Animal Farm Introductory Analysis-1
Animal Farm Introductory Analysis-1
Animal Farm Introductory Analysis-1
In his short novel Animal Farm (1945), English author George Orwell (1903–
50) allegorizes the Russian Revolution of 1917, when the tsarist autocracy was
pushed out and the Bolsheviks came into power, and the revolution's incremental
betrayal of its supporters under Dictator Joseph Stalin (1879–1953). Drawing on
fable conventions, Orwell tells a farmyard story, casting revolutionary leaders
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924), Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), and Stalin as pigs, which—
along with other common farm animals such as horses and hens—rebel against the
tyranny of tsar-like farmer Mr. Jones. Set on a small English farm, the novel follows
a collective of working animals that, as the pigs exploit them anew, toil pathetically
day after day in the belief that they are remaking the farm as a republic.
Orwell wrote Animal Farm toward the end of World War II (1939–45), when
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was being hailed by the Allied forces
(including the British) for its decisive victories over Nazi Germany at Stalingrad
(1942–43) and Kursk (1943). As such, he had difficulty finding a publisher prepared
to offend Russian sensibilities. Gollancz and Faber and Faber, among other
publishing houses, rejected the book outright. London publisher Jonathan Cape
came close to printing it but was persuaded to reject the work by a Ministry of
Information official later presumed to have been a Soviet spy. In spite of this
reluctance, when it was finally released in England by Secker and Warburg in 1945,
the novel was a runaway success, as it was the following year in the United States—
no doubt helped by the dissolution of wartime alliances and the first rumblings of
the Cold War. Regarded by many as Orwell's finest work, and certainly his first truly
popular one, Animal Farm has long been ranked as among the best books of the
twentieth century.
Historical and literary context
Following the revolution, the Russian Communist Party recast the former
empire as a federation of republics with governments informed by the socialist
principles of German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–83). Initially under the
leadership of Lenin, Soviet Russia then entered an era of reconstruction, during
which it privatized all aspects of the economy and attempted to control any forms
of dissent to its Marxist-Leninist goals. After Lenin's death, Stalin effected a coup
from within the Communist Party, and, although making a dogma of Marxist-
Leninism, he turned the party into a properly totalitarian apparatus. During what is
referred to as the Great Purge, millions of enemies of the state were executed or
sent to forced-labor camps. Meanwhile, hasty attempts to modernize the peasant
agriculture brought on deathly famines. Animal Farm retells this history
metaphorically—in the sly maneuverings of the boar, Napoleon, to oust his rivals
and take control of the farm; in his forcing the animals to build an electricity-
generating windmill, which leaves no time for food production; and in his purges of
alleged traitors to the animals' revolution against Mr. Jones.
The novel begins with Lenin (some say Marx or a Lenin-Marx composite),
Trotsky, and Stalin figured in the characters of Old Major, Snowball, and Napoleon,
respectively—pigs on a farm where animals are bred to produce (like the hens), to
labor (like the cart horses), and to be fattened for slaughter (like the pigs). Old
Major rouses the animals to rebel against the “tyranny of man,” and the Russian
Revolution is satirized as a scrap between Mr. Jones and his animals. The animals,
victorious, take over, and with a newfound sense of dignity set about everyday
tasks such as harvesting hay. However, the pigs have only just posted the “seven
commandments of Animalism,” including the tenet that “all animals are equal,”
when they opt out of the hard labor and appropriate exclusively for themselves the
comforts of the farmhouse. Here, what culminates in Napoleon's dictatorship
tragically inflects the lives of the common animals, who continue to toil in the belief
that they are forging Old Major's republic.
Bunt (1924) by Polish novelist Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont (1867–1925)
bears a remarkable resemblance to Animal Farm, although it is not clear whether
Orwell knew of the work. The novel allegorizes the same revolution with a story of
farmyard animals rebelling against their human masters in a struggle for equality
that ends in terror and oppression. Orwell's next novel after Animal Farm, Nineteen
Eighty-Four (1949), offers a comparably symbolic—if more realistic—vision of
everyday life impoverished culturally and politically by a Stalinesque regime. The
fearful preoccupation with Stalinism also informs Orwell's Homage to Catalonia
(1938), a nonfiction account of his experience in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39)
fighting for a leftist militia.
In addition to pleasing popular audiences, Animal Farm appealed to political
conservatives who recognized its value as a propaganda tool for discouraging
socialist affiliations. Thus the Central Intelligence Agency clandestinely funded the
1954 animated film adaptation by John Halas (1912–95) and Joy Batchelor (1914–
91), which was also the first feature-length animated film in English cinema history.
Critics in the early twenty-first century have been just as attentive to Orwell's
politics, yet there has been a greater tendency to acknowledge the novel as a work
of politically informed art rather than of mere propaganda.
Sources
Dwan, David. “Orwell's Paradox: Equality in ‘Animal Farm.’” ELH: English Literary
History 79.3 (2012): 655–83.
Kirschner, Paul. “The Dual Purpose of ‘Animal Farm.’” Review of English Studies
55.222 (2004): 759–86.
Molyneux, John. “Animal Farm Revisited.” International Socialism Journal 2.44
(1989): 99–112. Print.
Nikolayenko, Olena. “Web Cartoons in a Closed Society: Animal Farm as an Allegory
of Post-Communist Belarus.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40.2 (2007): 307–10.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm and 1984. Introduction by Christopher Hitchens. New
York: Harcourt, 2003. Print.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. “Mr. Orwell and the Communists: His ‘Animal Farm’ Is a
Compassionate and Illuminating Fable for Our Times.” New York Times 25 Aug.
1946: 124+.
Turner, W. J. “How It Happened.” Rev. of Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Spectator
17 Aug. 1945: 156–57.
Further Reading
Cohen, Karl. “The Cartoon That Came in from the Cold.” Guardian. Guardian News
and Media , 6 Mar. 2003. Web. 1 July 2014.
Fadaee, Elaheh. “Symbols, Metaphors, and Similes in Literature: A Case Study of
Animal Farm.” International Journal of English and Literature 2.2 (2011): 19–27.
Leab, Daniel J. Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm.
Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 2007. Print.
Letemendia, V. C. “Revolution on Animal Farm: Orwell's Neglected Commentary.”
Journal of Modern Literature 18.1 (1992): 127–37.
Orwell, George. “The Freedom of the Press.” Times Literary Supplement 15 Sept.
1972. Print.
———. “Why I Write.” Essays. 1946.London: Penguin, 2007.Print.
Rodden, John. “Appreciating Animal Farm in the New Millennium.” Modern Age
45.1 (2003): 67–76
Snyder, C. R. “Hope and the Other Strengths: Lessons from Animal Farm.” Journal
of Social and Clinical Psychology 23.5 (2004): 624–27.