Animal Farm (1945)
1st US edition cover
Author George Orwell
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Satire
Publisher Secker and
Warburg (London)
Publication date 17 August 1945
Media type Print (Hardcover
& Paperback)
Pages 112 pp (UK
paperback edition)
ISBN ISBN
0-452-28424-4 (present)
Animal Farm is a novel by George Orwell, and is one of the most famous
satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism [citation needed]. Published in
1945, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before
World War II. Orwell, a democratic socialist[citation needed], and a member of
the Independent Labor Party for many years, was a critic of Joseph Stalin, and
was suspicious of Moscow-directed Stalinism after his experiences with the NKVD
during the Spanish Civil War.
The book was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best
English-language novels (1923 to 2005), was number 31 on the Modern Library
List of Best 20th-Century Novels and won a Retrospective Hugo in 1996.
CONTENTS
1 Overview
2 Characters and their possible
real-life counterparts
o 2.1 Pigs
o 2.2 Humans
o 2.3 Equines
o 2.4 Other animals
3 Significance
4 British censorship and suppressed
preface
5 Controversies
6 Cultural references
7 Adaptations
8 Editions
Overview
The short novel is an allegory in which animals play the roles of the
Bolshevik revolutionaries and overthrow and oust the human owners of the farm,
setting it up as a commune in which, at first, all animals are equal; however,
class and status disparities soon emerge between the different animal species.
The novel describes how a society's ideologies can be manipulated and twisted
by those in positions of social and political power, including how a utopian
society is made impossible by the corrupting nature of the very power necessary
to create it.
Characters and
their possible real-life counterparts
The events and characters in Animal Farm satirise Stalinism ("Animalism"),
authoritarian government and human stupidity generally[2]; Snowball is Trotsky
and the head pig Napoleon is Stalin.
The dogs are also important characters in this novel that enabled Orwell
to discover and express more of what had happened in Russia. The other
characters have their parallels in the real world, but care should be taken
with these comparisons, as Orwell's intent was not always explicit and they
often simply represent generalised concepts.[citation needed]
Pigs
Old Major is the inspiration that fuels the Revolution and the book.
According to one interpretation, he could be based upon both Karl Marx and
Vladimir Lenin. However, according to Christopher Hitchens: "the persons
of Lenin and Trotsky are combined into one [i.e., Snowball], or, it might even
be truer to say, there is no Lenin-pig at all. "
Old Major is presented positively. According to the interpretation that
Old Major represents Marx and Lenin, the satire in Animal Farm is not of
Marxism, or of Lenin's revolution, but of the corruption that occurred later.
Hitchens, while disagreeing with the interpretation that Old Major represents
Lenin, agrees that Orwell presents Marxism sympathetically, stating that in the
book "the aims and principles of the Russian Revolution are given
face-value credit throughout; this is a revolution betrayed, not a revolution
that is monstrous from its inception." Old Major introduces the animals to
the song Beasts of England.
Napoleon, a Berkshire boar, is the main tyrant and villain of Animal
Farm and is based upon Joseph Stalin.
Orwell made this allusion clear in his 17 March 1945 letter to his
publisher:[citation needed]
...when the
windmill is blown up, I wrote, "all the animals including Napoleon flung
themselves on their faces." I would like to alter it to "all the
animals except Napoleon". If that has been printed it's not worth
bothering about, but I just thought the alteration would be fair to J.S.
(Joseph Stalin), as he did stay in Moscow during the German advance.
Napoleon begins to gradually build up his power, using puppies he took
from mother dogs Jessie and Bluebell, which he raises to be vicious dogs as his
secret police. After driving Snowball off the farm, Napoleon usurps full power,
using false propaganda from Squealer and threats and intimidation from the dogs
to keep the other animals in line. Among other things, he gradually changes the
Commandments to allow himself privileges such as eating at a table and to
justify his dictatorial rule. By the end of the book, Napoleon and his fellow
pigs have learned to walk upright and started to behave similarly to the humans
against whom they originally revolted. (In the French version of Animal Farm,
Napoleon is called César, the French spelling of Caesar.)
Snowball is Napoleon's rival. He is an allusion to Leon Trotsky. He wins
over most animals, but is driven out of the farm in the end by Napoleon.
Snowball genuinely works for the good of the farm and devises plans to help the
animals achieve their vision of an egalitarian utopia, but Napoleon and his
dogs chase him from the farm, and Napoleon spreads rumours to make him seem
evil and corrupt and that he had secretly sabotaged the animals' efforts to
improve the farm. In his biography of Orwell, Bernard Crick suggests that
Snowball was as much inspired by POUM leader Andrés Nin as by Trotsky.
Nin was a similarly adept orator and also fell victim to the Communist purges
of the Left during the Spanish Civil War.[citation needed]
Squealer, a small fat porker, serves as Napoleon's right hand pig and
minister of propaganda. Inspired by Vyacheslav Molotov and the Soviet paper
Pravda, Squealer manipulates the language to excuse, justify, and extol all of
Napoleon's actions. He represents all the propaganda Stalin used to justify his
own heinous acts. In all of his work, George Orwell made it a point to show how
politicians used language. Squealer limits debate by complicating it and he
confuses and disorients, making claims that the pigs need the extra luxury they
are taking in order to function properly, for example. However, when questions
persist, he usually uses the threat of the return of Mr Jones, the former owner
of the farm, to justify the pigs' privileges. Squealer uses statistics to
convince the animals that life is getting better and better. Most of the
animals have only dim memories of life before the revolution; therefore, they
are convinced.
Minimus is a poetic pig who writes the second and third national anthems
of Animal Farm after the singing of "Beasts of England" is banned. He
represents admirers of Stalin both inside and outside the USSR such as Maxim
Gorky. As Minimus composed the replacement of "Beasts of England", he
may equate to the three main composers of the National Anthem of the Soviet
Union which replaced The Internationale – Gabriel El-Registan, Alexander
Vasilyevich Alexandrov, and Sergey Mikhalkov.[citation needed]
The Piglets are hinted to be the children of Napoleon (albeit not truly
noted in the novel) and are the first generation of animals actually subjugated
to his idea of animal inequality.
The Rebel Pigs are four pigs who complain about Napoleon's takeover of
the farm but are quickly silenced and later executed. This is based on the
Great Purge during Stalin's regime. The closest parallels to the Rebel Pigs may
be Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev.[citation
needed]
Humans
Mr Jones represents Nicholas II of Russia, the deposed Tsar, who had
been facing severe financial difficulties in the days leading up to the 1917
Revolution. The character is also a nod toward Louis XVI. There are several
implications that he represents an autocratic but ineffective capitalist,
incapable of running the farm and looking after the animals properly. Jones is
a very heavy drinker and the animals revolt against him after he drinks so much
that he does not feed or take care of them, and his attempt to recapture the
farm is foiled in the Battle of the Cowshed (the Russian Civil War).
Ironically, Napoleon himself becomes almost obsessed with drinking and
eventually changes the commandments to suit his needs. Toward the end of the
book, the pigs become the mirror image of Jones, though they thirst for more
power than ever before.
Mr Frederick is the tough owner of Pinchfield, a well-kept neighbouring
farm. He represents Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in general. He tricks them
into selling wood to him for forged money and later attacks them, destroying
the windmill but being finally beaten in the resulting Battle of the Windmill
(World War II). There are also stories of him mistreating his own animals.
Mr Pilkington is the easy-going but crafty owner of Foxwood, a
neighboring farm overgrown with weeds, as described in the book. He represents
the western powers, such as the United Kingdom and the United States. The card
game at the very end of the novel is a metaphor for the Tehran Conference,
where the parties flatter each other, all the while cheating at the game. This
last scene is ironic because all the Pigs are civil and kind to the humans,
defying all for which they had fought. This happened at the Tehran Conference:
the Soviet Union formed an alliance with the United States and the United
Kingdom, capitalist countries that the Soviet Union had fought in the early years
of the revolution. At the end of the novel, both Napoleon and Pilkington draw
the Ace of Spades (which in most games, is the highest-ranking card) at the
same time and begin fighting loudly, symbolizing the beginning of tension
between the U.S. and Soviet superpowers.
'Mr Whymper' is a man hired by Napoleon to represent Animal Farm in
human society. He is loosely based on Western intellectuals such as George
Bernard Shaw and, especially, Lincoln Steffens, who visited the U.S.S.R. in
1919.
Equines
There are four main equines (horses and donkeys) characters: Clover,
Boxer, Benjamin, and Mollie.
Boxer is one of the main characters. He is the tragic symbol of the
working class, or proletariat: loyal, kind, dedicated, and physically the
strongest animal on the farm, but naïve and slow. His ignorance and blind
trust towards his leaders leads to his death and their profit. In particular,
his heroic physical work represents the Stakhanovite movement. His maxim of
"I will work harder" is reminiscent of Jurgis Rudkus from the Upton
Sinclair novel The Jungle. His second maxim, "Napoleon is always
right" is an example of the propaganda used by Squealer to control the
animals. It was not adopted until later in the book. Boxer's work ethic is
often praised by the pigs, and he is set as a prime example to the other
animals. When Boxer is injured, and can no longer work, Napoleon sends him off
to the knacker's and deceives the other animals, saying that Boxer died
peacefully in the hospital. When the animals cannot work, Napoleon tosses them
aside, for they mean nothing to him.
Clover is Boxer's companion and a fellow draft horse. She helps and
cares for Boxer when he splits his hoof. She blames herself for forgetting the
original Seven Commandments when Squealer had actually revised them. Clover is
compassionate, as is shown when she protects the baby ducklings during Major's
speech; albeit made out to be somewhat vain in the opening of the novel by the
narrator, who remarks that she never "recovered" her figure after giving
birth to her fourth foal. She is also upset when animals are executed by the
dogs, and is held in great respect by three younger horses who ultimately
replace Boxer.
Mollie is a self-centred and vain white mare who likes wearing ribbons
in her mane, eating sugar cubes (which represent luxury) and being pampered and
groomed by humans. She represents upper-class people, the bourgeoisie and
nobility who fled to the West after the Russian Revolution and effectively dominated
the Russian Diaspora. Accordingly, she quickly leaves for another farm and is
only once mentioned again.
Benjamin is a wise old donkey that shows slight emotion and is one of
the longest surviving of the Manor Farm animals; he is alive to the very last
scene of the book and probably lives even longer than the imagined end of
Napoleon's rule. The animals often ask him about his lack of expression but he
always answers with: 'Donkeys live a long life. None of you have ever seen a
dead donkey.' Benjamin can also read as well as any pig, but rarely displays
his ability. He is a dedicated friend to Boxer and is sorely upset when Boxer
is taken away. Benjamin has known about the pigs' wrongdoing the entire time,
though he says nothing to the other animals. He represents the cynics in
society. It has also been speculated that Benjamin could also represent the
role of Jews in society, although this is unlikely since so many of the early
supporters of the Russian Revolution were Jews. Another possibility is that
Benjamin is an allegory for intellectuals who have the wisdom to stay clear of
the purges. Yet another possibility is that Benjamin is an allegory of the
author himself.
Other animals
Muriel is a wise, old goat who is friends with all the animals on the
farm. She, like Benjamin and Snowball, is one of the few animals on the farm
who can read (with some difficulty, she has to spell the words out first) which
helps Clover know that the Seven Commandments have been surreptitiously changed
throughout the story. She possibly represents the same category as Benjamin.
The only difference is that she dies at the end of the book due to age.
The Puppies, who were raised by Napoleon to be his security force may be
a reference to the fact that a major factor in Stalin's rise to power was his
appointment as General Secretary of the Communist Party by Lenin in 1922, in
which role he used his powers of appointment, promotion and demotion to quietly
pack the party with his own supporters. He did this so effectively that Lenin's
Testament eventually called for Stalin's removal from this post. Lenin's
request was ignored by the leading members of the Politburo - most notably
Trotsky, represented in the novel by Snowball. The puppies represent Stalin's
secret police.
Moses the Raven is an old bird that occasionally visits the farm with
tales of Sugarcandy Mountain, where he says animals go when they die, but only
if they work hard. He represents religion, specifically the Russian Orthodox
Church, which is banned when the pigs come to power. His religious persona is
exacerbated by the fact that he is named after a biblical character. He leaves
after the rebellion, for all animals are supposed to be equal, and religion is
not part of equality, but returns later in the novel because he convinces the
animals to work harder. Nobody does anything to harm Moses, due to the fact
that all animals (and Moses being an animal) are equal. In the end, he is one
of few animals to remember the rebellion, along with Clover, Benjamin, and the
pigs.
The Sheep represented the masses, manipulated to support Stalin in spite
of his treachery. They show limited intelligence and understanding of the
situations but support Napoleon and regularly chant "Four legs good, Two
legs bad" (at the end of the novel, bad is changed to better) and distract
people.
The Rats may have represented some of the nomadic people in the far
north of the USSR.
The Hens may have represented the Kulaks as they destroy their eggs
rather than hand them over to Napoleon, just as during collectivization some
Kulaks destroyed machinery or killed their livestock.
The Cat represents laziness (for she, along with Mollie, did not do any
work on the farm)
Significance
The allegory that the book employs allows for reader interpretation on a
number of levels:
George Orwell wrote the book following his experiences during the
Spanish Civil War, which are described in another of his books, Homage to
Catalonia. He intended it to be a strong condemnation of what he saw as the
Stalinist corruption of the original socialist ideals. For the preface of a
Ukrainian edition he prepared in 1947, Orwell described what gave him the idea
of setting the book on a farm:
...I saw a
little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow
path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such
animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and
that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the
proletariat.
This Ukrainian edition was an early propaganda use of the book. It was
printed to be distributed among the Soviet citizens of Ukraine who were some of
the many millions of displaced persons throughout Europe at the end of the
Second World War. The American occupation forces considered the edition to be
propaganda printed on illegal presses, and handed 1,500 confiscated copies of
Animal Farm over to the Soviet authorities. The politics in the book also
affected the UK, with Orwell reporting that Ernest Bevin was
"terrified". That it may cause embarrassment if published before the
1945 general election.
In recent years, the book has been used to compare new movements that
overthrow heads of a corrupt and undemocratic government or organization, only
eventually to become corrupt and oppressive themselves as they succumb to the
trappings of power and begin using violent and dictatorial methods to keep it.
Such analogies have been used for many former African colonies such as Zimbabwe
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose succeeding African-born rulers
were accused of being as corrupt as, or worse than, the European colonists they
supplanted.
The book also clearly ponders whether a focus of power in one person is
healthy for a society. The book leaves the ending slightly ambiguous in this
regard.
Version of Horn and Hoof Flag, based on hammer and sickle.
British
censorship and suppressed preface
During World War II it became apparent to Orwell that anti-Russian
literature was not something which most major publishing houses would touch
— including his regular publisher Gollancz. One publisher he sought
rejected his book on the grounds of government advice — although the
assumed civil servant who gave the order was later found to be a Soviet spy.
Orwell originally wrote a preface which complains about British
government suppression of his book, self-imposed British self-censorship and
how the British people were suppressing criticism of the USSR, their World War
II ally. "The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that
it is largely voluntary. ... [Things are] kept right out of the British press,
not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement
that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact." Somewhat ironically,
the preface itself was censored and is not published with most editions of the
book.
Controversies
The estate of Orwell
declared itself "hostile" to the publication of Snowball's Chance, a
2002 parody of Animal Farm by U.S. author John Reed.
Cultural
references
Main article: Animal Farm in popular culture
References to the novella are frequent in other works of popular
culture, particularly in popular music and television series.
Adaptations
Animal farm has been adapted to film twice. The first was an animated
feature and the second was a TV live action version.
Editions
* ISBN
0-451-51679-6 (paperback, 1956, Signet Classic)
* ISBN
0-582-02173-1 (paper text, 1989)
* ISBN
0-15-107255-8 (hardcover, 1990)
* ISBN 0-582-06010-9
(paper text, 1991)
* ISBN
0-679-42039-8 (hardcover, 1993)
* ISBN
0-606-00102-6 (prebound, 1996)
* ISBN
0-15-100217-7 (hardcover, 1996, Anniversary Edition)
* ISBN
0-452-27750-7 (paperback, 1996, Anniversary Edition)
* ISBN
0-451-52634-1 (mass market paperback, 1996, Anniversary Edition)
* ISBN
0-582-53008-3 (1996)
* ISBN
1-56000-520-3 (cloth text, 1998, Large Type Edition)
* ISBN
0-7910-4774-1 (hardcover, 1999)
* ISBN
0-451-52536-1 (paperback, 1999)
* ISBN
0-7641-0819-0 (paperback, 1999)
* ISBN
0-8220-7009-X (e-book, 1999)
* ISBN
0-7587-7843-0 (hardcover, 2002)
* ISBN
0-15-101026-9 (hardcover, 2003, with Nineteen Eighty-Four)
* ISBN
0-452-28424-4 (paperback, 2003, Centennial Edition)
* ISBN
0-8488-0120-2 (hardcover)
* ISBN
0-03-055434-9 (hardcover) Animal Farm with Connections
* ISBN
0-395-79677-6 (hardcover) Animal Farm & Related Readings, 1997