Animal Farm Essay

Orwell was born Eric Hugh Blair in 1903 to Richard and Mabel Blair in Motihari, Bengal. Orwell had two sisters but was never able to grow close to them as a result of his distant travels. About eight years later Orwell was shipped to England where he would begin what would become a rather promising foundation to his education. Orwell graduated from Eton at age eighteen only to be sent back to India as he acquired the job of an Imperial Police Officer. Following his five years of service Orwell moved to London by free will where he truly absorbed the world of the unequally impoverished. Grasping these sights would soon spark something in Orwell as they helped lay the foundation for his two well-known political satires “Animal Farm”, and “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. Not only bound to books, Orwell wrote an intricate essay “Politics and the English Language” depicting how manipulation can result from vague writing as he continued to branch out from his primal ideas. At the age of forty-seven unfortunately, Orwell pasted away due to an artery bursting in his lung. Luckily, his works are here to continue to entertain as well as enlighten readers. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell is a novel based on the lives of animals living on the Manor Farm. Even though the title of the book suggests the book is simply about animals, the story is a much more in depth re-creation of the workings of society in Communist Russia. The animals in the book show identical characteristics to those that were a part of the Russian Revolution. The animals of Manor Farm are unhappy, in fact, growing angry. Jones the farmer is not only a drunk, but also a terrible farmer. Led by the pigs, which are the “brain workers”, a successful revolution is carried out. They plan a future for the good of all animals, as they hope for a better life. They operate the farm themselves as they struggle through the hard times and battle to retake the farm. Later on there are political struggles between the pigs who can’t agree who should be leader as they are filling up with greed. With greed there is always downfall. The pigs seem to be changing the rules to suit themselves while having ways of frightening those who speak out, similar to that of the Russian KGB. The one pig that really had a good heart (Leon Trotsky) is run out by the power hungry pig (Stalin). The plan turns into a nightmare, as living conditions for the animals fall even worse than before. In the end the provisions from the start are broken as pig befriends man and man befriends pig turning the sole purpose of animalism into something completely different. Disturbingly, it was “impossible to say which was which”, as the differences of both pig and man were no longer present. Animal Farm’s purpose is to shed light on the Russian Revolution by sizing down the different parties and armies to a sense where their interactions are more understandable. The characters in the story are given extremely similar characteristics to those that actually took part in the Russian Revolution. The satire in Animal Farm is not direct, but allegorical because the human beings are disguised as animals. The actual “human” beings in this story symbolize the capitalist class of society, while the animals represent Communists. The Rebellion against Mr. Jones is most likely a historical portrayal of the Russian Revolution, while the sign of the hoof and horn on the flag adopted by the animals is the hammer and sickle on the Russian flag. Orwell’s “Animal Farm” can be enlightening to readers on the subject of the Russian Revolution and its ties, as it’s basically a re-enactment. This book does have great significance as it helps the average person look past the face of communism and into the horrors that it created. Orwell’s book completely covers the topic, but only

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Animal Farm

Animal Farm

Animal Farm