality. At the end of animal farm the pigs have become the new oppressors. There is no liberation for the animals. Stalin became the new dictator in Russia just like the dictatorial king the poor had rebelled against.
The predictions are true since in the communist nations the economy has not done well at all. In the end Europe and America fought with the Communist nations showing that a government-controlled economy was not the way. Time magazine chose Animal Farm as one of the best English-language novels to ; [11] it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels. Popular reading in schools, Animal Farm was ranked the UK's favourite book from school in a poll. Animal Farm has also faced an array of challenges in school settings around the US. Animal Farm has also faced similar forms of resistance in other countries. In the same manner, Animal Farm has also faced relatively recent issues in China.
In , the government made the decision to censor all online posts about or referring to Animal Farm. Amy Hawkins and Jeffrey Wasserstrom of The Atlantic stated in that the book is widely available in Mainland China for several reasons: the general public by and large no longer reads books, because the elites who do read books feel connected to the ruling party anyway, and because the Communist Party sees being too aggressive in blocking cultural products as a liability. The authors stated "It was—and remains—as easy to buy and Animal Farm in Shenzhen or Shanghai as it is in London or Los Angeles. The pigs Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into "a complete system of thought", which they formally name Animalism, an allegoric reference to Communism , not to be confused with the philosophy Animalism.
Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer partake in activities associated with the humans drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading , which were explicitly prohibited by the Seven Commandments. Squealer is employed to alter the Seven Commandments to account for this humanisation, an allusion to the Soviet government's revising of history in order to exercise control of the people's beliefs about themselves and their society. These commandments are also distilled into the maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad! Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear themselves of accusations of law-breaking. The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded:. Eventually, these are replaced with the maxims, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and "Four legs good, two legs better" as the pigs become more human.
This is an ironic twist to the original purpose of the Seven Commandments, which were supposed to keep order within Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans and preventing animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda. Orwell biographer Jeffrey Meyers has written, "virtually every detail has political significance in this allegory. On my return from Spain [in ] I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages.
The revolt of the animals against Farmer Jones is Orwell's analogy with the October Bolshevik Revolution. The Battle of the Cowshed has been said to represent the allied invasion of Soviet Russia in , [26] and the defeat of the White Russians in the Russian Civil War. The puppies controlled by Napoleon parallel the nurture of the secret police in the Stalinist structure, and the pigs' treatment of the other animals on the farm recalls the internal terror faced by the populace in the s. These contributed to Orwell's conviction that the Bolshevik revolution had been corrupted and the Soviet system become rotten.
Peter Edgerly Firchow and Peter Davison contend that the Battle of the Windmill , specifically referencing the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Moscow , represents World War II. Orwell had the publisher alter this to "All the animals except Napoleon" in recognition of Stalin's decision to remain in Moscow during the German advance. Czapski, a survivor of the Katyn Massacre and an opponent of the Soviet regime, told Orwell, as Orwell wrote to Arthur Koestler , that it had been "the character [and] greatness of Stalin" that saved Russia from the German invasion. Other connections that writers have suggested illustrate Orwell's telescoping of Russian history from to [78] [g] include the wave of rebelliousness that ran through the countryside after the Rebellion, which stands for the abortive revolutions in Hungary and in Germany Ch IV ; the conflict between Napoleon and Snowball Ch V , parallelling "the two rival and quasi-Messianic beliefs that seemed pitted against one another: Trotskyism , with its faith in the revolutionary vocation of the proletariat of the West; and Stalinism with its glorification of Russia's socialist destiny "; [79] Napoleon's dealings with Whymper and the Willingdon markets Ch VI , paralleling the Treaty of Rapallo ; and Frederick's forged bank notes, parallelling the Hitler-Stalin pact of August , after which Frederick attacks Animal Farm without warning and destroys the windmill.
The book's close, with the pigs and men in a kind of rapprochement , reflected Orwell's view of the Tehran Conference [h] that seemed to display the establishment of "the best possible relations between the USSR and the West" — but in reality were destined, as Orwell presciently predicted, to continue to unravel. Similarly, the music in the novel, starting with "Beasts of England" and the later anthems, parallels " The Internationale " and its adoption and repudiation by the Soviet authorities as the anthem of the USSR in the s and s. In , the National Youth Theatre toured a stage version of Animal Farm. A solo version, adapted and performed by Guy Masterson , premièred at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in January and has toured worldwide since.
A theatrical version, with music by Richard Peaslee and lyrics by Adrian Mitchell , was staged at the National Theatre London on 25 April , directed by Peter Hall. It toured nine cities in Animal Farm has been adapted to film twice. Both differ from the novel and have been accused of taking significant liberties, including sanitising some aspects. Andy Serkis is directing a film adaptation for Netflix , with Matt Reeves producing. A BBC radio version, produced by Rayner Heppenstall , was broadcast in January Orwell listened to the production at his home in Canonbury Square, London, with Hugh Gordon Porteous , amongst others. Orwell later wrote to Heppenstall that Porteous, "who had not read the book, grasped what was happening after a few minutes. A further radio production, again using Orwell's own dramatisation of the book, was broadcast in January on BBC Radio 4.
Tamsin Greig narrated, and the cast included Nicky Henson as Napoleon, Toby Jones as the propagandist Squealer, and Ralph Ineson as Boxer. In , Norman Pett and his writing partner Don Freeman were secretly hired by the Information Research Department IRD , a secret wing of the British Foreign Office , to adapt Animal Farm into a comic strip. This comic was not published in the U. but ran in Brazilian and Burmese newspapers. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the novel by George Orwell. For other uses, see Animal Farm disambiguation. Dewey Decimal. For the Noahide code, see Seven Laws of Noah. to say, there is no Lenin at all. April Films on Demand. Retrieved 7 December doi : ISSN S2CID Financial Times. Spazio personale di mario aperto a tutti 24 ore su.
Retrieved 26 November Literary Cavalcade. ProQuest Signet Classic. Retrieved 6 March The Spectator. Archived from the original on 26 August Retrieved 19 October Literature Stack Exchange. The Independent. Retrieved 15 December Banned Library. The Day. Retrieved 21 February The Atlantic. Retrieved 15 August The Policy Times. Retrieved 23 September Retrieved 23 June Retrieved 5 March Black Acre". Retrieved 18 October Retrieved 16 August The Hugo Awards. Retrieved 23 February History Today. Archived from the original on 8 November Theatre Tours International Archived copy ed. Archived from the original on 30 June Retrieved 2 February Bloom, Harold Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations: Animal Farm — New Edition 1st ed.
Infobase Publishing. ISBN Archived from the original on 22 November Retrieved 13 May The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 July Retrieved 17 July Bowker, Gordon George Orwell. Little, Brown Book Group. Bynum, Helen Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis. Oxford University Press. Carr, Craig L. Orwell, Politics, and Power. Continuum International Publishing Group. Retrieved 9 June Chilton, Martin 21 January The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 26 October Retrieved 27 October Crick, Bernard George Orwell: A Life. Sutherland House Publishing. Davison, P. Prohibition of Idolatry 2. Prohibition of Murder 3. Prohibition of Theft 4. Prohibition of Sexual immorality 5. Prohibition of Blasphemy 6. Prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive 7.
Establishment of courts of law. Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer indulge in the vices of humans drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading. The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded:. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda. Old Major — An aged prize Middle White boar provides the inspiration that fuels the Rebellion in the book. He is an allegory of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, the founders of communism, in that he draws up the principles of the revolution. His skull being put on revered public display also recalls Lenin, whose embalmed body was put on display.
In the first French version of Animal Farm, Napoleon is called César, the French form of Caesar,[3] although another translation has him as Napoléon. He is mainly based on Leon Trotsky,[8] but also combines elements from Vladimir Lenin. The Piglets — Hinted to be the children of Napoleon albeit not explicitly stated and are the first generation of animals actually subjugated to his idea of animal inequality. Mr Jones — The former owner of the farm, Jones is a very heavy drinker. The animals revolt against him after he drinks so much that he does not feed or take care of them.
Mr Pilkington — The easy-going but crafty owner of Foxwood, a neighbouring farm overgrown with weeds, represents Britain. Mr Whymper — A man hired by Napoleon for the public relations of Animal Farm to human society, who is eventually used to procure luxuries like alcohol for the pigs. Boxer — Boxer is a loyal, kind, dedicated, and respectable horse, although quite dim-witted. Mollie — Mollie is a self-centred, self-indulgent and vain young white mare who quickly leaves for another farm after the revolution. Benjamin — Benjamin, a donkey, is one of the oldest animals. He has the worst temper, but is also one of the wisest animals on the farm, and is one of the few who can actually read.
Muriel — A wise old goat who is friends with all of the animals on the farm. She, like Benjamin and Snowball, is one of the few animals on the farm who can read. The Puppies — Offspring of Jessie and Bluebell, taken away from them by Napoleon at birth and reared by Napoleon to be his security force. Moses — An old raven who occasionally visits the farm, regaling its denizens with tales of a wondrous place beyond the clouds called Sugarcandy Mountain, where he avers that all animals go when they die—but only if they work hard. He is interpreted as symbolising the Russian Orthodox Church, with Sugarcandy Mountain an allusion to Heaven for the animals. The Hens — The hens are among the first to rebel against Napoleon.
Coccidiosis: a parasitic infection that causes bloody diarrhea and sudden death in animals. Communism: a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state; in practice, communism is often a totalitarian system of government. Comrade: a fellow member of a political party; a member of the Communist party. Proletariat: in Marxism, the class of workers, especially industrial wage earners, who do not possess capital or property and must sell their labor to survive. Propaganda: information, ideas, or rumors disseminated to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, or other entity.
Regime: a mode or system of rule or government; such a system when in power. Socialism: a theory or system of social organization that advocates vesting the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, and other assets in the community as a whole. Totalitarianism: absolute control by the state or a governing branch of a highly centralized institution. Animal Farm is a satire of totalitarian governments in their many guises. But Orwell composed the book for a more specific purpose: to serve as a cautionary tale about Stalinism. It was for this reason that he faced such difficulty in getting the book published; by the time Animal Farm was ready to meet its readers, the Allies were cooperating with the Soviet Union.
The allegorical characters of the novel represent specific historical figures and different factions of Imperial Russian and Soviet society. These include Karl Marx Major , Vladimir Lenin Major , Leon Trotsky Snowball , Joseph Stalin Napoleon , Adolf Hitler Frederick , the Allies Pilkington , the peasants Boxer , the elite Mollie , and the church Moses. The following Battle of the Windmill represents World War II itself. Despite his fairy-tale clarity in satirizing some historical events, Orwell is less specific about others. For example, the executions in Chapter VII conflate the Red Terror with the Great Purge. The executions themselves bear resemblance to both events, although their details connect them more to the Moscow Trials than to the Red Terror.
Orwell leaves some ambiguity in the identities of the Rebellion and the Battle of the Cowshed. These ambiguities help the reader focus on the overall satire of Stalinism and the broader warning about the evils of totalitarian government. Orwell held the pessimistic belief that totalitarianism was inevitable, even in the West. This cynicism is reflected in both of his highly successful novels, Animal Farm and Orwell emphasizes the insidiousness of totalitarianism early in the novel, when the pigs take the fresh milk and apples. The pigs justify their actions on the basis of their superiority; they are smart and need more nutrition than the other animals to fuel their brainpower.
In this way, Orwell makes the point that totalitarianism need not be blatant in order to be operating. Over the course of the novel, Napoleon essentially becomes Jones just as Stalin becomes an autocrat after pretending to espouse equality and freedom. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. After all, even if another Rebellion were to take place, its leaders would eventually come to emulate Napoleon. Most notably, even when the windmill is finished it is used for milling corn instead of its original purpose of supplying the animals with electricity in their stalls. At first, the pigs are loyal to their fellow animals and to the revolutionary cause.
The moment the pigs are faced with something material that they want—the fresh milk—they abandon their morals and use their superior intellect and knowledge to deceive the other animals. Indeed, most of the animals never learn more than a few letters of the alphabet. Once the pigs cement their status as the educated elite, they use their mental advantage to manipulate the other animals. For example, knowing that the other animals cannot read the Seven Commandments, they revise them whenever they like. The pigs also use their literacy to learn trades from manuals, giving them an opportunity for economic specialization and advancement.
Content in the role of the intelligentsia, the pigs forgo manual labor in favor of bookkeeping and organizing. This shows that the pigs have not only the advantage of opportunity, but also the opportunity to reject whatever opportunities they like. Working as a propagandist during World War II, Orwell experienced firsthand both the immense power and the dishonesty of propaganda.
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