Book Review: Animal Farm by George Orwell

I just finished reading Animal Farm written by George Orwell the day before yesterday. I have already read this book years ago in Korean which is my first language and I decided to read it again in English because reading original version would be also fun.

The book was a fable criticizing human society, especially politics, communism, capitalism, totalitarianism, and dictatorship. It’s said that each character and event represents historical figure or social class and historical event. After reading the book, I also searched for historical knowledge of Russia and Soviet Union to get some sense of the underlying allegory in the story.

Plot

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

Manor farm is managed by a man called Jones. Animals in Manor farm is mistreated by their human master Jones—he didn’t feed them properly, overloaded animals with drudgery and cruelty.

One day, Old Major, a senior boar who is repected by every animal, gathered up all the animal in Manor farm and shared his idea about Animalism. Animalism is a revolutionary idea about overthrowing their human master and producing their food by themselves. Shortly after he proclaimed Animalism, he passed away.

Some days after this gathering, animals succeeded a revolt against Jones banishing him from the farm. They started to produce their own food and manage the farm. They also started to educate themselves but only pigs could become fluent in reading and writing.

Snowball and Napoleon were two most prominent pigs in the farm. They planned the management of the farm and supervised execution of the plan. One day, however, Napoleon banished Snowball from the farm threatening him with his loyal and fierce guard dogs.

Napoleon exploited animals in the farm. Animals are now assigned more labor with less food while Napoleon stayed comfortable in the very same house that has been inhabited by Jones.

A lot of animals who didn’t agree with Napoleon were executed. A lot of animals were suffering backbreaking toil subsisting on little amount of food.

Later, Napoleon and his fellow pigs started to trade with human, the archenemy of Animalism. Human farm owners who have been invited to the farm were astonished by pig controlled farm’s efficient system which produced more products with less cost. Pigs were behaving more like human.

In the end, pigs and humans were indiscernible by animals’ eyes.

Allegory

It is said that each character represents the following historical figure and social class.

• Jones: Czar Nicholas the Second
• Animalism: Communism
• Old Major: Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. They are well known for establishing the theory of communism
• Snowball: Leon Trotsky. He supported idea of world revolution of communists. He was banished by Stalin.
• Napoleon: Joseph Stalin. He supported idea of revolution of communists within a localized region. He dictated Soviet Union.
• Guard dogs: KGB, security agency for the Soviet Union
• Boxer and lots of animals: Proletariat
• Benjamin: Mensheviks or the author himself.
• Pilkington: capitalist governments of the United Kingdom and the United States
• Frederick: Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany

Conclusion

It was a fun story to read. I felt that having a literacy is important. Illiterate animals were deceived throughout the story. Having literacy alone wouldn’t be sufficient because Benjamin could also read as well as any pig but he didn’t take any action. Having courage and willpower to take action would be also necessary not to become a negligent person.

I enjoyed reading this book. See you in the next post!