Orwell cleverly satirises the corruption and greed of Stalin’s supposed ‘classless’ society of the 20th century through allegorical characterisation of seemingly facile, farm animals. Signifying the beginning of the revolution, “Animalism”, Old Major advocates the initial utopian ideals paralleling that of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Propagating the notion of a classless society. He calls the animals to a meeting where adopting a sincere and uplifting tone proclaims that “Man is the only real enemy” of the animals and if they were to “remove man from the scene… the root cause of hunger and overwork” would vanish. He outlines the founding idealistic principles of Animalism, “ Let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle.
I think that Orwell is trying to tell us that even people who start out very idealistic can become corrupted. You can see this in how the pigs start out with Old Major's vision but are exactly like the people (oppressive) by the end of the book. Another theme to keep in mind is history is bound to repeat itself if one is ignorant to the past. The animals had disregarded their prior knowledge of the events that had occurred and the emotions that conveyed those events, so history was set into the same cycle once again. Never be ignorant to the past, or you can't help yourself in the future.
In Animal Farm Orwell uses a farm and the rebellion of its mistreated animals to symbolize a much more serious issue. George Orwell expresses his own political opinions in a clever and interesting way, that allows reader’s of all ages to understand a complicated situation. In surface George Orwell’s Animal Farm seems to be just a funny fable but we can say that this novel successfully combines the characteristics of three literary forms, fable, satire and allegory. Reading the novel we will come to an understanding that the novel is a political one that has been written intentionally to convey a clear message to readers. This paper examines if there is any relationship between the Russian revolution and this novel or not, and how we can call this novel as an allegory.
Animal farm parodies the events of the Russian Revolution mocks humanity’s morally weak government foundations. Under the rule of animalism, the seven commandments are representing their views of equality, allegorical of communism; this is further enforced through the characterisation of animals which draw links to past figures. These ideals are epitomised by Old Major, “a majestic looking pig” who poses as an allegory to Karl Marx the founder of communism. Old Major’s dream of an ideal world was brilliant but unrealistic. Through his speech, Major shapes one of the Revolution’s key notions, stating “Even when you have conquered him do not adopt his vices,”
Along with this, Lady Macbeth is also hasty to pursue the prophesised power, and manipulates Macbeth into committing the first deed. In animal Farm, it is Old Major’s ideals which spurs the animals into performing the uprising against Farmer Jones and forming the new idea of Animalism. Unlike the murder of Duncan, the animal’s revolt is a worthy cause, which benefits the whole community and not just a single individual. Both the Witches prophecy and Old Majors ideals planted the seed of ambition in Macbeth’s and Napoleon’s minds, unfortunately, those seeds quickly grow into tyranny. Macbeth begins his bloody chain of murders with the help of Lady Macbeth, working together to murder King Duncan.
The name also suits him as a pigs primary mode of noise is squealing. Squealer is the ideal person to do this because he is presented to be able to “turn black into white”. This is shown when he makes the animals “stupefied” as seen in the extract as the animals all trust him and as the animals are all confused they turn to Squealer to show them but then he just makes them believe the complete opposite to the truth. This shows him to be both cunning and clever because he knows that to get the animals to believe what he wants all he has to do is confuse them and they will
Orwell’s writing makes this moment in the novel so moving, for the reader, by his use of emotive language and characterisation of the animals in relation to the Russian revolution. The allegory is able to convey the feelings of betrayal the animals felt when they realised that their reality was nothing like the utopia of animalism. Napoleon and the pigs betrayed the other animals in the novella as they went against commandments 6 and 7. Orwell wrote, at this moment in the novella, that clover accepted ‘the leadership of Napoleon’. This meant that Napoleon was above all the other animals on the farm, Napoleon was a leader; therefore, the animals had to follow what he said.
Critical Lens Bernadette Devlin once said, “To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.” What this means is, in order to have the best and what you really believe you deserve, you may have to make many sacrifices. Animal Farm by George Orwell and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury both prove this quote through the literary elements of Conflict and Characterization. Animal Farm by George Orwell is a riveting story about animals fighting back. Old Major, a prize winning boar and the acclaimed leader of the other barn animals devises a plan amongst the other animals to create a paradise in which all animals live together with no human beings to dominate or control them. The ideas of this said “paradise” become known as Animalism and are taught to all of the animals as the correct way of life.
Propaganda in Animal Farm Essay Propaganda is defined as the spreading of information and ideas. This can be done for a cause of good, or bad. In the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell, propaganda is definitely used for influencing and manipulating the thoughts of all of the animals, besides the pigs of course. The pig Napoleon for example composed propaganda the most effectively and his greatest advantage that allowed him to do so, besides his cunning, was the ignorance of the less intelligent animals. His right hand man... or pig was named Squealer.
A theme present throughout the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell is the corruptive influence of power. This is shown in many ways. The character Napoleon is a prime example. He and Snowball start out sharing the leader role of Animal Farm after the rebellion. However, Napoleon wants to be the sole leader, so he does everything he can to be just that.