Predicament of Authority and Animal Farm by George Orwell

George Orwell wrote the allegorical Novel “Animal Farm” in 1945. He completed the first draft in 1944, and named it “A Fairy Story” but it was rejected by a few publishers. It was finally published in August 1945 by a British Publisher called Secker and Warburg.

Animal Farm represents Russia during the revolution of 1917 and the communist regime which rose to power in the aftermath of the revolution. It’s a biting commentary on the struggles of the common man and how every system of government eventually exploits the working class.

 

 

In this Novel, animals take over their farm after they are fed up with the incompetence and cruelty of the farm owner, Mr. Jones. All the animals in the Novel are anthropomorphic versions of soviet Russian leaders and revolutionaries. After forcing the Jones Family and their servants to flee the farm, animals form a society and change the name to Animal Farm from Manor Farm. 

 

The funny thing is that animals start to become like the humans they overthrew.

Here’s a short snap of everything that happens in the Novel.

Old Major, a wise old pig, dreamt about a utopian world for fellow farm animals. He then went ahead and delivered an invigorating speech, which sparked an inkling for freedom and equality among animals. He died a few days later. Now comes a band of pigs, who are intellectually superior to other farm animals. The pigs taught themselves to read and tried to help others as well but other animals weren’t as intelligent. Napoleon and Snowball are two of the prominent pigs. They plan against Mr. Jones and eventually time comes when Jones provokes them enough so that animals have to resort to violence. After kicking the Jones family out of the farm, pigs suggest that the ideology of their new world should be called “Animalism”, which is in fact a symbol towards Soviet communism. Snowball is physically frail than Napoleon but he’s smart, so he suggests six commandments by which animalism would be practised. Napoleon and Snowball are congenial in the start but soon animosity starts to develop between them. Napoleon is a stronger, more aggressive pig who would stop at nothing to achieve what he wants. His unrelenting quest for power becomes a problem for the unity of citizens of the animal farm. Napoleon is actually an allegorical representation of Joseph Stalin, who after the Russian Revolution conspired and succeeded to snatch power from the people and became a dictator. Similar things happen in the Novel as well. Napoleon starts to disagree with everything Snowball proposes for the betterment of the animal farm and finally bursts out and asks his loyal pigs and dogs to attack Snowball. They succeed in making snowballs flee the farm. A new reign of tyranny starts after that. Just like how Joseph Stalin did it in Soviet Russia. Propaganda was at its peak and all the animals were guilt into doing harder work for less food than before. One of their biggest projects was to build a windmill, which was destroyed as a result of a storm one night. Napoleon blames it on Snowball who was not even present in the farm at the time. Animals believe him but the humans in the neighbouring farms thought it was only because the walls of the windmill were too thin.

Deceit, lies, hypocrisy and corruption were all the things associated with humans according to animalism but Napoleon and his cronies adapted every one of these traits and contaminated something as original as animalism. Meanwhile Napoleon upscaled his atrocities against the citizens of the animal farm and killed a bunch of them after forcing false confessions out of them for conspiring against his leadership with Snowball.

Although commandments of animalism prohibited any business dealings with the humans, still Napoleon kept trading with other human farmers. Eventually they sensed weakness in the animal farm and attacked. They destroyed the windmill, although the animals were able to fend off the attackers and protected the farm from recapture by humans.

 

 

Napoleon called it a victory and announced the construction of a new windmill. Boxer, a hard working horse, which represents the working class of soviet Russia in the Novel had to lead the efforts once again just like he had done the first two times. Although he wasn’t able to see the fruits of his hard labour. Boxer became frail and feeble because of lung ailment and had to be sent to the veterinarian by Napoleon’s orders. It turned out that he was actually being sent to a glue boiler. He was never seen again.
In the last chapter of “Animal Farm”, several years have passed and Napoleon's rule is mightier than ever. They have reduced the seven commandments to only one, which states that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

Bleak and desolate themes like the oppression of totalitarianism are evident in the Novel. Relationship between pigs, sheep, horses, hens in the Novel shows us how class warfare can put a strain on the cohesiveness of a society. Language as a tool for the propaganda machine is perfectly exposed as Napoleon insisted that everyone should call him “The Leader” instead of Napoleon. Slogans like “all animals are equal but some are more equal” show further how the language is used to exclude certain vulnerable and weaker groups from some basic rights in life.

It’s very important to note that the time of the publishing of “Animal Farm” was a detrimental factor for Orwell’s ambiguous stance over his true feelings for the socialist movement and by that extension, communism as well. Animal Farm leaves something to be desired in terms of painting Stalin a.k.a the pig named Napoleon as the absolute evil which most intellectuals thought of him during the 1930’s. At the time of publishing of Animal farm, which took place in 1945, the support for soviets in the UK was quite high, which affected both the material and form of the Novel. Maybe that has been a reason for painting Napoleon as a necessary evil. Time and time again, he defends the Animal Farm from the humans, which was enough to convince animals that he had some sincerity towards their well being. Although it’s not as harsh about the Soviets and Stalin as if it were written in the 1930’s, still a lot of the publishers in 1944 refused to publish the Novel at first. They thought it was a bit unnecessary to criticise the Soviets when they had saved the British from Nazis to some extent.

A couple of years after coming out of world war 2, the attitude towards the communists in Britain had changed a lot and Animal Farm did achieve a huge commercial success both in the UK and America. Although it got a lot of positive reviews and critics even compared George’s satirical fable with Jonathan Swift. His simplicity of message and clear communication of ideas were lauded a lot but predictably it also received some negative criticism as well. Common phrase used in negative criticism was “prejudiced attitude towards the facts”.