Animal Farm

Both of George Orwell's most famous books are about the nature of totalitarianism. Animal Farm is much simpler than 1984, being a retelling of the history of the Russian Revolution in the fairy-tale form of a group of animals taking over a farm by revolution from the humans that formerly ran it. Animal Farm, is one of his most famous books, to the point that it has been made two films based in this book.

The treatment is allegorical, with many individual animals representing real people (Marx, Stalin and Trotsky) or groups of people (honest workers, the vain bourgeoisie) or ideas (religion and the church). Orwell's novel is not just an allegory, in the way that is having a single consistent plot and realistic characters (I mean realistic as characters; obviously talking animals are not naturalistic) makes it a more involving experience than a display of images would be. Orwell has dramatised a part of human history.

The fairy tale elements are matched by a simple prose style, a straightforward piece of story-telling, which makes Orwell's points - totalitarianism is not to be trusted, the communist revolution changed virtually nothing - even more telling. The language makes the story read as though it were intended for children, but the themes of the novel are certainly aimed at adults.

Characters:

Major (pig): respected by all, realized need for change.

Snowball (pig): great speaker, wanted best (Trotsky).

Napolean (pig): conceited leader (Stalin).

Squealer (pig): persuasive, excited.

Boxer (horse): hard worker.

Clover (horse): loving, motherly.

Benjamin (donkey): cantankerous, rude.

Mollie (horse):frivolous, selfish.

Symbols:

Manor Farm=Russia.

Pigs=Soviets.

Other animals =workers,

Rebellion=Russian Revolution.

Whip=man's cruelty.

Foxwood=England or Germany.

Pinchfield=the other.

His book, besides a parody of Stalinist Russia, intends to show that Russia was not a true democratic Socialist country. Looked at carefully, Animal Farm is a criticism of Karl Marx as well as a novel perpetuating his convictions of democratic Socialism;these are other inherent less discussed qualities in Animal Farm besides the more commonly read harsh criticism of totalitarianism. Orwell and Marx differed in their views on Socialism and its effects on religion and nationalism as well as Socialism's effects on society and its leaders. Orwell shared many of Marx's viewpoints, but he did not share with Marx the same vision of a utopian future, only the prospects of a worldwide revolution. "Orwell's work indicates that he had read Marx with care and understanding Animalism, as we will see, has its faults and inaccuracies, but Orwell's use of it is to put forth his own political and social doctrine based on remedying those faults.

Animalism, based on the theories of old Major, a prized-boar of Mr. Jones, is born early on in Animal Farm. The fact that old Major, himself, is a boar implies that political theory to the masses or a theorist proposing radical change and revolution are, themselves, bores, in the eyes of the proletariate more prone to worrying about work and survival. Old Major, however, is able to gather all the animals on the farm except the sleeping Moses, the tame raven, for a speech about a dream he had the previous night. In his talk, old Major tries to explain the animals' place in nature and how they can get out of it, very much like Marx's writing on the social consciousness of the proletariate.

In Animal Farm, we can see his depictions as man as a social animal and his Socialist ideologies through old Major's very Marxist speech in the barn: "Why... do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems: It is summed up in a single word (Man). Man is the only creature that consumes without producing..."

Old Major, sanctified by the animals after his talk, is the visionary the animals needed to lead them out of their state of nature. But old Major, who dies three days after his speech is not a prophet nor is he representative of the nature of religion in Orwell's view of the state, only as the visionary philosopher responsible for perpetuating social change.

It is Moses, the lone animal who slept through the speech, that represents religion. Though his name alone invokes an underlying religious meaning, when we look at the character and his interactions with the animals ,we see his role as representative of the Church.

Moses does no work; he only sits on a pole and tells tales of a mysterious country called Sugarland Mountain, where all animals go when they die. Moses, like Marx's view of religious institutions, is a tool of the state.

After old Major's speech was heard by the animals and his school of thought, to be known as Animalism, began to spread across the farm, only Moses was too stubborn to listen or pay any attention. Interestingly, after the animals successfully revolt, Moses disappears, only to return a little while later, after Napoleon, the eventual totalitarian leader of the animals, uses him as a tool just as Mr. Jones did. He begins to tell his stories again and gets paid in beer, just as he did before with the animals' leader.

Orwell, unlike Marx, believed religion would not fade away after revolution because there would always be a people hard on their luck and looking for answers to questions and places they can go after they die where life is easier.

The Revolution in Animal Farm, clearly based on the Russian Revolution, did not keep nationalism from disappearing, a point Orwell makes clear early on. The animals, after revolting, are so proud of their newly formed state, that they take a green tablecloth and paint a white hoof and a horn on it similar to the hammer and sickle of the former Soviet Union. It is a flag that flies over the newly-named Animal Farm and at whose base lies a gun taken from a helper of Mr. Jones and later, the disinterred skull of the old Major.

It is a criticism evident after the rebellion in Animal Farm, as each animal's heart driven motivations drives them to individually try and make life better for themselves and leads the pigs towards greediness and the eventual assertion of power. The pigs go through the Jones's farm house and eventually come away with all its clothing, excess food and alcohol ( three things that eventually set them apart from the rest of the animals).

Orwell implies that there is very little chance for upward mobility where one is employed as well the implicit nature of contentment within that system. Those at the bottom, like the horses in Animal Farm change very little when there are changes at the top of the system because they just want to do their job; maybe they want to do their job a little harder now, but nothing else changes, especially their place in society after realizing Napoleon is just another Mr. Jones. They are the proletariat.

Orwell's critique of Marx is that Marx believed too much in a rationalized, educated proletariate that , asserts Orwell, can never exist. To Orwell, the proletariate is too easily swayed by its leaders as well as its guiding ideologies. As mentioned previously, it are the leaders which Orwell detests just as much as a society that allows them to emerge.

In Animal Farm, the proletariate is not very swift in recognizing its situations. The animals, indoctrinated by a discourse of revolution put forth by the pigs and perpetuated by the Seven Commandments painted on the barn wall and the song of the revolution "Beasts of England" do not realize that as the state of their society changes every time the discourse gets molded by a leader, it stays the same. The Seven Commandments, written above the door of the big barn were:

1.: Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2.: Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings is a friend.

3.: No animal shall wear clothes.

4.: No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5.: No animal shall drink alcohol.

6.: No animal shall kill another animal.

7.: All animals are equal.

The animals also agree that no animal shall ever enter the farmhouse, and that no animal shall have contact with humans. This commandments are summarised in the simple phrase: "Four legs good, two legs bad", by the end of the novel, eventually become one commandment and "Beasts of England," a song taught to the animals by old Major, is replaced by "Animal Farm," a song taught by Minimus, the poet.

The replacement of "Beasts of England", marks the crucial change from collective longing for a freer existence to a government-enforced enthusiasm for a utopia officially proclaimed as now achieved.

In Animal Farm, it is Boxer, the hard-working horse who gives his life to the cause, who pledges his allegiance to Napoleon; his speech is indicative of the discourse fed to him day in and day out. Boxer says aloud "Napoleon is always right" intones the horse at just the crucial moment when a sign of his disapproval or even doubt might have stalled, if not thwarted, Napoleon's bid for sole power.

If we look to the fact that, Animalism, obviously communism, is significantly not instituted according to plan. The rebellion occurs spontaneously: once again Jones neglects to feed the animals, who break into the barn for food. The revolution occurred not because of Marxist theory, but from a natural need ( hunger). The farm had fallen on harder times and the opportunity was seen to revolt.

The parallels between crop failure of the farm and the depression in the 1930's are clear. The world-wide depression began in the United States when the stock market crashed in October of 1929. The depression spread throughout the world because American exports were so dependent on Europe.

Orwell did, like Marx, want revolutionary change to occur and agreed with the Marxist principle that rebellions would spread and hoped that they would eventually lead to new democratically Socialist societies. Orwell did not believe that revolution would be successful as we see this in Animal Farm.

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