What Are The Similarities Between Lord Of The Flies And Animal Farm

George Orwell’s satirical novel Animal Farm and William Golding’s realistic fiction Lord of the Flies have a plethora of allegorical elements. These two novels are similar and different in many ways. Including motifs and allegories of all types. Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm are classics with lessons in morality that we all can learn from.

In Animal Farm, it is very obvious early on that the rebellion of the farm closely resembles the Soviet Revolution, with characters symbolising figures from Russian history including Stalin. Communist Russia was a time full of propaganda and corrupt leaders, much like the farm that led a rebellion against humanity. The President and Leader of the farm, Napoleon has many similarities to Stalin, they

both become the overlord of a rebellion, are advocates for Marxism-Leninism, and adopt a cult of personality. Napoleon is one who does not practice what he preaches, much like Stalin “They had thought the Fifth Commandment was ‘No animal shall drink alcohol,’ but there were two words that they had forgotten.

Actually the Commandment read: ‘No animal shall drink alcohol TO EXCESS.’” (Orwell 71). Originally, the Commandments were to ensure that the animals would not become like humans, but in fact the pigs were becoming more and more like humans everyday. They altered the Commandment to fit their new ideals, rather than keep up the earliest version, agreed upon by everyone. This Commandment only benefitted the pigs, much to the dismay of the other animals. Stalin acted similarly, he targeted the Ukrainians inciting a famine, while he on the other hand, was not feeling the negativity of the famine. Another example of animals resembling people is Snowball, a pig who challenges Napoleon for control of the farm. Similar to the relationship between Napoleon and Snowball, Stalin deported a leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Leon Trotsky. He called for a continuing world revolution that would inevitably result in the dismantling of the Soviet state. Both Snowball and Trotsky had plans for their civilizations, Trotsky with the Five Year Plan, and Snowball with the building of the windmill. The most obvious similarity being that they

opposed their current leaders. Also, Mr. Jones acted much like Czar Nicholas II, whom the Russian Revolution ousted. One prominent characteristic between the two being that they lived in luxury while their citizens were living in austerity. Old Major lays out a clear example of this inequality, “‘ Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals,’” (Orwell 5). These allegories are very apparent, just like in Lord of the Flies.