Animal Farm

BACKGROUND
Orwells Bomb
Animal Farm appeared on the bookstands in August 1945. That is the same month that the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one would say that the effect of Orwells satire was as profound as the dawning of the nuclear age. Still, both Animal Farm and the bomb were aimed, ultimately, at totalitarian dictatorships, and Orwell wrote his book to alert citizens to the threat posed by such forms of government.

Orwells Love of Animals

Orwell had a great love for animals. His interest in furry and feathered beasts began in his youth and continued throughout his adult life. In letters he wrote home from school, George often inquired about animals in and around the family home. Friends of Orwell recall how his house in Burma was home to a variety of creatures, including ducks and geese. Critic J. R. Hammond writes the following in A George Orwell Companion: While living at Wallington he kept goats and hens, and he and his wife invented humourous names for them and related to each other imaginary stories in which farmyard animals had amusing adventures.

Terror and Tyranny in the Third Grade

When he was eight years old, Eric Blair (Orwells family name) was sent to St. Cyprians, and English boarding school. Orwell describes the experience in an essay titled Such, Such Were the Joys as being flung into a world of force and fraud and secrecy, like a goldfish into a tank full of pike. Separated from his family for the first time, the frightened boy wet his bed and was beaten for it. He ended up feeling guilty and outcast. He came away with a hatred of the schools authorities. It is this hatred of force and fraud and all-powerful authorities that animates almost all of Orwells work as a writer. In Animal Farm, the authorities are pigs.

Marxism and Communism

Karl Marx, a German philosopher, developed the ideas that form the basis of communism. Marx imagined a society in which everyone shared equally in the societys wealth, thus ending poverty. Old Majors dream in the opening of Animal Farm echoes Marxs vision of a society in which the poor do not suffer at the hands of the rich, even though Old Major is talking about animals and humans.

Literary Device
ALLEGORY
An allegory is a narrative in which the characters, their actions, and even the setting, are contrived by the author to make coherent sense on the literal, or primary, level of signification, and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signification. Think of it as a pond, where the surface is one thing we see, but if the light is right (i.e. we use our intellect to illuminate that which might seem impenetrable) we can peer beneath the surface to see that the author shows us much more. In this way, a simple surface story represents a more complex story underneath. There are two main types of allegory: (1) Historical and political allegory, in which the characters and actions that are signified literally in their turn represent, or allegorize, historical personages and events. Animal Farm is an example of this. (2) The allegory of ideas, in which the literal characters represent concepts and the plot allegorizes an abstract doctrine or thesis. Allegories are written not only to entertain, but also to teach a lesson or moral principle. Orwell uses his allegory in several ways. Firstly, his animals represent real people in the Russian Revolution, and the story represents and satirizes the revolution and its aftermath. Thus, Napoleon may be recognized as Joseph Stalin. In a second sense, Orwells allegory also implies that the principles of all revolutions undergo negative changes once leaders who seek power corrupt the true revolutionary spirit. In this sense, Napoleon may be seen as the historical Napoleon, who used the nationalistic spirit following the French Revolution of 1789 to increase his own power in France. Thirdly, and even more broadly, the allegory of the pigs suggests that there are always pigs in society who seek power for their own purposes. George Orwell was deeply concerned with the political and social issues of his time. He was particularly interested in the dictatorships that arose in different countries in the 1920s and 1930s: Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Nazi Germany, Stalin in Soviet Russia, Francisco Franco in Spain. He knew about the Spanish case firsthand and wrote directly about how it and other dictatorships oppressed and betrayed the common people. In Animal Farm Orwell found a new way to express his objections.

Literary Device
Theme
We can say that theme is the most important idea that comes to the forefront from the reading of a text, whether it is a narrative, a drama, a poem, or even a piece of non-fiction, such as a speech. Of course, several themes are possible, and these may even be themes that the author has not even considered, particularly when we interpret a text in light of our own present times or context. Understanding theme, however, may well involve becoming familiar with the authors own historical context. As a political writer, George Orwell was interested in exposing specific people, events, and social ills that he found repugnant. In Animal Farm he invents animal characters and creates a plot that most of his contemporaries would easily recognize as real figures, groups, or events in the Russian Revolution. At the same time he writes a fable about farm animals in which pigs, for example, represent the tendency of more capable, powerful, or educated classes to take advantage of poorer and oppressed people. But the pigs in society are not the only targets of his satire. Other animals, such as Boxer and Clover, represent the foolishness and gullibility of some other groups in society. Orwell shows that they, too, have to take responsibility for their own exploitation. Here is a list of some of the major themes in the novel: Power corrupts those who possess it. Peoples ignorance contributes to their political and social oppression. Revolutions may result in a change of political power, but often most peoples lives remain much the same. In societies individuals are rarely treated equally. All societies contain individuals who will seize power for their own ends. Those in power will sometimes attempt to revise history to fit their own political needs. Language enables one to gain power; education is power.

Characters in the Novel

PLEASE ASSIGN THE CHARACTERS SPECIFIC TRAITS AND GIVE A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THEIR FUNCTION IN THE NOVEL MR JONES OLD MAJOR SNOWBALL NAPOLEON SQUEALER THE DOGS THE SHEEP FREDERICK MR WHYMPER MURIEL MOLLIE THE CAT MOSES, THE RAVEN BENJAMIN BOXER CLOVER PILKINGTON THE CHICKENS

NOW CONNECT THE CHARACTER TO THE APPROPRIATE PERSON OR ENTITY IN THE TIME OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. WE WILL NOW LOOK AT VARIOUS PLOT EVENTS IN THE NOVEL AND SHOW HOW THEY RELATE TO VARIOUS EVENTS DURING THE TIME OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.

Figures of The Russian Revolution

The Tsar
Tsar or Czar was the title used by Russias emperors before the revolution. The word czar comes from the word Caesar, originally ancient Romes Julius Caesar, and then the name used by Roman emperors after him. The first Russian to call himself Tsar was Ivan the Terrible in 1547. The last was Nicholas II (1868-1918), who was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in 1917.

Karl Marx
Marx is considered one of the most foremost thinkers of economy and politics and wrote on a wide variety of topics. With his lifelong collaborator Friedrich Engels, he produced The Communist Manifesto, first published on February 21, 1848. After a series of moves, few of them by choice, he lived in London where he wrote, primarily in the reading room of the British Library, his major work, Das Kapital (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy). After studying the philosopher Hegal, Marx developed his own theory of history, which he called historical materialism. It is based on Hegals idea that history occurs through a dialectic, or a clash of opposing forces. Marx differed with Hegals idealistic view of reality, that people live in a world of appearances, and that reality only exists as an ideal. Instead, Marx believed that the material world was real, and that our ideas of it are consequences, not causes of the world. But it was Engels book, The Conditions of the Working Class in England, published in 1844, which led Marx to conceive of the historical dialectic in terms of class conflict, and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution. Other people took the ideas of Marx to propose a political and economic philosophy they dubbed Marxism; Marx himself rejected the label with the famous words, If this is Marxism, then Im not a Marxist.

Karl Marx Speaks

The proletarians of the world have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labour. The only thing it deprives him of is the ability to enslave others by means of such appropriations. Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. Religion is the opiate of the masses. Marx's response, in both the Theses and the Critique, is
that state and religion will both be transcended when a genuine community of social and economic equals is created and that the proletariat can break free only by their own self-transforming action. Indeed if they do not create the revolution for themselves guided, of course, by the philosopher they will not be fit to receive it.

History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends. The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.

Figures of The Russian Revolution

Lenin
The man who actually led the Bolsheviks to victory in 1917, founded the Communist party, and established the dictatorship that ruled the new Russia was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Lenin believed that workers and peasants could not bring about revolution on their own. He thought that workers needed to be led by a small party of professional revolutionaries. He used force to take control of the Russian government and made himself dictator. To his credit, Lenin, who worked with Stalin, witnessed Stalins rise to power and warned against giving him absolute control, but it was too late. Weakened by a series of strokes, Lenin died in 1924, at which point Stalin made himself dictator.

The Gulags
From the beginning, Communist Russias purges led to large-scale arrests. To accommodate so many enemies of the state, a huge system of prison camps was built. These were called gulags an abbreviation of the Russian words GLAVNOYE UPRAVLENIYE ISPRAVITELNO TRUDOVYKH LAGEREY (Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps). The word became known in the West when Aleskandr Solzhenitsyn published The Gulag Archipelago in 1973. In that book, Solzhenitsyn said that between 1928 and 1953, as many as 50 million people served long sentences in the Gulags. Others have estimated that the number from 1936 to 1953 ranged between 6 and 15 million. No one disputes that both the number and the injustice were enormous.

The Russian Revolution

Before 1917 Until 1917, Russia was ruled by an Emperor called the Czar. The ruling class was rich and powerful, but compared with the rest of Europe Russia was a backward country, most of the population being poor rural peasants. Even when the Czar tried to industrialize the country in the last years of the 19th century, the peasants who moved into the towns found appalling living

conditions, with low wages and not enough to eat. There were some organized protests against the repressive regime, but most of these were brutally put down and the leaders imprisoned. The Czar tried a few experiments in democracy, notably a Russian parliament called the Duma, but they did little to ease the poverty. When Russia entered the First World War in 1914 the Czars position seemed reasonably secure, but then followed a series of defeats, which, coupled with dreadful lack of organization, meant that by 1917 Russia was in a state of collapse. In the early weeks of 1917 many soldiers began to desert, and in February there were major demonstrations in the capital, Petrograd, against the conduct of the war. Nicholas II, the Czar, realized he had little support and gave up power.

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1917 Revolution For eight months there was a period of uncertainty, and with a Provisional Government tried to fight the war and hold the country together. Finally, in October 1917, Lenin, who led the Bolshevik party, decided the time was right to seize power in the name of the workers. Street fighting continued for ten days, and ended with the Bolsheviks capturing the Winter Palace, and holding a meeting there. In 1905, the Palace had been the scene of brutal repression when hundreds of people holding a peaceful demonstration had been killed by the Czars soldiers. In entering it, the Bolsheviks made a powerful symbolic gesture. Lenin Takes Control Lenin proclaimed the first socialist state in which all workers could have a say in the running of the country. Many of his ideas came from Karl Marx, the German economist, whose major work Das Kapital proposed a society in which all people would be free and equal. Marx died in 1883 and never saw the revolution he had inspired. Lenin had worked towards this revolution for many years, and an effective part of his agitation had been the use of simple but effective slogans to help people understand the aims of the revolution. But when he and the Bolsheviks gained power they faced enormous problems. The combination of years of inefficient government by the Czar, and the effects of the First World War, meant that the economy had collapsed, there was little food, and there were huge outbreaks of typhus and influenza. From 1918 to 1921 a civil war ensued, and many foreign countries, alarmed that their own workers might take over in the same way, sent troops to fight against the Bolsheviks.

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After three years of bitter fighting, the Bolsheviks gained control of Russia, though the country was still very weak. In 1924 Lenin died, and there followed a struggle for power between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Joseph Stalin Stalin was a silent and cunning man, who was General Secretary of the Communist (previously Bolshevik) party. He posed as a moderate man, carrying out Lenins policies. He was not interested in spreading revolution abroad, and his main aim was to build up Russia as a strong country Socialism in One Country. Trotsky, a brilliant speaker who had been in charge of the Red Army during the Civil War, wanted to see the revolution spread throughout the world Permanent Revolution. Both men had their supporters within the party, and for a period of two years there was much discussion within the party about the direction the newly formed Soviet Union should take. Stalin Takes Control By 1926 Stalin was able to discredit Trotsky. He was deported and, in 1929, permanently exiled. From this time onwards, whenever Stalin met with problems inside the country he blamed the difficulties on Trotsky, who he claimed was working with foreign powers against the Soviet Union. By 1928 Stalin was virtual ruler of the Soviet Union, certainly a contradiction to many Soviet people, who saw their country moving in a very different direction from what they understood of the ideas of Karl Marx. To the ordinary Russian, Stalin seemed more like a Czar than someone trying to build a new society based on the views of Marx and Lenin. In addition, Stalins own views rapidly changed, often in contradictory ways. In 1921 he opposed Russias rapid industrialization, yet in 1928 he decided to start Russia on her first 5 year plan an attempt to industrialize the country quickly and at the same time collectivize the peasants, that is to say, put them to work in

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large state farms. In 1929, Stalin ordered the first Five-Year Plan, decreeing Soviet agriculture be collectivized by the end of 1933. For individual farmers, it meant turning their land and livestock over to the state and becoming workers on giant collective farms. Reluctant landowners were accused of being class enemies, rich kulaks exploiting the masses, thus setting the stage for Stalins decree in December, 1929 to liquidate the kulaks as a class. Famine historians estimate 7-10 million farmers and family members died as victims of starvation, torture, rape and murder. Propaganda posters, such as this one, promoted the ideas, without communicating the truth, that many were dying of starvation because the true production of agriculture was much lower than was being claimed. Repression When faced by opposition, Stalin tended to adopt brutal, simple solutions. Those who refused to accept the propaganda delivered by the State were either killed or exiled to remote areas. When Kirov, the Leningrad party boss, was murdered in 1934, it marked the start of a period of show trials of leading party members who admitted to crimes they almost certainly could not have carried out. Stalin had them removed because he felt they posed a threat to his rule. Many millions of ordinary Russians were killed or uprooted and no members of society were beyond the repressive power of Stalin. Out of these purges, and supported by an ever-present campaign of propaganda, developed the Stalin cult of personality, whereby everyone was Expected to see him as a sort of god-like figure. There was no area of life beyond Stalins notice, from agriculture to science to the arts, everyone had to be certain to remain in favour or risk public humiliation, exile, or worse.

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With regard to foreign policy, Stalin realised that a Communist government was not popular with the governments of other states, and when Hitler came to power in 1933, fascism became his greatest worry. The Soviet Union joined the League of Nations in 1934 and Stalin tried desperately to find allies against Hitler. When this seemed impossible, in 1939, he actually signed a treaty with Hitler. While this Nazi-Soviet pact seemed unbelievable to many in the Soviet Union with the Second World War looming, Stalin needed time to build up his country to face what was the superior military power of Germany. In 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union and for the next two years the Soviet people had to endure incredible hardship to survive. During this time Stalin rallied the Russian people around himself until this time he had seriously misread foreign affairs and he now wanted to give the impression that only his leadership and the sacrifice of the Russian people would result in victory. From 1941 to 1943 Stalin encouraged his new allies, America, Britain, and France, to start a second front to help ease the situation in the Soviet Union, but because of his previous position help was not forthcoming. "Beloved Stalina fortune of the people!"

The Russian Revolution

The Rise of the Soviet Union

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Even though Stalins economic figures are difficult to believe, and untrue in certain areas, the rise of the Soviet Union as one of the worlds greatest industrial powers took place in the 1930s and was only robbed of its momentum by war. The human sacrifice, however, was very great, and the consumer benefits virtually nil. Stalin concentrated on building up heavy industry, and even though there were many mistakes and failures, by 1939 Stalin had laid down the pattern for the future. During the war, the Soviet people often found it difficult to understand the shifting nature of Stalins thinking: enemies of the past became friends, and much of the propaganda of the previous 10 years was largely rewritten. Stalin was able to get away with this because he controlled all aspects of Soviet life, including all of the media sources. Of course, the society that had been created, with a powerful ruling elite, was far from what people had envisaged as expressing the original ideals of Marx and Lenin.

Propaganda
propaganda (prop-a-gan-da) n. Something written or spoken with the intention of making people believe what you want them to believe. Propaganda can take the form of a leaflet, a poster, a slogan, a speech, or a broadcast. Most people immediately think of wars when the word propaganda is mentioned. When wars are being fought it becomes essential to keep up the spirits and morale of your own side or country and at the same time persuade the enemy that they are fighting a lost cause without any hope of victory. The aim of propaganda is to persuade people to accept certain beliefs or facts without questioning them. Propaganda may not be necessarily evil, but one must always scrutinize who is benefiting by having information believed. In addition, one must become aware of the line between information and misinformation. Propaganda on Animal Farm On Animal Farm Squealer is in charge of all of the propaganda for Napoleon. Every time something happens which makes the animals question the way that the revolution is progressing, Squealer uses his skill with language to persuade them that everything is as it should be. In the speech below, Squealer realizes that even the least intelligent animal would remember that Old Major said Only get rid of man and the produce of our labour would be our own. Squealers speech is an attempt to justify the pigs action in taking the milk and apples.
Comrades! he cried. You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Ur sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades, cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back? (p 23)