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Take out your supplies. Put your backpack in the corner. Animal Farm by George Orwell. An Introduction. George Orwell and Animal Farm. “In his writing and his life, he was preoccupied by the single overriding theme of man’s inhumanity to man.”
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Take out your supplies. Put your backpack in the corner. Animal Farm by George Orwell An Introduction
George Orwell and Animal Farm • “In his writing and his life, he was preoccupied by the single overriding theme of man’s inhumanity to man.” • “Orwellian” has become a synonym for writing concerned with truth, justice, and decency.
George Orwell and Animal Farm • “Orwell was an idealist whose hopes and desires were so bitterly mocked by the ways of men that he turned in despair to creatures who at least had the merits, being speechless, that they could not lie, and, being incapable of love, that they could not betray and deceive.” • According to Orwell, Animal Farm was the only “one of my books that I really sweated over.”
Animal Farm and Russia • Animal Farm represents the 1917 Russian Revolution and what took place under new leadership. • Orwell is critiquing the Russian Revolution. • Animal Farm applies in every case of revolution that ended in power replacing power. • One general theme of the novel is what happens when power gets transferred in a negative way. • First released in 1946 in the United States, when the Cold War was beginning between the U.S. and the Soviet Union (Russia), so it was well accepted in the U.S.
Animal Farm and Russia • “Orwell’s allegory, while based on the Stalinist betrayal of the Russian Revolution, is also concerned in a broader sense with the corrupting influence of power in any society. The lesson of Animal Farm, and of 1984 as well, is… that revolutions simply substitute a new tyranny of ‘little fat men’ for the old ruling classes they displaced.” • “The exploiters are not the only guilty ones, Orwell argues. For it is the apathy and indifference of society as a whole, its willingness to compromise truth and justice, that enables tyrants to seize power.”
Characters in Animal Farm • Major= Karl Marx • Napoleon= Stalin • The farm under Farmer Jones= Russia under the Czar • Animals= Proletariat (poor people, the workers) • Farmer= Bourgeoisie (rich people who benefit from the work of poor people) • Although these are the specifics, the novel is about what happens when power gets transferred in a negative way and can apply to other violent revolutions as well.
