Animal Farm: Communism Through The Eyes Of George Orwell

2476 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Comment on the theme of George Orwell's animal farm

Animal Farm: Communism Through The Eyes of George Orwell

Throughout history, writers have written about many different subjects based on their personal experiences. George Orwell was the pen name of Eric
Blair. He is one of the most famous political satirists of the twentieth century. He was born in Bengal, India in 1903 to an English Civil Servant and died in 1950. He attended Eton from 1917 to 1921, and served with the Indian
Imperial Police in Burma from 1922 to 1927 before moving to Europe.Two of his most famous books, Animal Farm, written in 1946, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, written in 1949, were written about the political and social environment surrounding his life. "The driving force behind his two satires is an intense revulsion against totalitarianism, combined with an even stronger revulsion against its defenders among left-wing intellectuals."1 In most of George
Orwell¹s books and essays, there is a strong autobiographical element due to the fact that he spent many years living with Communists in northern Great Britain
(a small number of people started to follow Communism in northern Great Britain when it started in Russia). George Orwell¹s writing was affected greatly by his personal beliefs about Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism, and by the revolts, wars, and revolutions going on in Europe and Russia at the time of his writings.
George Orwell was a Socialist2 himself, and he despised Russian
Communism3, and what it stood for. Orwell shows this hatred towards Communist
Russia in a letter he wrote to Victor Gollancz saying, "For quite fifteen years
I have regarded that regime with plain horror."4 Orwell wrote this letter in
1947, ten years after announcing his dislike of Communism. However, he had thought a great deal about Communism and what he disliked about if for a long time before he announced it to the public. Orwell "did not expect anything good from the Communist"5 and therefore Communism personally did not affect him, but
"He was concerned with it (Communism) only because it was a problem for others."6 In Animal Farm, "an animal fable satirizing Communism,"7 Orwell uses farm animals in England to satirize Russian Communism and its leaders. One animal he uses is a pig named Napoleon, whose counterpart in the Russian
Revolution is Joseph Stalin. After Napoleon takes charg...

... middle of paper ...

...r, Alfred G. "Marx, Karl." World Book Encyclopedia.1988 ed.

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc., 1949

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1946

Stansky, Peter and Abraham, William. Orwell: The Transformation. New York, NY:
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1979

Stansky,Peter. On Nineteen Eighty-Four. San Francisco, California: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1983

Wadsworth, Frank W. "Orwell, George" World Book Encyclopedia. 1988 ed.

Woodcock, George. The Crystal Spirit a study of George Orwell. Boston,
Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Company,1966

Voorhees, Richard J. The Paradox of George Orwell. New York, NY: Purdue Research
Foundation,1961

"Stalin, Joseph." World Book Encyclopedia. 1988 ed.

"Lenin, V.I." World Book Encyclopedia. 1988 ed.

Show More
Related

  • Abraham Lincoln and the Kansas-Nebraska Act

    1503 Words  | 4 Pages

    Abraham Lincoln’s original views on slavery were formed through the way he was raised and the American customs of the period. Throughout Lincoln’s influential years, slavery was a recognized and a legal institution in the United States of America. Even though Lincoln began his career by declaring that he was “anti-slavery,” he was not likely to agree to instant emancipation. However, although Lincoln did not begin as a radical anti-slavery Republican, he eventually issued his Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves and in his last speech, even recommended extending voting to blacks. Although Lincoln’s feeling about blacks and slavery was quite constant over time, the evidence found between his debate with Stephen A. Douglas and his Gettysburg Address, proves that his political position and actions towards slavery have changed profoundly.

    Read More

  • Ryan White Care Act : Policy

    1191 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ryan White’s effort and those who respond to the needs of the epidemic have caused both houses of Congress in 1990 to pass a comprehensive HIV/AIDS Resource Emergency (Care) Act to provide health care to those who have no insurance to get proper care. The program is the largest federal program in the United States (Rowan, 2013). The federal funding of the Ryan White is used mainly for medical care. The funds are primarily for individuals to receive health care coverage and financial resources. The prog...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Real Lincoln, By Thomas J. Dilorenzo

    1882 Words  | 4 Pages

    DiLorenzo was very successful in writing this book, Alexander Marriott states that he “reached a relatively wide audience of libertarians and conservatives.”(Marriott) DiLorenzo is very convincing in his book “The Real Lincoln” because of the many quotes and questions he presents to his audience. By persuading his readers to question all their formal beliefs of Lincoln he gets them to think Lincoln might be this monster that he portrays him to be. Lincoln probably was not a saint like many have made him out to be but he was still the man who demolished slavery and held the United States together during a tough period. By making such a historical figure look like a freud many refuted him, one article by Ken Masugi tells of how DiLorenzo misused quotes and made people believe they meant something by it that they did not. Masugi states DiLorenzo “frequently distorts the meaning of the primary sources he cites, Lincoln most of all.”(Masugi) Masugi then gives examples of how Dilorenzo misused quotes in his book. DiLorenzo’s book had strengths such as its persuasiveness, but also had weaknesses like his misuse of primary sources, and not only diminishing a few of Lincoln’s accomplishments but continuing by degrading his who he was as a

    Read More

  • Biography of Abraham Lincoln: The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

    1634 Words  | 4 Pages

    Abraham Lincoln was elected as sixteenth president of the United States of America in 1861 and served until his assassination in 1865. He is viewed as a popular political figure and is known as the “Great Emancipator” for his role in freeing the slaves during the 1860s (Columbia University Press 2013, 1). He delivered the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 that declared “all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforth shall remain free” (Columbia University Press 2013, 1). Although the Proclamation made Lincoln seem like a hero, others would soon realize that the proclamation was a war tactic and in reality did not put an end to slavery. In The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, the reader will discover facts about President Lincoln that are not told in the average history book. Within the chapters of DiLorenzo’s book, he explains Lincoln’s true view on slavery, reasons for his political success, and why Lincoln encouraged war between the North and the South.

    Read More

  • Homeless in The United States

    1319 Words  | 3 Pages

    McNamara, Robert Hartmann. "Homelessness." Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues. Ed. Michael Shally-Jensen. Vol. 3: Family and Society. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011. 1024-1031. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 2 May 2014. .

    Read More

  • Homeless Families in America

    3762 Words  | 8 Pages

    Although most people know what homelessness is and it occurs in most societies, it is important to define because the forces of displacement vary greatly, along with the arrangement and meaning of the resulting transient state. The Stewart B McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 defined a homeless person as “an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence or a person who resides in a shelter, welfare hotel, transitional program or place not ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation, such as streets, cars, movie theaters, abandoned buildings, etc.” Resent surveys conducted in the U.S. have confirmed that the homeless population in America is extremely diverse and includes representatives from all segments of society, including: the old and young, men and women, single people and families, city dwellers and rural residents, whites and people of color, employed and unemployed, able workers and people with serious health problems. The diversity among people that are homeless reflects how difficult it is to generalize the causes of homelessness and the needs of homeless people. Robert Rosenheck M.D., the author of Special Populations of Homeless Americans, explains the importance of studying homelessness based on subgroups, “each subgroup [of homeless people] has unique service needs and identifying these needs is critical for program planning and design.” Despite these diversities, homelessness is a devastating situation for all that experience it. Not only have homeless people lost their dwelling, but they have also lost their safety, privacy, control, and domestic comfort.

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    552 Words  | 2 Pages

    The saying “history repeats itself” is used quite often, but how many times have you actually seen it happen? The book Animal Farm portrays the idea of history repeating itself. The character Benjamin and the pigs in the story show history repeating itself throughout the book. In addition to these characters within the book, North Korea displays history's repetition outside the book.

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    583 Words  | 2 Pages

    I personally thought animal farm was a really good book. It was a simple, easy to read story. The analysis of this book is pretty easy to figure out. Animal farm represents

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    584 Words  | 2 Pages

    There is a substantial amount of conflicts that occur in this satirical story. Often these conflicts are between the pigs and the rest of the animals. Only a minute portion of the animals didn’t really have some sort of conflict with Snowball, Napoleon, Squealer, or the rest of the dominating pigs. Overall, Snowball was a better leader than Napoleon, yet the animals reacted differently to Napoleon than to Snowball.

    Read More

  • Causes of Homelessness in the USA

    1305 Words  | 3 Pages

    Homelessness has become a serious problem in today’s society. Despite the organizations that help multitudes of homeless people, homelessness is continually increasing. In recent years, America’s culture has been changing due to economic, political, and social issues. These issues have caused a lot of stress on America resulting in abject poverty in several cities. Poverty is not nationwide, but if dealt with lightly, the affects can be catastrophic. Homelessness is increasing more than ever, and research proves that changing culture contributes to rising amount of homelessness.

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    536 Words  | 2 Pages

    Pigs walking on two feet, horses and sheep talking. This is how George Orwell satirizes human nature in his classic novel Animal Farm. Animal Farm is an allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The title of the book is also the setting for the action in the novel. The animals in the story decide to have a revolution and take control of the farm from the humans. Soon the story shows us how certain groups move from the original ideals of the revolution to a situation where there is domination by one group and submission by all the others. The major idea in this story is the political corruption of what was once a pure political ideal. Orwell uses satire to ridicule human traits in his characters such as Napoleon and Squealer. There are several different characters in the novel utilizing animals as symbols of people in real life during the Russian Revolution. Napoleon is the leader of the pigs that ultimately come to dominate the farm. The characteristics that we associate with pigs , lazy, greedy, and pushy are meant to symbolize the characteristics that the leaders of the Russian Revolution exhibited. Napoleon is admired by all of the animals because he is their leader. All of the animals believe that their leader wants to fulfill all of their needs. They also are convinced that Napoleon’s decisions are made the best interest of the animals. Napoleon’s piglike qualities are shown throughout the story. He exhibited greediness when he sold the dying horse, Boxer to a slaughterhouse for money so that he and the other pigs could purchase whiskey. Orwell ridicules human nature through Napoleon in the sense that he is trying to show how the greedy and power hungry eventually end in corruption.

    Read More

  • Animal Farm: An Allegory of Russian History

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the main characters of Animal Farm is an allegorical parallel of Joseph Stalin. Napoleon is the pig that emerges as the leader of Animal Farm after the Rebellion. He represents the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Animal Farm, but can easily stand for any of the great dictators in world history. Napoleon seems at first to be a good leader, but he is eventually overcome by greed and becomes power-hungry. Stalin was the same in Russia, leaving the original equality of socialism behind, giving himself all the power and living in luxury while the peasants suffered. While Stalin’s national and international status flourished, the welfare of Russia remained unchanged. In Animal Farm, Orwell writes a similar thing: “Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves richer – except of course the pigs and the dogs.” In the novel, Napoleon openly seizes power for himself by using the dogs he trained to chase Snowball off Animal Farm. He banishes Snowball with no justification and rewrites history in order to further his own ends. Similarly, Stalin forced Trotsky from Russia and seized control of Russia. Stalin used his secret police ...

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    487 Words  | 1 Pages

    Napoleon and his new friends sat down while taking a sip of their beers, we all

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    In George Orwell's novel Animal Farm he writes a fairy tale with a meaning. In other words, it is about a bunch of animals living on a farm that decide to rebel against all humans starting with running their owner off by attack. This is compared to the Russian Revolution which is what I will be talking about in the paper. I will state which animal played which role and compare the animal to the person for whom they portray.

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    483 Words  | 1 Pages

    George Orwell's, Animal Farm, depicts how power can corrupt society. If one person receives too much power, one will most likely lead up to dictatorship. To exemplify this idea, Orwell uses a farm to represent a society and the animals inside to portray the people. Orwell's use of the pigs and animals are also an analogy that people sometimes act as 'mindless pigs';. Orwell makes the reader realize just how bad a society of dictatorship can really be.

    Read More

More about Animal Farm: Communism Through The Eyes Of George Orwell

Open Document