Animal Farm as a Political Satire to Criticise Totalitarian Regimes

Animal Farm as a Political Satire to Criticise Totalitarian Regimes

This study aims to determine that George Orwell's Animal Farm is a political satire which was written to criticise totalitarian regimes and particularly Stalin's practices in Russia. In order to provide background information that would reveal causes led Orwell to write Animal Farm, Chapter one is devoted to a brief summary of the progress of author's life and significant events that had impact on his political convictions. Chapter one also presents background information about Animal Farm. Chapter two is devoted to satire. In this chapter, definition of satire is presented and some important characteristics of satire are discussed. In chapter three, the method of this research is described.

Under the light of information presented in the previous chapters, Chapter four discusses Animal Farm and focuses on the book as a political satire. The last chapter presents the conclusion of this study.<font size="3">ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI would first like to express my sincere thanks to my thesis supervisor, Assoc.Prof. Dr. Jashua M. Bear for his help and freedom he gave me in this study.

Without his understanding this thesis would never have been completed.I also wish to thank my sister Fidan Korkut for her suggestions in the planning stage of this study and her endurance during my long study days at home.My special thanks go to Özgür Ceylan, who constantly granted me her moral support. She was always there when I needed her.<font face="3">THE AUTHOR: GEORGE ORWELLPresentationThis chapter introduces general information about George Orwell's life. It includes chronological progress of his life and his political convictions. Furthermore, important events, such as The Russian Revolution and The Spanish Civil War which had significant influence on his commitment to write Animal Farm will be discussed. Lastly, general information about Animal Farm will be given.His LifeThe British author George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, was born in Motihari, India, June 25, 1903. His father was an important British civil servant in India, which was then part of the British Empire.

A few years after Eric was born, he retired on a low pension and moved back to England. Though their income was not much enough, the Blair family sent their son away to boarding school which was an exclusive p...

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...ed from primary and secondary sources.<font size="3">ANIMAL FARM AS SATIREPresentationIn this chapter, under the light of information given in the chapter-1 and chapter-2, Animal Farm will be examined. It aims at to show the elements of satire in Animal Farm, and to compare characters, events and some elements of Animal Farm and The Russian Revolution Elements of Satire In Animal FarmOrwell, as quoted before, clearly explains that his main purpose for writing Animal Farm was to write a satire on the Russian Revolution (In Shelden, 1991, p.399). Through animal satire, Orwell attacks on the Stalin's practices in Russia and in wider scope, on totalitarian regimes. Taking Bozkurt's (1977) classification into consideration, Animal Farm would be said to be a Juvenial satire. Since, it is clearly seen that Orwell bitterly criticise Russian Communism and Stalin.Summary of The PlotOne night after Farmer Jones has gone to bed drunk, all the animals of Manor Farm meet in the barn for a meeting. Old Major, the prize Middle White boar, wants to tell them about a strange dream he had. First, he narrate "the nature of life" as he has come to understand it. Animals, though work very hard.