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Animal Farm - An Analysis

George Orwell’s book, Animal Farm (1944–1945) depicts the whole situation in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution of 1917, and particularly the situation in which the country has been cast since Lenin’s resignation as the General Secretary of the Communist Party and, since the appointment of Joseph Stalin as the new leader of the Union. Our book starts in the barn of a small farm in the United Kingdom. It’s late at night, and the animals of the farm are slowly gathering to hear what Old Major, a pig on the farm, regarded by many as being the cleverest and most enlighted animals on the farm.[1] Old Major talks of the situation on the farm; the animals are working hard and not being fed accordingly, no animal is allowed to grow old peacefully, and the humans are constantly watching over the animals, using force to control them.[2] This is very much similar to Marx’ and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto (1848), which incites all all working men and women of the world to stand up and fight for a common cause—bringing the power back into the hands of the workers—or proletarians, as they are referred to by Marx and Engels, well summed up in the concluding sentence: “WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!”[3] Orwell manages to describe the completely foolish nature of the situation which erupts in the Soviet Union, even portraying the key characters of the revolution and beyond as characters in the book. The revolution taking place in the book shortly after the death of Old 1

Major—who could be compared to Marx, who is often considered the Father of Communism and of the October Revolution—is similarly comparable to real-life events; the combination of an increasing famine in rural areas and the failures of the Russian Army in an offensive against Germany could almost be used interchangably with the starvation the animals of the farm experience when Jones, the owner of the farm, suffers a hangover, finally resulting in several of the animals breaking out. Instead of...