Socialism in George Orwell’s Animal Farm

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"Animal Farm" by George Orwell is a novel based on the lives of a society of animals living on Animal Farm. Although the title of the book suggests the book is merely about animals, the story is a much more in depth analysis of the human nature and behavior. The animals are used as puppets to illustrate how humans operate, how propaganda was used by early powerful leaders such as Stalin, and the effect this type of leadership had on the behavior of the people. Before reading this fable, I was in many views antagonistic with Orwell’s beliefs of human nature.

Orwell believed that although socialism is an ideal, it could never be successfully adopted due to uncontrollable sins of human nature. For example, although Napoleon, the main character, seems at first to be a good leader, he is eventually overcome by greed and soon becomes power-hungry. Orwell’s idea contradicted my understanding of human nature at the time because I was raised with the belief that when a person has good qualities at start, it will continue to be in that manner.

Orwell shows us how, if only animals became aware of their strength, we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat. The novel again challenged me. I had different opinions on the behavior of the high class. This brought to me that there are different members of the high class and they differ in their philosophy. There are those members of the high class that help the lower class and those that exploit the lower class in all ways possible.

George Orwell does not take view against Socialism but rather against Stalin’s interpretation of the Socialist ideas. In fact Orwell is an advocate of Socialism. One's belief that Socialism could work cannot exist without also believing one major assumption about human nature that we are all capable of perfection. Orwell’s views again contradict my own because I have thought that the possibilities of being perfect are almost impossible.

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