George Orwell's Animal Farm

Animal Farm written by George Orwell describes the rise of Joseph Stalin in the form of animals. The novel starts with a boar known as Old Major describing his dream where the animals live free from the rule of the humans. Old Major tells the animals of the farm to work toward such greatness. Old Major is an old boar and he sadly dies three nights after this meeting. Although Old Major is dead, Snowball and Napoleon name Old Major’s philosophy as Animalism. The animals plan to overthrow the oppressive human and owner of the farm Mr. Jones. A battle occurs between the animals and the farmer, but the farmer is run off the farm. The animals rename the farm Animal Farm and work hard to turn Old Major’s vision into reality. In the beginning, the

Snowball formulates a plan for a windmill to generate electricity. This will benefit the farm and even make the load on the animals easier. Snowball convinces the animals to build a windmill, but Napoleon has nine dogs attacks Snowball and runs him off the farm. Napoleon takes control of the farm. He declares the pigs will be the government and weekly meetings will no longer occur. Although Napoleon initially opposed the windmill, he was now for it once Snowball was kicked out of the farm. Now all the animals putting all their effort toward the completion of the windmill, but storm occurs which destroys the windmill. Napoleon puts the blame on Snowball and his malicious will. Napoleon rose to power by instilling fear of death within the animals and this can be a powerful motivator. The pigs continue breaking the principles of Animalism by living in the human home and consuming alcohol. Times passes and the pigs are becoming more human-like. The pigs now walk on two legs and carry whips and the vision of Old Major has been destroyed. The principles of Animalism have been morphed into one sentence “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The conflict in the novel is between the upper class and lower class which in the novel is between the humans (upper class) and animals (lower class); another conflict is between Napoleon and the rest of the animals. This is a symbolic representation of Joseph Stalin’s rise to power and the problems which the people faced during this time in