Orwell, George - Animal Farm: English review

Animal Farm is a book by George Orwell/Eric Blair, it was written in 1943, and it was published in 1945.

It’s an allegory tale about the Russian revolution and the Stalin’s dictatorship from the animals’ point of view.

Life of Eric Blair

Eric Blair was born on the 25th of June 1903 in India where his father used to work for the British Empire administration.
He spent his childhood in England attending various prestigious schools such as Eton, where he proved to be an excellent scholar with a keen interest in literature.

However, his family was too poor to pay the university tuition. So he joined the Indian Imperial Police in 1922, where he saw the oppressive role of the imperial administration on the local people.

Career and early works

Consequently, in 1927 he left the Police and he returned to London, where he lived among the poorest people.

Then he moved to Paris, living yet again a very poor life.

This experience was very important for him because after that he wrote his first novel “Down and Out in Paris and London” where he described the life of the poor people in these cities.

Then he wrote another book about colonialism Burmese Days where he described what he saw while he was working in the Imperial Police.

These 2 novels are very important, because they represent the first time that Blair signed as G. Orwell.

Participation in the Spanish Civil War

In 1936 he joined the Spanish Civil War, where he fought against the fascist rebels, but in 1938 he started suffering from tuberculosis and so he had to go back home

to the United Kingdom. There he wrote Homage to Catalonia, a book about the Spanish Civil War, which was published in the same year.
In 1943 he wrote “Animal Farm '' but he could not publish it until 1945 because it was against Stalin, so against the

Finally in 1949 he published his last book “1984” which was a dystopian novel, and its main theme was freedom and anti totalitarianism.

He died on the 21st of January 1950 of tuberculosis.

The book was written in 1943 during WW2, but it was published in 1945 because the Uk government forbade every book against its allies, such as the Soviet Union, and Orwell could release it only with a small anti communist publisher.

After that he also wrote the short essay “The Freedom of Press”, where he described those events.

Orwell and anti-totalitarian literature

With this book, Homage to Catalonia and 1984 Orwell became one of the most powerful voices of anti totalitarian literature, because his works express all the dangers of totalitarianism in society.
Animal Farm is one of his most famous novels, which clearly shows his political position.

The novel is an allegory tale, and it represents the dangers of all kinds of revolution, but it also describes the Russian Revolution and the Stalin’s dictatorship from the animals point of view.

Setting and beginning of the story

The novel is set in a farm in England during a descaled time, but the farm seems to belong to the first half of the twentieth century.

The owner of this farm is very mean with his animals, exploiting and starving them.
The story starts one night in the barn of the farm where there are all the animals meet with their boss, the Old Major the pig.

He tells them about a strange dream he had the night before.

In this dream all the human race had vanished, and someone was playing a song, called

Old Major sings the song to the animals, and they learn it by heart.

However, some days later, Old Major dies and so the animals decide that it is the moment to rebel against the owner, Mr Jones. In fact, they drive him and his family away to other farms, such as Pichtfield or Foxwood.

Rise to power of the pigs

The pigs take power, and they have two leaders:

Snowball seems to be a dreamer who wants to improve the animals’ living conditions while Napoleon seems to be meaner and lazier.

Anyway they change the farm’s name from “Manor Farm” to “Animal Farm” and so they also create a new political ideology:

At the beginning life on the farm seems fantastic. For example, everyone can eat a lot and all the animals are even taught how to read and write by the pigs.

One day Mr Jones attacks the farm, but he is defeated by the animals in the

But at one point Napoleon drives away Snowball and he starts transforming the farm into a dictatorship.

Symbolism of the characters

Some characters of the book represent people or nations that really existed, such as:

-Napoleon represents Stalin, the first soviet dictator

-Snowball represents Troskji, another communist party leader, who, according to Lenin, had to lead the party and the nation after him

-Old Major represents Lenin, the first communist party leader, who started the revolution, but who died during it

-Benjamin, the donkey, represents Orwell himself

-the pigs represent those people who were rich even in the zar’s Russia, but who suffered with the normal people

-Mr Jones represents

-the other Farms represent the other countries, for example Pitchfiled is Nazi Germany, and Foxwood is the British Empire

-Squearel is the pig that speaks with the animals, telling them Napoleon’s decision. He represents Molotov, a man very close to Stalin

-the Hens represent the other people who were conquered by the Russian Empire such as the ukrainians or the mongols, because when Napoleon steals their food they starve

-Boxer is the strongest horse on the farm, and he represents the farmers and people who weren’t very smart, but they used to work very hard for the others

-the Sheep represent the people that can be easily manipulated by propaganda