Effect of George Orwell's Animal Farm on Society
The prominent novel Animal Farm was written by George Orwell. This book was published during World War II and was intended to portray the communism that had been taking place throughout Russia at the time. Orwell took a massive risk and jeopardized his well-being by letting this story get out to the public. Animal Farm had seemed to be an innocent children’s book at first glance, but many soon realized it had a much deeper meaning. George Orwell shared his true opinions about World War II by giving his negative views on Stalin and affirmative views on Trotsky without being too upfront about it. This was a very precarious piece of writing to issue; however, his bravery and willingness to rebel made a huge impact on society. To begin with, the novel Animal Farm could easily be misinterpreted by its readers. This is because one may overlook the parallels between the animals on the farm and the individuals from World War II. Many people may completely disregard the fact that the book’s main purpose is not to entertain the audience with a sweet story about farm animals, but to get his point across about where he stands on what had been going on within the war. Orwell symbolized different characters and movements in the story by depicting them as animals with similar characteristics and statuses in society. For example, the leaders, Stalin and Trotsky, were represented by pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, to show how he felt about their actions throughout the feud. Also, Orwell used the sheep to symbolize the middle class or “bourgeoisie” to convey how most people went along with anything they heard during World War II. Rather than possessing their own opinions on matters, they just listened to whoever spoke at the time and believed what they were told. Moreover, George Orwell took an enormous risk when attempting to publish this harsh, opinionated novel. Animal Farm is a very biased piece of writing that expressed his opinions on specific topics that were