Animal Farm, by George Orwell

I. SUBJECT

Animal farm is a novel about animals who develop their own society and the abuses of power that result. The story’s setting is in England, on Manor Farm. Based on the technology in the home you can infer that the story occurs in the past. The novel begins as the owner of the farm, Mr. Jones, was drifting into a drunken sleep. Meanwhile the animals gathered in the barn where a boar, Old Major, delivered a speech to his fellow animals. He spoke of a dream he had that one day all animals will be free from the tyranny of man and in perfect comradeship. Two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball concocted a plan to drive Mr. Jones off the farm. They along with the other barnyard animals succeeded, but a bigger conflict was revealed, Snowball and Napoleon’s struggle over the distribution of power.

Over the years, Napoleon and Snowball engaged in many disputes regarding the management of a successful farm. Snowball established committees to educate the other farm animals while Napoleon took no interest, he thought training the young should take priority over an adult animal’s education. He secured a group of nine puppies and took them under his wing. As years passed Napoleon and Snowball continued to butt heads. Their most explosive argument occurred over Snowball’s idea to construct a windmill. When the time arose for a vote to approve the windmill’s construction, Napoleon let out a strange whimper and the nine dogs he trained emerged from hiding. The ferocious attack dogs chased Snowball off the farm. With Snowball gone, Napoleon attained what he had always desired complete control of Animal Farm.

Under Napoleon’s leadership the animal’s condition never improved. He and the remaining pigs became more and more like humans. At the e...

... middle of paper ...

...t a moral. The characters are frequently animals, but people an inanimate are sometimes central” (Harmon 467 68). In Orwell’s Animal Farm the main characters are animals and the reader learns that when there is one leader with an excessive amount of power will lead to corruption.

Animal Farm can also be classified as an Allegory sub genre. An allegory is “A form of extended METAPHOR in which objects, persons and actions in a NARRATIVE are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself” (14). For example the characters, and their actions resemble the main players of the Russian Revolution.

WORKS CITED

Harmon, William, William Flint Thrall, Addison Hibbard, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to

Literature. 11th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1946.