Animal Farm, by George Orwell: An Allegory to the Russian Revolution

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs take over Manor Farm and dominate the weaker animals by using a combination of strength, fear, and trickery. This book is an allegory to the Russian Revolution, which led to Josef Stalin’s rise to power and the beginning of his dictatorship. In the novel Farmer Jones symbolizes Czar Nicholas II and Napoleon symbolizes Josef Stalin. The animals overthrow their dictator, Farmer Jones, and eventually end up replacing him with another dictator, Napoleon the pig. Napoleon demonstrates how the other farm animals’ weakness can be dominated by strength, fear, and trickery, revealing one of George Orwell’s themes.

In the beginning, just as Czar Nicholas II exploits his subjects, Farmer Jones treats his animals likewise. He gives them “so much food as will keep the breath in their bodies” (28). Jones feeds his animals minimally whilst he eats abundantly. He forces the animals “to work to the last atom of their strength” (28). Czar Nicholas rules with an iron fist and does not tolerate even minor transgressions to his authority. Similarly, Farmer Jones rules his farm and tyrannizes his animals with whippings and backbreaking work. As soon as their “usefulness comes to an end they are slaughtered with hideous cruelty” (28). When Jones overworks and starves his animals to the point where they can go no further, he sends them to the slaughterer. Farmer Jones enslaves his animals, and is the sole benefactor of the animals’ produce and labor. He does not have any interest in providing better living conditions for the animals. Just like Czar Nicholas’ subjects, the animals on the farm are clearly weak, so Farmer Jones thoroughly dominates them.

The reign of terror comes to an end when Old Major ...

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..., wearing clothes, drinking alcohol, and engaging in trade. He even resorts to tyrannizing and killing his own kind. When Napoleon distorts the constitution he uses trickery and propaganda to persuade the other animals of its importance, and when this fails he uses fear. In the end, the animals become weak and Napoleon dominates them with his strength using fear and trickery as his tools.

Farmer Jones using a combination of strength, fear and trickery initially dominated the animals at Animal Farm. Despite the animal rebellion, the leaders of the revolution become corrupted by their power and in turn dominate their fellow animals using the same traits. As a result the lives of the animals have not significantly changed. George Orwell illustrates how people’s complacency and ignorance contribute to the rise of dictators and allow themselves to tolerate oppression.