essay animal farm george orwell

A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s Animal Farm

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Animal Farm is, after Nineteen Eighty-Four , George Orwell’s most famous book. Published in 1945, the novella (at under 100 pages, it’s too short to be called a full-blown ‘novel’) tells the story of how a group of animals on a farm overthrow the farmer who puts them to work, and set up an equal society where all animals work and share the fruits of their labours.

However, as time goes on, it becomes clear that the society the animals have constructed is not equal at all. It’s well-known that the novella is an allegory for Communist Russia under Josef Stalin, who was leader of the Soviet Union when Orwell wrote the book. Before we dig deeper into the context and meaning of Animal Farm with some words of analysis, it might be worth refreshing our memories with a brief summary of the novella’s plot.

Animal Farm: plot summary

The novella opens with an old pig, named Major, addressing his fellow animals on Manor Farm. Major criticises Mr Jones, the farmer who owns Manor Farm, because he controls the animals, takes their produce (the hens’ eggs, the cows’ milk), but gives them little in return. Major tells the other animals that man, who walks on two feet unlike the animals who walk on four, is their enemy.

They sing a rousing song in favour of animals, ‘Beasts of England’. Old Major dies a few days later, but the other animals have been inspired by his message.

Two pigs in particular, Snowball and Napoleon, rouse the other animals to take action against Mr Jones and seize the farm for themselves. They draw up seven commandments which all animals should abide by: among other things, these commandments forbid an animal to kill another animal, and include the mantra ‘four legs good, two legs bad’, because animals (who walk on four legs) are their friends while their two-legged human overlords are evil. (We have analysed this famous slogan here .)

The animals lead a rebellion against Mr Jones, whom they drive from the farm. They rename Manor Farm ‘Animal Farm’, and set about running things themselves, along the lines laid out in their seven commandments, where every animal is equal. But before long, it becomes clear that the pigs – especially Napoleon and Snowball – consider themselves special, requiring special treatment, as the leaders of the animals.

Nevertheless, when Mr Jones and some of the other farmers lead a raid to try to reclaim the farm, the animals work together to defend the farm and see off the men. A young farmhand is knocked unconscious, and initially feared dead.

Things begin to fall apart: Napoleon’s windmill, which he has instructed the animals to build, is vandalised and he accuses Snowball of sabotaging it. Snowball is banished from the farm. During winter, many of the animals are on the brink of starvation.

Napoleon engineers it so that when Mr Whymper, a man from a neighbouring farm with whom the pigs have started to trade (so the animals can acquire the materials they need to build the windmill), visits the farm, he overhears the animals giving a positive account of life on Animal Farm.

Without consulting the hens first, Napoleon organises a deal with Mr Whymper which involves giving him many of the hens’ eggs. They rebel against him, but he starves them into submission, although not before nine hens have died. Napoleon then announces that Snowball has been visiting the farm at night and destroying things.

Napoleon also claims that Snowball has been in league with Mr Jones all the time, and that even at the Battle of the Cowshed (as the animals are now referring to the farmers’ unsuccessful raid on the farm) Snowball was trying to sabotage the fight so that Jones won.

The animals are sceptical about this, because they all saw Snowball bravely fighting alongside them. Napoleon declares he has discovered ‘secret documents’ which prove Snowball was in league with their enemy.

Life on Animal Farm becomes harder for the animals, and Boxer, while labouring hard to complete the windmill, falls and injures his lung. The pigs arrange for him to be taken away and treated, but when the van arrives and takes him away, they realise too late that the van belongs to a man who slaughters horses, and that Napoleon has arranged for Boxer to be taken away to the knacker’s yard and killed.

Squealer lies to the animals, though, and when he announces Boxer’s death two days later, he pretends that the van had been bought by a veterinary surgeon who hadn’t yet painted over the old sign on the side of the van. The pigs take to wearing green ribbons and order in another crate of whisky for them to drink; they don’t share this with the other animals.

A few years pass, and some of the animals die, Napoleon and Squealer get fatter, and none of the animals is allowed to retire, as previously promised. The farm gets bigger and richer, but the luxuries the animals had been promised never materialised: they are told that the real pleasure is derived from hard work and frugal living.

Then, one day, the animals see Squealer up on his hind legs, walking on two legs like a human instead of on four like an animal.

The other pigs follow; and Clover and Benjamin discover that the seven commandments written on the barn wall have been rubbed off, to be replace by one single commandment: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ The pigs start installing radio and a telephone in the farmhouse, and subscribe to newspapers.

Finally, the pigs invite humans into the farm to drink with them, and announce a new partnership between the pigs and humans. Napoleon announces to his human guests that the name of the farm is reverting from Animal Farm to the original name, Manor Farm.

The other animals from the farm, observing this through the window, can no longer tell which are the pigs and which are the men, because Napoleon and the other pigs are behaving so much like men now.

Things have gone full circle: the pigs are no different from Mr Jones (indeed, are worse).

Animal Farm: analysis

First, a very brief history lesson, by way of context for Animal Farm . In 1917, the Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, was overthrown by Communist revolutionaries.

These revolutionaries replaced the aristocratic rule which had been a feature of Russian society for centuries with a new political system: Communism, whereby everyone was equal. Everyone works, but everyone benefits equally from the results of that work. Josef Stalin became leader of Communist Russia, or the Soviet Union, in the early 1920s.

However, it soon became apparent that Stalin’s Communist regime wasn’t working: huge swathes of the population were working hard, but didn’t have enough food to survive. They were starving to death.

But Stalin and his politicians, who themselves were well-off, did nothing to combat this problem, and indeed actively contributed to it. But they told the people that things were much better since the Russian Revolution and the overthrow of the Tsar, than things had been before, under Nicholas II. The parallels with Orwell’s Animal Farm are crystal-clear.

Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian Revolution and the formation of a Communist regime in Russia (as the Soviet Union). We offer a fuller definition of allegory in a separate post, but the key thing is that, although it was subtitled A Fairy Story , Orwell’s novella is far from being a straightforward tale for children. It’s also political allegory, and even satire.

The cleverness of Orwell’s approach is that he manages to infuse his story with this political meaning while also telling an engaging tale about greed, corruption, and ‘society’ in a more general sense.

One of the commonest techniques used in both Stalinist Russia and in Animal Farm is what’s known as ‘gaslighting’ (meaning to manipulate someone by psychological means so they begin to doubt their own sanity; the term is derived from the film adaptation of Gaslight , a play by Patrick Hamilton).

For instance, when Napoleon and the other pigs take to eating their meals and sleeping in the beds in the house at Animal Farm, Clover is convinced this goes against one of the seven commandments the animals drew up at the beginning of their revolution.

But one of the pigs has altered the commandment (‘No animal shall sleep in a bed’), adding the words ‘ with sheets ’ to the end of it. Napoleon and the other pigs have rewritten history, but they then convince Clover that she is the one who is mistaken, and that she’s misremembered what the wording of the commandment was.

Another example of this technique – which is a prominent feature of many totalitarian regimes, namely keep the masses ignorant as they’re easier to manipulate that way – is when Napoleon claims that Snowball has been in league with Mr Jones all along. When the animals question this, based on all of the evidence to the contrary, Napoleon and Squealer declare they have ‘secret documents’ which prove it.

But the other animals can’t read them, so they have to take his word for it. Squealer’s lie about the van that comes to take Boxer away (he claims it’s going to the vet, but it’s clear that Boxer is really being taken away to be slaughtered) is another such example.

Communist propaganda

Much as Stalin did in Communist Russia, Napoleon actively rewrites history , and manages to convince the animals that certain things never happened or that they are mistaken about something. This is a feature that has become more and more prominent in political society, even in non-totalitarian ones: witness our modern era of ‘fake news’ and media spin where it becomes difficult to ascertain what is true any more.

The pigs also convince the other animals that they deserve to eat the apples themselves because they work so hard to keep things running, and that they will have an extra hour in bed in the mornings. In other words, they begin to become the very thing they sought to overthrow: they become like man.

They also undo the mantra that ‘all animals are equal’, since the pigs clearly think they’re not like the other animals and deserve special treatment. Whenever the other animals question them, one question always succeeds in putting an end to further questioning: do they want to see Jones back running the farm? As the obvious answer is ‘no’, the pigs continue to get away with doing what they want.

Squealer is Napoleon’s propagandist, ensuring that the decisions Napoleon makes are ‘spun’ so that the other animals will accept them and carry on working hard.

And we can draw a pretty clear line between many of the major characters in Animal Farm and key figures of the Russian Revolution and Stalinist Russia. Napoleon, the leader of the animals, is Joseph Stalin; Old Major , whose speech rouses the animals to revolution, partly represents Vladimir Lenin, who spearheaded the Russian Revolution of 1917 (although he is also a representative of Karl Marx , whose ideas inspired the Revolution); Snowball, who falls out with Napoleon and is banished from the farm, represents Leon Trotsky, who was involved in the Revolution but later went to live in exile in Mexico.

Squealer, meanwhile, is based on Molotov (after whom the Molotov cocktail was named); Molotov was Stalin’s protégé, much as Squealer is encouraged by Napoleon to serve as Napoleon’s right-hand (or right-hoof?) man (pig).

Publication

Animal Farm very nearly didn’t make it into print at all. First, not long after Orwell completed the first draft in February 1944, his flat on Mortimer Crescent in London was bombed in June, and he feared the typescript had been destroyed. Orwell later found it in the rubble.

Then, Orwell had difficulty finding a publisher. T. S. Eliot, at Faber and Faber, rejected it because he feared that it was the wrong sort of political message for the time.

The novella was eventually published the following year, in 1945, and its relevance – as political satire, as animal fable, and as one of Orwell’s two great works of fiction – shows no signs of abating.

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Animal Farm

George orwell.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Manor Farm is a small farm in England run by the harsh and often drunk Mr. Jones . One night, a boar named Old Major gathers all the animals of Manor Farm together. Knowing that he will soon die, Old Major gives a speech in which he reveals to the animals that men cause all the misery that animals endure. Old Major says that all animals are equal and urges them to join together to rebel. He teaches them a revolutionary song called "Beasts of England." Old Major dies soon after, but two pigs named Snowball and Napoleon adapt his ideas into the philosophy of Animalism. They set about trying to spread Animalism’s ideals to the other animals on the farm, but this proves to be an uphill battle. The carthorses, Boxer and Clover , prove to be their best disciples, as they’re able to distill Animalism into simple arguments and share them with the other animals.

Three months later, Mr. Jones neglects to feed his animals for more than 24 hours. The animals revolt and chase Mr. Jones and the farmhands off of the farm in what ends up being an easy victory. The animals promptly burn all items that allowed Mr. Jones to maintain power, such as whips, bits, and knives. The next morning, the animals tour the farm and the pigs reveal that over the last few months, they’ve taught themselves to read. Snowball is the best at writing, and with white paint he amends the farm’s gate to read "Animal Farm." At the big barn, Snowball also writes the tenets of Animalism, which he and Napoleon distilled into Seven Commandments. The commandments state that all animals are equal, and no animal may act like a human by sleeping in a bed, walking on two legs, killing other animals, or drinking alcohol. They state that humans are the only enemy. The animals turn to the hay harvest after the pigs figure out how to milk the cows, but the milk begins to disappear.

The absence of humans means that the animals are far more successful than Mr. Jones ever was. There’s enough food, and the animals take pride in being able to feed themselves with their own labor. The pigs are clever enough to figure out how to perform certain tasks without standing on two legs, while Boxer seems as strong as three horses and adopts the motto “I will work harder!” All the animals throw themselves into the running of the farm except for the vain horse Mollie , who makes lots of excuses as to why she can’t work. Benjamin the donkey seems not to care about anything and cryptically tells everyone that donkeys live a long time.

Snowball organizes committees for the animals—which are mostly unsuccessful—and more successfully teaches animals to read. The dogs , the pigs, the goat Muriel , and Benjamin are the only ones who become fully literate. Less intelligent animals, such as the sheep , only learn the letter A and cannot remember the Seven Commandments, so Snowball distills this down into the maxim “Four legs good, two legs bad.” He has to explain to the birds why this is acceptable, since they have only two legs. Napoleon, meanwhile, takes the nine new puppies to train, insisting it’s more useful to focus on educating the young. A fight for power soon develops between Snowball and Napoleon.

Snowball and Napoleon send out pigeons to neighboring farms to spread the word to other animals. The other farmers sympathize with Mr. Jones, but only want to make the situation work for them. Fortunately for the animals, their neighbors, Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood Farm and Mr. Frederick of Pinchfield Farm, hate each other, though they’re both terrified of what happened at Animal Farm. In October, Mr. Jones and some men invade the farm with a gun. The animals fight bravely and send the men racing away, though Boxer is distraught when he believes he killed a stable boy. Snowball gives a speech about the importance of dying for Animal Farm and they agree to fire Mr. Jones’s gun twice per year, on the anniversaries of the rebellion and of the Battle of the Cowshed. They also come up with military honors and confer one on Snowball.

In the winter, Mollie disappears to serve a man in town. The pigs argue over how to plan the coming season and the rivalry between Snowball and Napoleon comes to a head over Snowball's idea to build a windmill . Snowball convinces animals by insisting that a windmill would give them electricity and ensure they only have to work three days per week, while Napoleon quietly insists this is nonsense. At the final debate about the windmill, Napoleon summons the puppies, whom he secretly reared to be his own vicious servants, and has them chase Snowball from Animal Farm. Napoleon tells the other animals that Snowball was a "bad influence," eliminates the animals' right to vote, and takes "the burden" of leadership on himself. He sends around a pig named Squealer , who persuades the animals that Napoleon has their best interests at heart.

Three weeks later Napoleon decides they should build the windmill after all—the windmill, he insists, was his idea to begin with, but Snowball stole his plans. The animals set to work, with Boxer leading. Focusing on the windmill reduces the productivity of the farm, and all the animals but the pigs and the dogs get less to eat. Napoleon institutes work on Sundays that’s voluntary, but animals who don’t work will receive reduced rations. The pigs engage a solicitor named Mr. Whymper to represent them and begin to trade with other farms. They move into Mr. Jones's farmhouse and start to sleep in beds. This confuses Clover, who thought this was forbidden. When she asks Muriel to read her the Commandment about beds, it reads: "No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets." Squealer, accompanied by dogs, insists that if the pigs don’t get enough sleep, Mr. Jones will return.

That winter, a storm destroys the partially complete windmill. Napoleon blames the catastrophe on the "traitor" Snowball and insists that Snowball is hiding out at Foxwood. Humans insist that the windmill fell because of the weather and though the animals don’t believe it, they build the walls of the second windmill twice as thick. Napoleon covers up that the farm doesn’t have enough food, and in January, tells the hens that he’s agreed to trade 400 eggs per week for grain. The hens are distraught, as they’d all planned on hatching spring chicks, so they revolt and sacrifice their eggs. Napoleon cuts their rations and the hens give up after five days, after nine hens die. Napoleon circulates that they died of disease and catches wind that Snowball is sneaking onto Animal Farm and causing mischief, such as trampling eggs and stealing. One evening, Squealer insists that Snowball is in league with Mr. Frederick and has been on Mr. Jones’s side the whole time. Boxer is dumbfounded and notes that Snowball fought with them, but Squealer insists that according to Napoleon, Snowball is on Mr. Jones’s side.

Four days later, Napoleon sets his dogs on four young pigs and Boxer during a meeting. Boxer paws the dogs away, but the dogs rip the pigs’ throats out after they confess to conspiring with Snowball. Other animals confess heinous crimes as well, and the dogs kill all of them. The remaining animals gather at the windmill, and Boxer suggests that this happened because they’ve done something wrong. Clover can’t formulate her thoughts into words, but she thinks that this wasn’t what she had in mind when she joined the rebellion. However, she still thinks that this is better than living under Mr. Jones and vows to accept Napoleon’s leadership. She leads the animals in a round of “Beasts of England,” but Squealer stops by and announces that the song is now banned: the revolution it speaks of has happened, so it’s no longer useful. Minimus the pig composes a new song that none of the animals like as much. A few days after the massacre, Clover remembers that the Seven Commandments stated that animals shouldn’t kill each other, but when she asks Muriel to read the Commandments on the barn, the Commandment reads that animals can’t kill each other without cause.

The animals work harder than ever, and Squealer regularly reads them figures that show the farm’s productivity is up by 200 to 500 percent. Napoleon stays inside the farmhouse most of the time, guarded by the dogs. When Minimus composes a poem in Napoleon’s honor, Napoleon has it written on the barn next to the Commandments and a portrait of himself. Napoleon negotiates with Mr. Frederick and Mr. Pilkington about timber on the property he’d like to sell, and tensions run high. They finish the windmill in the fall and soon after, Napoleon announces he sold the timber to Mr. Frederick after promising it to Mr. Pilkington. The money will buy the animals the machinery for the windmill. Mr. Whymper, however, reveals that Mr. Frederick paid for the timber with forged banknotes. Mr. Frederick and his men, many with guns, invade Animal Farm and blow up the windmill. The enraged animals chase them away but feel discouraged until Squealer points out that they achieved a great victory. The pigs discover a case of whiskey and after initially announcing that Napoleon is dying, they declare that all spare fields will be planted with barley. All of it will go to the pigs. One night, animals hear a crash and find Squealer next to the barn with a broken ladder and paint. The next morning, the Commandments read that animals shouldn’t drink to excess.

As Boxer approaches retirement, he refuses to take time to let his injuries heal. He wants to see the windmill done. When 31 piglets, all Napoleon’s children, are born in the spring, Napoleon announces that they need to build a schoolhouse and institutes a rule that all other animals must let pigs pass. Napoleon is unanimously voted to be the farm’s president when it becomes a republic. In the summer, Boxer collapses while working on the windmill, and Napoleon announces that a human vet will treat him. When the van comes to collect Boxer, however, Benjamin rouses everyone: the van reads that Boxer is going to the glue factory. They never see Boxer again, and Squealer insists that the van was recently purchased by a vet and hadn’t yet been repainted. The pigs come up with money to buy more whiskey a few days later.

Years pass. Now only a few of the remaining animals on the farm experienced the revolution. Even fewer remember its goals. They complete the first windmill and begin a second, but neither windmill will electrify the farm. The pigs teach themselves to walk on two legs, begin carrying whips, and teach the sheep to bleat “Four legs good, two legs better.” When Clover and Benjamin check the Seven Commandments, they only see the statement: "All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others." The pigs make peace with their human neighbors and have a feast, but both Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington cheat at cards and begin a fight. The other animals are shocked to discover that they can no longer tell the pigs from the humans.

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Animal Farm

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• Internet Archive - "Animal Farm"
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• Animal Farm - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Animal Farm , anti-utopian satire by George Orwell , published in 1945. One of Orwell’s finest works, it is a political fable based on the events of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution and the betrayal of the cause by Joseph Stalin . The book concerns a group of barnyard animals who overthrow and chase off their exploitative human masters and set up an egalitarian society of their own. Eventually the animals’ intelligent and power-loving leaders, the pigs, subvert the revolution. Concluding that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (with its addendum to the animals’ seventh commandment: “All animals are equal”), the pigs form a dictatorship even more oppressive and heartless than that of their former human masters.

Animal Farm

Background of the novella.

George Orwell wrote this novel to warn the people against the impacts and perils of Stalinism and totalitarian government.  This novel got published at the end of World War II. The book is an allegory and all the characters symbolize different historical characters. The original title of this allegorical novella was Animal Farm: A Fairy Tale. But when it was published in the United States, the subtitle A Fairy Tale was dropped.

When they are liberated from the dictator Jones, life on the homestead is useful for some time and there is a promise for a more joyful eventual fate of less work, better training and more nourishment. However, conflict arises as Napoleon and Snowball battle for the leadership of animals on the homestead. Napoleon holds onto power forcibly and winds up abusing the animals similarly as Farmer Jones does. The story closes with the pigs acting and dressing like the people which the animals expel from the farm.

Setting of the Novella

Historical background, animal farm summary, chapter 1 summary.

Mr. Jones is the owner of the animal farm. Mr. Jones is heavily drunk and he hardly makes it to bed. As he goes towards the bed, the animals start to make noise and bustle because they are to hold a grand meeting on the farm. The agenda of the meeting is to have a discussion about the strange dream of the Old Major. The animals are slowly showing up in the barn.

Chapter 2 Summary

Chapter 3 summary.

The pigs help in making a room for study where trade is studied. Some Committees are made including The Clean Tails League, Re-Education Committee, and Egg Production Committee. But the committees are unable to produce the results. The animals do not have good intelligence and are unable to remember the seven features of Animalism so one basic commandment is made for them and it is “four legs good and two legs bad.”

Chapter 4 Summary

Chapter 5 summary.

In the winter, the animals feel that Mollie is not performing the assigned duties. Mollie is also sympathetic towards humans and usually talks to humans at the borders of Animal Farm. It is also noted that Mollies has sugar and ribbon stash. After some time, Mollies disappears from the farm.

Snowball suggests that animals will be able to complete the windmill in a year but Napoleon thinks that all the animals might die in one year if they do not focus on the production of food.  Some of the animals start chanting for the windmill, while the other chant for food production. Benjamin is the only animal who thinks that both plans are beneficial for animals.

In the meeting, the animals are not allowed and the pigs decide the schedule for the next week. Napoleon starts dictating all the other animals and decides that he will not only complete the windmill but will also carry out other welfare plans for the animals too.

Chapter 6 Summary

Chapter 7 summary.

After a few days Napoleon orders for the assembly. He is wearing the awards of the battles. Some of the pigs have opposed the ideas of Napoleon and the dogs of Napoleon drag them out from the crowd. The pigs are forced to tell the animals of their activities and they confess that they are plotting with Snowball to take over the farm. They also confess that they have destroyed the windmill with the help of Snowball. Napoleon orders to kill the pigs and similarly some other animals are killed too. After the assembly, the animals are terrified and the Squealer comes to announce that the anthem of the Animal Farm is replaced with the new anthem by Napoleon.

Chapter 8 Summary

Chapter 9 summary, chapter 10 summary, animal farm characters analysis.

He is the leader who is corrupt and feeds on the production of his subjects providing them nothing of benefit. For Orwell, Napoleon represents Napoleon Bonaparte. In the novel, the pig Napoleon represents Stalin because he also changed his policies and orders frequently.

Benjamin also stands for Orwell himself because Orwell too remained pessimistic due to the political scenario and the totalitarian governments.

Boxer is the male horse that lives on the farm. He is the tallest and strongest of the animals on the farm. His appearance is not very good and his intelligence, too, is of the second class but he is respected for his strength and valor.

After the rebellion, he works more than the other animals. He becomes a supporter of Napoleon because he thinks that he needs to serve fellow animals. For the sake of the betterment of Animal Farm, he works hard and tirelessly.

Boxer is an allegorical representation of the working class or the proletariats in human society. Although they have the strength and power to serve the bourgeoisie yet they lack the mental capabilities which make them understand that they can stand for their own rights.

This class of people does not understand the actual tactics of the propagandist governments and they suffer throughout their lives.

Frederick is the owner of Pinchfield. Pinchfield is a small farm in the surroundings of the Manor Farm. He has a good business and is usually busy with legal issues. He makes a deal with Napoleon for the purchasing of timber but he cheats the animals by giving them unreal notes of banks.

He is also a leader in the pigs. He is a young pig. He is an intelligent character but the only shortcoming in his character is that he does not have political depth which Napoleon possesses.

He is a solicitor and works as an agent for the animals to make deals with the surrounding farms and human beings. He takes his commission from Napoleon. He makes visits to the animal farm on every Monday. He does not bother himself with injustices of the animal farm rather he is interested in his commission.

Themes in Animal Farm

Education used for oppression.

This shows that they are also opportunists. The education and the intelligence of pigs permit them to subdue the rest of the animals of the farm. At the end of the book, the readers witness Napoleon’s arrangements for the education of a new generation of pigs so that they could continue to subdue the animals of the farm.

Violence as a tool of Suppression

The executions represent the Great Purge and the Red Terror, yet they stand for the maltreatment of intensity. For instance, they are like the open executions of Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The death penalty for crooks is a fervently discussed issue. Executing lawbreakers like Napoleon is another issue. The executions symbolize the Trails of Moscow which Stalin arranged to make the people afraid. The traitors were forced to confess so that they could be executed.

The return of Mr. Jones is a serious risk because it kills the interests of animals in questioning. The other significant case of dread strategies in the novel is the danger of Snowball and his colleagues. Napoleon uses Snowball`s return as the cause of fear because he makes them believe that his return is dangerous. Snowball is a more awful danger than Jones since Jones is at any rate securely out of Animal Farm. Snowball is demonstrated to be sneaking along the boundaries of Animal Farm.

Class Stratification

The novel sheds light on the fact the various animals representing various classes are one against the enemy but once the peril of elimination and enemy is eliminated, the unity of the classes goes away and they start dividing themselves into different groups.

Once Mr. Jones is removed from the leadership of the farm, a run for leadership is shown among the animals of the farm and Napoleon being the main manipulator becomes the leader to exploit all the animals. The animals divide themselves as the working class and the other class who control the working class. The pigs are classified into the class that holds all the privileges and the rest of the animals on the farm constitute the working class and they work tirelessly. This class is given no proper food and shelter while the pigs enjoy every luxury of the farm.

Naive Working Class and its dangers

Boxer states that Napoleon is always right and this is a clear indication which gives Napoleon more strength and power to subdue this class of animal. This novel manifests that the inability of the oppressed increases the suffering of this class because they are unable to make progress in order to free themselves from the tyrant and cruel masters.

The Failure of Intellect

Animal Farm is profoundly doubtful about the estimation of scholarly movement. The pigs are distinguished as the canniest creatures. However, their insight rarely delivers anything of significant worth.

Animal Exploitation by Humans

The novella proposes that there is a genuine association between the abuse of creatures and the misuse of human specialists. Mr. Pilkington jokes to Napoleon that on the off chance that you have your lower creatures to fight with we have our lower classes. From the perspective of the decision class, creatures and laborers are the equivalents.

Animal Farm Analysis

Stalinism satirized.

This novel is a satire of extremist governments of totalitarian governments in their numerous pretenses. Orwell formed this book for an explicit reason: to stand as a cautionary tale of warning against Stalinism.

Therefore, he was unable to publish this book because the Allies were helping out the Soviet Union. Although the book got ready for publishing yet Orwell could not get any publisher for the book to publish it. The characters of this novel portray some authentic figures and various groups of Imperial Russian and Soviet society. The Major stands for Karl Marx, the Boxer for the workers, Napoleon stands for Joseph Stalin, Frederick for Adolf Hitler, and Snowball stands for Leon Trotsky.

Regardless of this fantasy story composed for satirizing some of the events Soviet history Orwell is less concerned about other events of history. For instance, the killing in Chapter VII associates the Great Purge and the Red Terror. The executions are the representation of these events. Squealer’s declarations that the executions have finished the Rebellion associate them to the time of the Red Terror.

Napoleon Analyzed

From the initial points in the novella, Napoleon rises as a person who is always in search of opportunities for corruption.  Napoleon never makes a solitary commitment by participating actively in the Revolution, not to the definition of its belief system, not to the grisly battle that it requires, not to the new society’s underlying endeavors to build up itself. He never shows enthusiasm for the quality of Animal Farm itself, just in the quality of his control over it.

One by one, he changes all the seven commandments of Animalism for his own benefits. It is a demonstration of Orwell’s intense political insight that Napoleon can without much of a stretch represent any of the extraordinary despots and political rascals in world history, even the individuals who emerged after Animal Farm was composed. In the conduct of Napoleon and his partners in crime, one can identify the lying and tormenting strategies of authoritarian pioneers, for example, Mao, Josip Tito, Augusto Pinochet, Pol Pot and Milosevic are treated in a very corrosive manner.

Some Animals are more equal than others

Animal Farm demonstrates that the intelligence of the pigs is not the main tool through which they control the other animals of the farm because pigs do not produce anything that is beneficial for the animals of the farms.

Power Corrupts

Failure of the farm.

While the pigs are blessed with the food, drinks and luxury, the rest of the animals are hand to mouth on the farm.  When the animals come to a stage of life where they are of no use, the pigs sell them and enjoy the whiskeys over the money received.

After the publicly killing of four pigs, three sheep, three hens, and a goose, the residents of the animal farm realize that something is going wrong with the sixth commandments.  They come to know that the sixth commandment of Animalism is changed from No Animal shall kill any other animal to no animal shall kill any other animals without a cause. 

Propaganda as a tool for exploitation

Thus, in Orwell’s Animal Farm where animals take control of the far and set their own state in function. Napoleon, a pig, and his main propagandist, Squealer, subdue the animals completely. The use of propaganda by various characters reflects Russia in the reign of Stalin’s imperious guideline.

Generally, he turns into Squealer`s pawn. Since Squealer can’t reach everywhere anytime, he abuses Boxer’s numbness and reliability to certify Napoleon’s concern for animals of the farm. Fighter does this subliminally; he controls the animals for Napoleon without being aware of it. Through this Orwell suggests that the use of slogans by characters without any resistance spread the ideas very quickly.

More From George Orwell

“Animal Farm” by George Orwell Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

The first thing that can be highlighted is that most of the literature pieces are not created just for the sake of entertainment and relaxation but also for meaningful reflections. A lot of novels and books are extremely thought-provoking and encourage readers to engage in discussions and conversations with others. What is important to mention is that different authors achieve this goal in different ways. For instance, some prefer to build their reading on metaphors, some on specific organizations and structures, and others establish their texts on satire. One of such literature prices is an allegorical novella Animal Farm written George Orwell. This reading is extremely interesting from that point of view and, for this reason, should be carefully analyzed. Therefore, the following paper will prove that Animal Farm is a satirical work by using the elements of satire.

Before discussing the elements of satire in the identified novella it seems essential to learn more about its plot and meaning. This reading is an allegory, which is a specific story where the chosen characters and situations represent other characters and situations for the purpose of making a point about them (“Animal Farm at a Glance”). In the story, a group of animals rebel against the human farmer, embrace the idea of Animalism, and organize a revolution in order to achieve justice and equality. However, everything ends with a totalitarian dictator becoming the head of the community and ruining its desire for progress and justice. Since the reading is an allegory, the readers should try looking at the vents from a different perspective. As it appears, Animalism stands for communism, farm stands for Russia, the farmer for the Russian Tzar, the pig for the revolutionary Trotsky, and Napoleon stands for the figure of Stalin (“Animal Farm at a Glance”). Therefore, even by analyzing what characters and situations represent in the story, it can already be stated that the reading is a satire because it represents real people and situations in an ironic way.

Satire and its elements are used in literature works in order to highlight some features of the situation or a person and make fun of them. It effectively represents stupidity of humans, especially those who are the members of the high society layers. One of the most obvious elements that the author of the Animal Farm uses in order to highlight the satire is irony. He uses animals and represents then as being able to talk, feel, and make decisions “in order to illustrate the abuse of one group of humans by another” (Boremyr 3). It can easily be noticed in the end of the story when it becomes almost impossible to tell the animals apart from the humans. Throughout the story, they became more human despite the commitment to the Animalism philosophy. By doing this, he achieves the goal of showing the brutality, corruption and incompetence of the Soviet Union not just like in a history book but in an entertaining and fun way.

Additionally, another way in which the author frames the story as a satirical work is the concept of defamiliarization. As suggested by Adhikari, this idea “tends to throw light on the special use of language in the works of art, unlike the use of language in the everyday life” (378). This concept generally suggests that that various forms of language used to present familiar things in unfamiliar ways for the purpose of persuading their readers and appealing to their emotions can encourage them to look at those things from a different perspective (Adhikari 378). For this reason, by using the concept of defamiliarization, the author increases the irony of the whole novella, makes the forms unfamiliar and difficult to understand, and increases the process of perception and decision-making. Orwell did not adopt the violent mode in order to represent and satirize communism (Adhikari 385). On the other hand, he satirized it and employed a more subtle way of representation (Adhikari 285). Therefore, Animal Farm can be called a satirical piece of literature because the author uses the concept of defamiliarization in order to present the readers with a different and more ironic perspective on a familiar issue.

To summarize, Animal Farm is an interesting and thought-provoking novella. It is very insightful not just from the point of its meaning but also the effective use of satire throughout the story. The author was able to incorporate the different elements of this concept in order to increase its satirical nature and encourage the readers to reflect on this more. Therefore, the presented paper proved that Animal Farm is a satirical novella.

Works Cited

Adhikari, Krishanu. “Animal Farm: A Satire on Communism Through ‘Defamilirization’.” An International Refereed e-Journal of Literary Explorations , vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 378-385.

“Animal Farm at a Glance.” CliffsNotes . Web.

Boremyr, Hanna. “Reading Orwell’s Animals: An animal-oriented study of George Orwell’s political satire Animal Farm.” 2016.

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Napoleon in Animal Farm: a Symbol of Tyranny and Corruption

How it works

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Napoleon’s Rise to Power
• 3 Maintaining Control Through Fear and Deception
• 4 The Impact of Napoleon’s Leadership on Animal Farm
• 5 Conclusion

Introduction

George Orwell’s novella, Animal Farm , is a clever story about power and corruption, told through a farmyard fable. At the heart of the story is a pig named Napoleon, who becomes the leader of the animal rebellion. Napoleon’s character is a nod to historical figures like Joseph Stalin. His role in the story shows how power can corrupt. This essay will look at how Napoleon rises to power, how he keeps control, and what his leadership means for the farm and its inhabitants.

By looking at Napoleon’s character, we can see Orwell’s message about the dangers of totalitarianism and how oppression can repeat itself.

Napoleon’s Rise to Power

Napoleon’s climb to power in Animal Farm involves a lot of trickery, manipulation, and making smart alliances. At first, he’s just one of the main pigs leading the rebellion against Mr. Jones, the human farmer. But unlike Snowball, who is more of a dreamer, Napoleon is all about grabbing power. He uses the other animals’ loyalty and gets Squealer, another pig, to spread propaganda that makes him look like the rightful leader. A key moment in his rise is when he kicks Snowball out of the farm. This not only gets rid of a rival but also shows how he deals with anyone who opposes him. This act is similar to Stalin’s purges, where he got rid of anyone who might threaten his rule. Through these actions, Orwell shows how leaders can twist revolutionary excitement for their own benefit, betraying the very ideas they once supported.

Maintaining Control Through Fear and Deception

When Napoleon gets power, he uses all sorts of tactics to keep it. Fear is one of his main tools. He raises nine dogs from puppies to be his enforcers, making sure any opposition is quickly and harshly dealt with. This is like the secret police in totalitarian governments, who keep people scared and obedient. Napoleon also uses propaganda to shape how the animals see things. By twisting language and rewriting history, Squealer convinces the animals that their lives are better under Napoleon, even when they’re not. Changing the Seven Commandments of Animalism, like turning “All animals are equal” into “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” shows how those in power can twist the truth. These tactics highlight Orwell’s point about how totalitarian leaders use fear and lies to stay in control and silence dissent.

The Impact of Napoleon’s Leadership on Animal Farm

Under Napoleon’s rule, the dream of a fair society on Animal Farm falls apart. The animals, who wanted to be free from human exploitation, end up under a new kind of tyranny. The pigs, who were supposed to lead the revolution, become just like the humans they replaced. This change is clear in the novel’s last scenes, where the animals can’t tell the pigs apart from the humans they are dining with. The common animals keep suffering and working harder than ever, with nothing to show for it. Napoleon’s leadership is a harsh reminder of the dangers of unchecked power. Orwell shows that revolutions can replace one form of oppression with another, continuing a cycle of tyranny and suffering. This is a strong warning about how fragile freedom is and how much effort is needed to keep it.

In Animal Farm , Napoleon is a powerful symbol of how power can corrupt and how revolutionary ideals can be betrayed. His rise to power, marked by manipulation and ruthlessness, reflects the real-world history of totalitarian regimes. Through his leadership, Orwell shows how leaders use fear and propaganda to control and manipulate reality. The terrible impact of Napoleon’s rule on the farm highlights the novella’s main theme: power’s ability to corrupt and the ease with which ideals can be twisted. By looking at Napoleon’s character, Orwell offers a timeless critique of political power and a warning about the need to be vigilant to protect freedom and equality. Animal Farm remains a relevant and strong look at the dynamics of power, connecting with readers in different times and political situations.

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