Cast in the form of an allegory, this beast fable is a harsh satire that condemns totalitarianism. In particular, Orwell targets the Soviet Union’s brand of communism as nothing more than the ideology of a police state.

The setting of the story is Manor Farm, and the narrator relates events from an omniscient third-person point of view. The catalyst for the action is a dream that Old Major, a prize pig, tells to the other animals. He has had a vision of a world in which animals are no longer ill-treated by humans, and he urges the animals to rise up in revolution. He advises them to distrust anything human, since animals are the only ones to do productive work, and to respect the equality of all animals. In their misery, the animals are receptive to Old Major’s ideas. The pigs Snowball, Squealer, and Napoleon develop Old Major’s vision into the doctrine of animalism; eventually, the hungry animals storm the shed where their food is stored, and they run the human owners away. They proclaim the farm to be Animal Farm, writing Old Major’s teachings on the barn wall. The most important principle is that all animals are equal, but events soon begin to discredit this ideal.

The pigs, since they are the smartest animals, quickly take charge of the farm’s operations. They allocate the food that all the animals help to grow in an unequal manner, reserving the milk for their own exclusive use. Harvests are good at first, and even though the animals work like slaves—harder than they did under Mr. Jones—their morale is good. Snowball emerges as leader, assisted by Squealer, a public relations and propaganda specialist. When the humans try to recapture the farm, the animals stand firm at the Battle of the Cowshed. Afterward, Snowball begins working on a windmill to provide the animals with electricity so they can enjoy a three-day work week, but before he can accomplish anything, Napoleon stages a coup. He exiles Snowball, backed up by his ferocious dogs, and embarks on a totalitarian program. Whenever necessary, he alters or erases inconvenient principles from the barn wall, and the animals can’t discuss these changes, because free speech and open debate have been banned.

Napoleon soon begins making deals with the humans who own farms around Animal Farm, becoming more and more like them—drunken, lazy, and greedy. Napoleon even uses his dogs to attack and kill the farm animals that oppose or criticize him, in order to intimidate the survivors and maintain his domination. His manipulation of the animals’ principles has left only one: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” At this point, he and his followers have become identical to the human masters the animals had overthrown.

On its own, this sequence of events makes a fine story, but it has another layer of meaning beyond the resolution of the plot. Orwell bases his story on the historical events that led to the founding and early years of the Soviet Union. Old Major represents Karl Marx, who formulated the theory of communism and died before any communist state was established. Snowball seems to represent Leon Trotsky, and Napoleon drives him away in a manner reminiscent of Joseph Stalin’s rise to power. However, although the story parallels several details from Soviet history, it also serves as a warning against any kind of totalitarian regime. The slow erosion of rights and the decline in civil justice illustrated in Animal Farm could occur in any place or at any time. Orwell did not foresee the fall of communism, but the fall of that regime does not mean that Animal Farm is a relic: It continues to remind readers how easily a society can slip into the grip of a dictator.

Bibliography

Gardner, Averil. George Orwell. Twayne’s English Authors, 455. Boston: Twayne, 1987.
Hammond, J. R. A George Orwell Companion. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982.
Menand, Louis. “Honest, Decent, Wrong: The Invention of George Orwell,” The New Yorker, 27 January 2003, 84–91.
Meyers, Jeffrey. A Reader’s Guide to George Orwell. Totowa, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams, 1977.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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