Animal farm

Animal farm critical essay _____________________

“Animal Farm” is a novel written by George Orwell in the form of a fable. The author used animals on an English farm to tell the story of soviet communism. The pigs Napoleon and Snowball are representative of Joseph Stalin and Leon Trostky. By using various techniques, the author highlights how greed and desire for power destroyed the ideals of communism.

At the beginning of the novel, the scene is set in the farm and it is shown that it is just an ordinary farm. The very first sentence alerts us that all is not well on the farm. Old major, the middle white boar, thought of a plan to stop the way they’re being treated.

“Mr. Jones, of Manor farm, had locked the hen houses for the night, but was too drunk to shut the potholes. “Just like Tsar Nicholas, how neglected his people of Russia and took away all their hope. George Orwell was successful by portraying Tsar Nicholas by showing us that they both didn’t treat their people right.

In the book, old major had a dream about all the animals living in harmony and being equal. The revolution came about by his dream. The smarter animals are affected the most and the pigs start to take the next step in Animalism. Each pig has a role in the book. Snowball’s role is to organise work around the farm. Squealer is the spin-doctor, he has to cover up every bad decision that Napoleon makes with his way of words .Napoleon turns into a ruthless leader who gets very power hungry.

“Squealer always spoke of it as a ‘readjustment’, never as a ‘reduction.”

This shows us how Squealer has a use of words to make things look better. He uses euphemisms to avoid the other animals to think they’re doing wrong. This represents the Pravda, the Russian media, who justified every wrong thing that Joseph Stalin did. George Orwell successfully linked Squealer to the Pravda by showing us that they both can turn black into white.

In the book, things change and start to become worse. The Windmill was Snowball’s idea but he was driven out of the farm. He was driven out of the farm by Jessie’s and Bluebell’s puppies that had been taken from them to be trained into vicious henchmen for Napoleon. Boxer starts to change by his motto “I will work harder” or “Napoleon is always right”.

“Nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball”

This represents Joseph Stalin who Drove Leon Trotsky out of Russia using the KGB, the secret police. George Orwell successfully portrayed the puppies as the KGB by their brutality and their viciousness to get what their told to.

Napoleon takes control of the farm. The pigs help him to do this in two ways. The first way is to frighten the animals by telling them that Mr. Jones would come back. The second way they do this is by manipulating the animals with the use of the puppies.

“Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed out duty? Jones would come back.”

This represents Joseph Stalin telling his people that if he doesn’t do his duty correctly that Tsar Nicholas would return and run the country again. That scared the people as he mistreated them. George Orwell successfully portrayed Napoleons’ use of frightening the animals to Joseph Stalin scaring his people, by both threatening that their old leader to come back.

The pigs begin to trade with their human neighbours. That represents the attempt of Joseph Stalin trying to trade with the west democracy. The ideals of communism were completely destroyed as classes began to develop. The whole idea of communism is that it was classless. The end of the book is about Pilkington, Frederick and napoleon all in a meeting but a brawl breaks out. This represents the meeting of Roosevelt (America), Churchill (Great Britain) and Stalin (Russia). The fight in the book represents the cold war between the East and West after the Second World War.