An Analysis Of George Orwell's Animal Farm As A Fairy Tale

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Animal Farm was categorized as a fairy tale in 1945, but was removed as a fairy tale in 1946. However, I do not believe that Animal Farm was intended to be a fairy tale. There are multiple reasons to why I think Animal Farm was not intended to be thought of as a fairy tale. A fairy tale is usually a light-hearted story involving unrealistic beings or magic. They typically have a hero and a villain along with a message or moral for the reader. The hero usually does something to overcome the villain or someone gives “gifts” to help the hero defeat evil. Let me explain why I don’t consider Animal Farm a fairy tale. To start off, the whole book seemed to be dreary and not light-hearted whatsoever. Old Major dies three nights later, after giving his speech about taking over the farm. The animals instantly turned to the pigs because they were the cleverest of all the animals. Though the animals do chase Mr. Jones out of the Manor Farm, they ended up in a worse situation than they started in. Napoleon ended up taking over as the commander. All of the animals followed him without realizing that he was being an overall unfair and unjust leader. The animals didn’t even doubt that Napoleon and the pigs were violating laws. And Squealer, being the persuasive pig, was able to make the animals think they …show more content…

Perhaps he labeled it as a fairy tale so it would get published. What better way to publish a book during a difficult time than to label it something that sounded childish and entertaining? Most of Propp’s functions didn’t really apply to Animal Farm like “victory”("Propp's Functions of Folk Tales.") In Animal Farm’s case, the hero doesn’t beat the villain. I think that the book is more of a fable than a fairy tale. In conclusion, with the information in this essay, I do not believe that Animal Farm is or was meant to be a fairy

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