Behind the Text
George Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a modern classic based on the Russian Revolution, following the Second World War, as he experienced it. The novel expresses his political views of the revolution. George Orwell experienced Joseph Stalin’s regime, to establish a Socialist society. Lenine's and Stalin's goals appeared to be to help employ the poor, but they truly intended to remove capitalism in exchange for a socialist society. The character Old Major who initiates the animals’ rebellion against their human owners symbolizes Vladimir Lenin’s role in establishing the socialist society. Just like Napoleon and Snowball’s fight for power over Animal Farm after Old Major’s death, Leon Trotsky was passed down the power by Lenin, but the scheming Stalin stole the role as leader of the party. Another connection is that throughout the novel, the animals work diligently on completing their windmill to produce electricity on the farm. This project symbolizes Lenin's long-term dream of modernization using electric power. Snowball originally had the idea of putting Old Major's dream of building the windmill, while Napoleon greatly discouraged the idea. When Napoleon was able to embarrass and remove Snowball from the farm, he decided to build the windmill, after all. This exact same situation occurred between Stalin and Trotsky in making Lenine's dream a reality.
As soon as Stalin gained control, he purposed a Five Year Plan to help the people living in Russia, similar to how the pigs purposed better ways of life prior to the revolution to encourage the other animals to stay loyal to Animal Farm. Even when it appeared that there was a food shortage of the farm, the leader Napoleon would make the situation not seem like a big dilemma. From the readers point of view, comments like this make absolutely no sense and we question why the majority of the animals did not catch onto the pigs' plan of gaining power and wealth for themselves. Instead the cart-horse named Boxer would then pronounce, "Napoleon is always right," as one of his famous mottoes.
George Orwell received the idea for his novel, based around the journey of a hardworking horse named Boxer, when he saw a young boy dragging his large horse across a narrow path and being continuously whipped it by his owner. If only the boy could comprehend the horse's strength, George Orwell understood, the boy would not have treated his horse so savagely.
Even though Animal Farm was directly written as a metaphor to the Russian Revolution, the novel can be connected to any prejudice and manipulation of any kind. When Old Major introduced the Beast of England, a song about animals taking power away from the devilish humans, during his original speech about creating a land owned by animals, I was reminded of the songs Adolf Hitler and the Nazis taught children to spread their concepts. Like the Nazi Youth, the animals loved the song so much and sang it on a regular basis until the pigs eventually banned the song.
As soon as Stalin gained control, he purposed a Five Year Plan to help the people living in Russia, similar to how the pigs purposed better ways of life prior to the revolution to encourage the other animals to stay loyal to Animal Farm. Even when it appeared that there was a food shortage of the farm, the leader Napoleon would make the situation not seem like a big dilemma. From the readers point of view, comments like this make absolutely no sense and we question why the majority of the animals did not catch onto the pigs' plan of gaining power and wealth for themselves. Instead the cart-horse named Boxer would then pronounce, "Napoleon is always right," as one of his famous mottoes.
George Orwell received the idea for his novel, based around the journey of a hardworking horse named Boxer, when he saw a young boy dragging his large horse across a narrow path and being continuously whipped it by his owner. If only the boy could comprehend the horse's strength, George Orwell understood, the boy would not have treated his horse so savagely.
Even though Animal Farm was directly written as a metaphor to the Russian Revolution, the novel can be connected to any prejudice and manipulation of any kind. When Old Major introduced the Beast of England, a song about animals taking power away from the devilish humans, during his original speech about creating a land owned by animals, I was reminded of the songs Adolf Hitler and the Nazis taught children to spread their concepts. Like the Nazi Youth, the animals loved the song so much and sang it on a regular basis until the pigs eventually banned the song.