Animal Farm | Summary & Analysis | George Orwell

Animal Farm is a simple, plainly written tale of animals rising up to take control of their own destiny and run the farm they work for, providing for one another and living off a central doctrine of rules. It's an allegory for not just the Soviet Union and its slave light insidious transformation from Communism's high ideals of equality into totalitarian rule by a single dictator and his chief propagandist, but also for the challenges of self governance and the perils of government people face all around the world. To understand the nature of Animal Farm, let's first look at George Orwell, the author. Orwell is the pen name for Eric Arthur Blair, born June 25, 1903 to British parents in in India. He served with the Imperial Indian Police in Burma. He fought in the Spanish Civil War and was a World War II correspondent for the BBC. His firsthand experiences of class struggles and inequalities of everyday life in England informed the writing of Animal Farm. Now, the structure of Animal Farm parallels the Russian Revolution, its satire using animals and their names and actions as embellished, heightened versions of reality. At the very beginning, Old Major, an idealistic boar, introduces ideas he's envisioned about animal rebellion and self rule. Teaching the other animals the song beasts of England and helping to establish a sense of camaraderie. The animals rebel against their drunken, neglectful farmer, Mr. Jones, and take over his farm. At the Battle of Cowshen, the animals defend their farm from humans for the first time. Pigs Snowball and Napoleon, the main characters of Animal Farm, compete for leadership. Napoleon ends up expelling Snowball using a combination of propaganda expertly delivered by Squealer, his mouthpiece, and poorly educating the other animals, slowly eroding Snowball's legacy, turning him from real brave hero to imaginary scapegoat villain. Napoleon imposes his will on the other animals, making them work harder and harder to for less and less, while he and his close circle of pigs live more and more extravagantly and increasingly detached from the community. He orders the construction of a windmill, which had been Snowball's idea he had once fiercely opposed. Napoleon oversees collusion with humans, the animals sworn enemies for supplies. The animals defend their farm against a farmer, Frederick, and his attack. But their windmill is destroyed in the process. Boxer, the noble idealist workhorse solely responsible for much of the farm's success, is sent away to slaughter and the animals are lied to about what happened to him. By the end of Animal Farm, time has passed and the original guiding document the animals lived by has been modified to a single commandment. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. Pigs walk on two legs and are the only animals educated. Animal Farm's ending is a party scene. The other animals on the farm observe from the outside where pigs and humans gather together to toast their exploitation of the other working creatures on the farm. The animals looking in through the windows can no longer tell humans apart from pigs. Animal Farm is rife with important symbols. The animals names are representative of their actions or power positions. Things like milk and apples, the windmill and even Old Major's skull represent respectively riches and material wealth, labor and the history of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin's body was put on display after his death. So too was Old Major Scull, canonized as the founding idealist leader of the revolution. Mr. Jones rifle is a symbolic trophy representing the animals victory over their former masters, the humans. There are a number of important themes in Animal Farm and they all have political connections. First, there's corruption. We see how the inches Napoleon and his inner circle take when it comes to control and power end up becoming miles leading the animals far astray from their original ideas of of communist utopia. Then there's exploitation. Throughout Animal Farm we see how the working class is exploited by ruling elites to provide for their aristocratic needs. The hard working lower classes serve the deceptive upper ones. In fact, deception is its own theme. And we see how Napoleon and Squealer banned history to better suit their needs. Suppressing education while fear mongering creates a culture of deception that allows for the rise of a dictator. On the other hand, the theme of idealism is an important one too. Especially at the beginning. Dreams of equality and legends of animal bravery set the stage for a revolution underscored by good intentions. Lastly, there's apathy, an important theme for understanding how dictatorships take place. Without action to back it up, education is essentially useless. We especially see this in Benjamin the Donkey whose cynical attitude and insistence that nothing ever changes becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of doom. A complacent population is ripe for the picking by controlling dictators bent on power and control. Animal Farm remains a legendary book that achieves many purposes. It's a study of the Soviet Union and the Russian Revolution and an allegory for self rule and how governments are structured. On top of it all, it's a cautionary tale for the perils of power itself.