ANIMAL FARM (George Orwell)

Napoleon
From the very beginning of the novella, Napoleon emerges as an utterly corrupt opportunist.
Though always present at the early meetings of the new state, Napoleon never makes a single
contribution to the revolution—not to the formulation of its ideology, not to the bloody struggle that
it necessitates, not to the new society’s initial attempts to establish itself. He never shows interest
in the strength of Animal Farm itself, only in the strength of his power over it. Thus, the only project
he undertakes with enthusiasm is the training of a litter of puppies. He doesn’t educate them for
their own good or for the good of all, however, but rather for his own good: they become his own
private army or secret police, a violent means by which he imposes his will on others.
Although he is most directly modeled on the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Napoleon represents, in
a more general sense, the political tyrants that have emerged throughout human history and with
particular frequency during the twentieth century. His namesake is not any communist leader but
the early-eighteenth-century French general Napoleon, who betrayed the democratic principles on
which he rode to power, arguably becoming as great a despot as the aristocrats whom he
supplanted. It is a testament to Orwell’s acute political intelligence and to the universality of his
fable that Napoleon can easily stand for any of the great dictators and political schemers in world
history, even those who arose after Animal Farm was written. In the behavior of Napoleon and his
henchmen, one can detect the lying and bullying tactics of totalitarian leaders such as Josip Tito,
Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet, and Slobodan Milosevic treated in sharply critical terms.
Snowball
Orwell’s stint in a Trotskyist battalion in the Spanish Civil War—during which he first began plans
for a critique of totalitarian communism—influenced his relatively positive portrayal of Snowball. As
a parallel for Leon Trotsky, Snowball emerges as a fervent ideologue who throws himself heart
and soul into the attempt to spread Animalism worldwide and to improve Animal Farm’s
infrastructure. His idealism, however, leads to his downfall. Relying only on the force of his own
logic and rhetorical skill to gain his influence, he proves no match for Napoleon’s show of brute
force.
Although Orwell depicts Snowball in a relatively appealing light, he refrains from idealizing his
character, making sure to endow him with certain moral flaws. For example, Snowball basically
accepts the superiority of the pigs over the rest of the animals. Moreover, his fervent, single-
minded enthusiasm for grand projects such as the windmill might have erupted into full-blown
megalomaniac despotism had he not been chased from Animal Farm. Indeed, Orwell suggests
that we cannot eliminate government corruption by electing principled individuals to roles of power;
he reminds us throughout the novella that it is power itself that corrupts.
Boxer
The most sympathetically drawn character in the novel, Boxer epitomizes all of the best qualities
of the exploited working classes: dedication, loyalty, and a huge capacity for labor. He also,
however, suffers from what Orwell saw as the working class’s major weaknesses: a naïve trust in
the good intentions of the intelligentsia and an inability to recognize even the most blatant forms of
political corruption. Exploited by the pigs as much or more than he had been by Mr. Jones, Boxer
represents all of the invisible labor that undergirds the political drama being carried out by the
elites. Boxer’s pitiful death at a glue factory dramatically illustrates the extent of the pigs’ betrayal.
It may also, however, speak to the specific significance of Boxer himself: before being carted off,
he serves as the force that holds Animal Farm together.
Squealer
Throughout his career, Orwell explored how politicians manipulate language in an age of mass
media. In Animal Farm, the silver-tongued pig Squealer abuses language to justify Napoleon’s
actions and policies to the proletariat by whatever means seem necessary. By radically simplifying
language—as when he teaches the sheep to bleat “Four legs good, two legs better!”—he limits the
terms of debate. By complicating language unnecessarily, he confuses and intimidates the
uneducated, as when he explains that pigs, who are the “brainworkers” of the farm, consume milk
and apples not for pleasure, but for the good of their comrades. In this latter strategy, he also
employs jargon (“tactics, tactics”) as well as a baffling vocabulary of false and impenetrable
statistics, engendering in the other animals both self-doubt and a sense of hopelessness about
ever accessing the truth without the pigs’ mediation. Squealer’s lack of conscience and
unwavering loyalty to his leader, alongside his rhetorical skills, make him the perfect propagandist
for any tyranny. Squealer’s name also fits him well: squealing, of course, refers to a pig’s typical
form of vocalization, and Squealer’s speech defines him. At the same time, to squeal also means
to betray, aptly evoking Squealer’s behavior with regard to his fellow animals.
Old Major
As a democratic socialist, Orwell had a great deal of respect for Karl Marx, the German political
economist, and even for Vladimir Ilych Lenin, the Russian revolutionary leader. His critique of
Animal Farm has little to do with the Marxist ideology underlying the Rebellion but rather with the
perversion of that ideology by later leaders. Major, who represents both Marx and Lenin, serves as
the source of the ideals that the animals continue to uphold even after their pig leaders have
betrayed them.
Though his portrayal of Old Major is largely positive, Orwell does include a few small ironies that
allow the reader to question the venerable pig’s motives. For instance, in the midst of his long
litany of complaints about how the animals have been treated by human beings, Old Major is
forced to concede that his own life has been long, full, and free from the terrors he has vividly
sketched for his rapt audience. He seems to have claimed a false brotherhood with the other
animals in order to garner their support for his vision.

The Soviet Union under Stalinism

Animal Farm is a satire of totalitarian governments in their many guises. But Orwell composed the
book for a more specific purpose: to serve as a cautionary tale about Stalinism. It was for this
reason that he faced such difficulty in getting the book published; by the time Animal Farm was
ready to meet its readers, the Allies were cooperating with the Soviet Union. The allegorical
characters of the novel represent specific historical figures and different factions of Imperial
Russian and Soviet society. These include Karl Marx (Major), Vladimir Lenin (Major), Leon Trotsky
(Snowball), Joseph Stalin (Napoleon), Adolf Hitler (Frederick), the Allies (Pilkington), the peasants
(Boxer), the elite (Mollie), and the church (Moses).
The resemblance of some of the novel’s events to events in Soviet history is indubitable. For
example, Snowball’s and Napoleon’s power struggle is a direct allegory of Trotsky’s and Stalin’s.
Frederick’s trade agreement with Napoleon, and his subsequent breaking of the agreement,
represents the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact that preceded World War II. The following Battle
of the Windmill represents World War II itself.
Despite his fairy-tale clarity in satirizing some historical events, Orwell is less specific about others.
For example, the executions in Chapter VII conflate the Red Terror with the Great Purge. The
executions themselves bear resemblance to both events, although their details connect them more
to the Moscow Trials than to the Red Terror. Squealer’s subsequent announcement that the
executions have ended the Rebellion connects them to the period of the Red Terror, however.
Orwell leaves some ambiguity in the identities of the Rebellion and the Battle of the Cowshed.
These ambiguities help the reader focus on the overall satire of Stalinism and the broader warning
about the evils of totalitarian government.
The Inevitability of Totalitarianism
Orwell held the pessimistic belief that totalitarianism was inevitable, even in the West. According to
Russell Baker, who wrote the preface to Animal Farm’s 1996 Signet Classics version, Orwell’s
pessimism stemmed from his having grown up in an age of dictatorship. Witnessing Hitler’s and
Stalin’s movements from afar, as well as fighting totalitarianism in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell
came to believe in the rise of a new species of autocrat, worse even than the tyrants of old. This
cynicism is reflected in both of his highly successful novels, Animal Farm and 1984. Orwell
emphasizes the insidiousness of totalitarianism early in the novel, when the pigs take the fresh
milk and apples. The pigs justify their actions on the basis of their superiority; they are smart and
need more nutrition than the other animals to fuel their brainpower. There is no scientific basis for
the pigs’ claim—in fact, if anyone needs more food to fuel their labor, it is the manual laborers—
but they can count on the animals’ being too ignorant to realize that. In this way, Orwell makes the
point that totalitarianism need not be blatant in order to be operating. It can hide under the guise of
the “greater good” as it did in the Soviet Union before the totalitarianism became obvious.
Orwell uses a cyclical structure in Animal Farm, which helps advance the idea of totalitarianism’s
predictability. The novel begins with Jones as autocratic tyrant and ends with Napoleon not only in
Jones’s position, but in his clothes as well. Over the course of the novel, Napoleon essentially
becomes Jones just as Stalin becomes an autocrat after pretending to espouse equality and
freedom. Orwell cements this idea in the book’s final scene, where he writes, “Twelve voices were
shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of
the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man
again; but already it was impossible to say which was which” (139). The circularity of Orwell’s story
prevents the reader from imagining a better future for Animal Farm. After all, even if another
Rebellion were to take place, its leaders would eventually come to emulate Napoleon.
According to Baker, technology turned out to be the force freeing people from Orwell’s age of
dictators. But “technology” can be just another banner under which to rally the people. While
Orwell does portray technology as a source of progress in Animal Farm, he points out that it is
useless unless it is in the people’s hands. Most notably, even when the windmill is finished it is
used for milling corn instead of its original purpose of supplying the animals with electricity in their
stalls.
Intelligence and Education as Tools of Oppression
From the very beginning of the novel, we become aware of education’s role in stratifying Animal
Farm’s population. Following Major’s death, the pigs are the ones that take on the task of
organizing and mobilizing the other animals because they are “generally recognized as being the
cleverest of the animals” (35). At first, the pigs are loyal to their fellow animals and to the
revolutionary cause. They translate Major’s vision of the future faithfully into the Seven
Commandments of Animalism. However, it is not long before the pigs’ intelligence and education
turn from tools of enlightenment to implements of oppression. The moment the pigs are faced with
something material that they want—the fresh milk—they abandon their morals and use their
superior intellect and knowledge to deceive the other animals.
The pigs also limit the other animals’ opportunities to gain intelligence and education early on.
They teach themselves to read and write from a children’s book but destroy it before the other
animals can have the same chance. Indeed, most of the animals never learn more than a few
letters of the alphabet. Once the pigs cement their status as the educated elite, they use their
mental advantage to manipulate the other animals. For example, knowing that the other animals
cannot read the Seven Commandments, they revise them whenever they like. The pigs also use
their literacy to learn trades from manuals, giving them an opportunity for economic specialization
and advancement. Content in the role of the intelligentsia, the pigs forgo manual labor in favor of
bookkeeping and organizing. This shows that the pigs have not only the advantage of opportunity,
but also the opportunity to reject whatever opportunities they like. The pigs’ intelligence and
education allow them to bring the other animals into submission through the use of propaganda
and revisionism. At the book’s end, we witness Napoleon’s preparations to educate a new
generation of pigs and indoctrinate them into the code of oppression.
Propaganda and Duplicity
Working as a propagandist during World War II, Orwell experienced firsthand both the immense
power and the dishonesty of propaganda. Many types of governments make use of propaganda,
not only totalitarian ones. Consider, for instance, the arguments that led many United States
citizens to go along with the idea of invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Propaganda serves the positive task of uniting the people, sometimes at the cost of misleading
them. Orwell takes a firm stance on the harmfulness of propaganda in Animal Farm while
acknowledging its value for rallying a mistreated and disillusioned populace.
In Chapter IX, Orwell demonstrates the positive value of propaganda. By this point, the animals
are so downtrodden that they are desperate for something in which to believe. (Note the irony,
though: it is Napoleon who has robbed them of their belief in the original version of Animalism.)
The falsely optimistic statistics, the songs, and especially the Spontaneous Demonstrations give
the animals something to live for. This chapter is an exception in terms of portraying propaganda
in a positive light. For the majority of Animal Farm, Orwell skewers propaganda and exposes its
nature as deception.
Squealer represents a totalitarian government’s propaganda machine. Eloquent to a fault, he can
make the animals believe almost anything. This fact is especially clear in Squealer’s interactions
with Clover and Muriel. Each time Clover suspects that the Seven Commandments have been
changed, Squealer manages to convince her that she is wrong. After the executions, Napoleon
abolishes the singing of “Beasts of England” in favor of a new anthem, the lyrics of which contain a
promise never to harm Animal Farm. In this propagandist maneuver, Napoleon replaces the
revolutionary spirit of “Beasts of England” with the exact opposite, a promise not to rebel. In
addition to being a source of manipulation, propaganda is an agent of fear and terror. Orwell
demonstrates this quite clearly with Napoleon’s vilification of Snowball and his assurances that
Snowball could attack the animals at any minute. He uses similar fear tactics regarding Frederick
and Pilkington. The most egregious example of propaganda in the novel is the maxim that
replaces the Seven Commandments: “All animals are equal / But some animals are more equal
than others.” The idea of “more equal” is mathematically improbable and a nonsensical
manipulation of language, but by this time, the animals are too brainwashed to notice.
Violence and Terror as Means of Control
In Animal Farm, Orwell criticizes the ways that dictators use violence and terror to frighten their
populaces into submission. Violence is one of the yokes from which the animals wish to free
themselves when they prepare for the Rebellion. Not only does Jones overwork the animals and
steal the products of their labor, but he can whip or slaughter them at his discretion. Once the pigs
gain control of the animals, they, like Jones, discover how useful violence and terror can be. They
use this knowledge to their full advantage. The foremost example of violence and terror in the
novel is the pattern of public executions. The executions can be said to represent both the Red
Terror and the Great Purge, but they stand more broadly for the abuse of power. For example,
they are also similar to the Taliban’s public executions in Kabul’s soccer stadium in modern
Afghanistan. Capital punishment for criminals is a hotly debated issue. Killing suspected criminals,
as Napoleon does, is quite another issue. The executions perhaps best symbolize the Moscow
Trials, which were show trials that Stalin arranged to instill fear in the Soviet people. To witnesses
at the time, the accused traitors’ confessions seemed to be given freely. In fact, they were
coerced. Napoleon likely coerces confessions from many of the animals that he executes. Orwell’s
use of the allegory genre serves him well in the execution scene. Execution with weapons is a
violent and horrifying act, but many people have become desensitized to it. Orwell’s allegorical
executioners, the dogs that kill cruelly, portray the bloody and inescapably animalistic side of
execution.
Terror comes also in threats and propaganda. Each time the animals dare to question an aspect of
Napoleon’s regime, Squealer threatens them with Jones’s return. This is doubly threatening to the
animals because it would mean another battle that, if lost, would result in a return to their former
lifestyle of submission. Jones’s return is such a serious threat that it quashes the animals’ curiosity
without fail. The other major example of fear tactics in the novel is the threat of Snowball and his
collaborators. Napoleon is able to vilify Snowball in the latter’s absence and to make the animals
believe that his return, like Jones’s, is imminent. Snowball is a worse threat than Jones, because
Jones is at least safely out of Animal Farm. Snowball is “proved” to be not only lurking along
Animal Farm’s borders but infiltrating the farm. Napoleon’s public investigation of Snowball’s
whereabouts cements the animals’ fear of Snowball’s influence. In modern language, Snowball is
pegged as the terrorist responsible for the infringements on the rights and liberties instigated by
the pigs.
Exploitation and the Need for Human Rights
Exploitation is the issue around which the animals unite. Initially, the animals do not realize Jones
is exploiting them. For this reason, Old Major’s speech is a revelation of momentous proportions.
Major explains to the animals that they are enslaved and exploited and that Man is to blame. He
teaches them not only what exploitation means, but also the fact that it is not inevitable. Orwell
suggests that exploitation is, in fact, bound to happen when one class of society has an advantage
over another. The opposite of exploitation, according to Major, is the state of being “rich and free.”
Major’s ideas about animal rights symbolize the importance—and scarcity—of human rights in an
oppressive regime. Gaining freedom does not necessarily lead people also to become rich, but it
is better to be poor and free than poor and exploited.
All the animals on Animal Farm are exploited under Napoleon’s control, save the pigs. Even the
dogs, which work closely with the pigs, are exploited. The dogs face perhaps even a worse form of
exploitation than the other animals, because they are made into agents of intimidation and death.
Whereas Napoleon exploits the other animals’ physical strength and their ignorance, he exploits
the dogs’ viciousness and turns them into villains against their parents’ wishes.
Boxer’s life is a particularly sad example of exploitation because he exploits himself, believing
wholeheartedly in Napoleon’s goodness. In the end, Napoleon turns the tables and exploits Boxer,
having him slaughtered for profit. By the end of the novel, we see clearly how the animals
participate in their own exploitation. They are beginning to build a schoolhouse for the thirty-one
young pigs Napoleon has fathered (perhaps an oblique reference to the “Thirty Tyrants” of ancient
Greece). That schoolhouse will never benefit the animals that build it; rather, it will be used to
educate the pigs and indoctrinate them into the cycle of exploiting others. Throughout the novel,
Orwell shows us how the lack of human rights results in total helplessness. However, though it
underscores the need for human rights, the novel does not suggest how to achieve them. After all,
once the animals expel Jones and gain rights for themselves, the pigs take those rights away and
the cycle of exploitation continues with new players.
Apathy and Acceptance
In the beginning of Animal Farm, the idea of freedom rouses the animals as if from a long slumber.
Immediately following Major’s death, the animals begin preparing themselves for the Rebellion;
just the idea of revolution is enough to motivate them, since they do not expect it to happen in their
lifetimes. By the book’s end, the animals have become as apathetic as Benjamin always was.
Despite the many hardships and injustices they face, the animals’ pride as well as Napoleon’s
propaganda keep them invested in the “greater good” and the illusion of freedom. If Benjamin is
the harbinger of apathy, Boxer is its antithesis. Strong not only in body but also in spirit, Boxer will
make any sacrifice for the benefit of Animal Farm. With Boxer’s eventual betrayal by the leaders
he served so unconditionally, Orwell lays bare another type of apathy—theirs. Far from truly
considering Boxer a loyal comrade, the pigs treat him as apathetically as they would a mere
object. Symbolically, they even make a profit by having him turned into literal objects—glue and
bone meal.
Boxer’s enthusiasm does not give him an advantage, but the other animals’ eventual apathy gives
them a defense mechanism against the painful reality of their lives. It is no coincidence that Animal
Farm’s most apathetic and cynical animal, Benjamin, is one of those that survives the longest.
Benjamin’s emotional detachment from situations, whether they are good or bad, keeps him from
being disappointed. In his apathy and cynicism, Benjamin represents the stereotypical “gloomy”
Russian and also the perennially pessimistic Orwell himself.
THE CORRUPTION OF SOCIALIST IDEALS IN THE SOVIET UNION
Animal Farm is most famous in the West as a stinging critique of the history and rhetoric of the
Russian Revolution. Retelling the story of the emergence and development of Soviet communism
in the form of an animal fable, Animal Farm allegorizes the rise to power of the dictator Joseph
Stalin. In the novella, the overthrow of the human oppressor Mr. Jones by a democratic coalition of
animals quickly gives way to the consolidation of power among the pigs. Much like the Soviet
intelligentsia, the pigs establish themselves as the ruling class in the new society.
The struggle for preeminence between Leon Trotsky and Stalin emerges in the rivalry between the
pigs Snowball and Napoleon. In both the historical and fictional cases, the idealistic but politically
less powerful figure (Trotsky and Snowball) is expelled from the revolutionary state by the
malicious and violent usurper of power (Stalin and Napoleon). The purges and show trials with
which Stalin eliminated his enemies and solidified his political base find expression in Animal Farm
as the false confessions and executions of animals whom Napoleon distrusts following the
collapse of the windmill. Stalin’s tyrannical rule and eventual abandonment of the founding
principles of the Russian Revolution are represented by the pigs’ turn to violent government and
the adoption of human traits and behaviors, the trappings of their original oppressors.
Although Orwell believed strongly in socialist ideals, he felt that the Soviet Union realized these
ideals in a terribly perverse form. His novella creates its most powerful ironies in the moments in
which Orwell depicts the corruption of Animalist ideals by those in power. For Animal Farm serves
not so much to condemn tyranny or despotism as to indict the horrifying hypocrisy of tyrannies that
base themselves on, and owe their initial power to, ideologies of liberation and equality. The
gradual disintegration and perversion of the Seven Commandments illustrates this hypocrisy with
vivid force, as do Squealer’s elaborate philosophical justifications for the pigs’ blatantly
unprincipled actions. Thus, the novella critiques the violence of the Stalinist regime against the
human beings it ruled, and also points to Soviet communism’s violence against human logic,
language, and ideals.
THE SOCIETAL TENDENCY TOWARD CLASS STRATIFICATION
Animal Farm offers commentary on the development of class tyranny and the human tendency to
maintain and reestablish class structures even in societies that allegedly stand for total equality.
The novella illustrates how classes that are initially unified in the face of a common enemy, as the
animals are against the humans, may become internally divided when that enemy is eliminated.
The expulsion of Mr. Jones creates a power vacuum, and it is only so long before the next
oppressor assumes totalitarian control. The natural division between intellectual and physical labor
quickly comes to express itself as a new set of class divisions, with the “brainworkers” (as the pigs
claim to be) using their superior intelligence to manipulate society to their own benefit. Orwell
never clarifies in Animal Farm whether this negative state of affairs constitutes an inherent aspect
of society or merely an outcome contingent on the integrity of a society’s intelligentsia. In either
case, the novella points to the force of this tendency toward class stratification in many
communities and the threat that it poses to democracy and freedom.
THE DANGER OF A NAÏVE WORKING CLASS
One of the novella’s most impressive accomplishments is its portrayal not just of the figures in
power but also of the oppressed people themselves. Animal Farm is not told from the perspective
of any particular character, though occasionally it does slip into Clover’s consciousness. Rather,
the story is told from the perspective of the common animals as a whole. Gullible, loyal, and
hardworking, these animals give Orwell a chance to sketch how situations of oppression arise not
only from the motives and tactics of the oppressors but also from the naïveté of the oppressed,
who are not necessarily in a position to be better educated or informed. When presented with a
dilemma, Boxer prefers not to puzzle out the implications of various possible actions but instead to
repeat to himself, “Napoleon is always right.” Animal Farm demonstrates how the inability or
unwillingness to question authority condemns the working class to suffer the full extent of the
ruling class’s oppression.
THE ABUSE OF LANGUAGE AS INSTRUMENTAL TO THE ABUSE OF POWER
One of Orwell’s central concerns, both in Animal Farm and in 1984, is the way in which language
can be manipulated as an instrument of control. In Animal Farm, the pigs gradually twist and
distort a rhetoric of socialist revolution to justify their behavior and to keep the other animals in the
dark. The animals heartily embrace Major’s visionary ideal of socialism, but after Major dies, the
pigs gradually twist the meaning of his words. As a result, the other animals seem unable to
oppose the pigs without also opposing the ideals of the Rebellion. By the end of the novella, after
Squealer’s repeated reconfigurations of the Seven Commandments in order to decriminalize the
pigs’ treacheries, the main principle of the farm can be openly stated as “all animals are equal, but
some animals are more equal than others.” This outrageous abuse of the word “equal” and of the
ideal of equality in general typifies the pigs’ method, which becomes increasingly audacious as the
novel progresses. Orwell’s sophisticated exposure of this abuse of language remains one of the
most compelling and enduring features of Animal Farm, worthy of close study even after we have
decoded its allegorical characters and events.

MOTIFS:
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform
the text’s major themes.
SONGS
Animal Farm is filled with songs, poems, and slogans, including Major’s stirring “Beasts of
England,” Minimus’s ode to Napoleon, the sheep’s chants, and Minimus’s revised anthem, “Animal
Farm, Animal Farm.” All of these songs serve as propaganda, one of the major conduits of social
control. By making the working-class animals speak the same words at the same time, the pigs
evoke an atmosphere of grandeur and nobility associated with the recited text’s subject matter.
The songs also erode the animals’ sense of individuality and keep them focused on the tasks by
which they will purportedly achieve freedom.
STATE RITUAL
As Animal Farm shifts gears from its early revolutionary fervor to a phase of consolidation of
power in the hands of the few, national rituals become an ever more common part of the farm’s
social life. Military awards, large parades, and new songs all proliferate as the state attempts to
reinforce the loyalty of the animals. The increasing frequency of the rituals bespeaks the extent to
which the working class in the novella becomes ever more reliant on the ruling class to define their
group identity and values.

Symbols:
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
ANIMAL FARM
Animal Farm, known at the beginning and the end of the novel as the Manor Farm, symbolizes
Russia and the Soviet Union under Communist Party rule. But more generally, Animal Farm
stands for any human society, be it capitalist, socialist, fascist, or communist. It possesses the
internal structure of a nation, with a government (the pigs), a police force or army (the dogs), a
working class (the other animals), and state holidays and rituals. Its location amid a number of
hostile neighboring farms supports its symbolism as a political entity with diplomatic concerns.
THE BARN
The barn at Animal Farm, on whose outside walls the pigs paint the Seven Commandments and,
later, their revisions, represents the collective memory of a modern nation. The many scenes in
which the ruling-class pigs alter the principles of Animalism and in which the working-class
animals puzzle over but accept these changes represent the way an institution in power can revise
a community’s concept of history to bolster its control. If the working class believes history to lie on
the side of their oppressors, they are less likely to question oppressive practices. Moreover, the
oppressors, by revising their nation’s conception of its origins and development, gain control of the
nation’s very identity, and the oppressed soon come to depend upon the authorities for their
communal sense of self.
THE WINDMILL
The great windmill symbolizes the pigs’ manipulation of the other animals for their own gain.
Despite the immediacy of the need for food and warmth, the pigs exploit Boxer and the other
common animals by making them undertake backbreaking labor to build the windmill, which will
ultimately earn the pigs more money and thus increase their power. The pigs’ declaration that
Snowball is responsible for the windmill’s first collapse constitutes psychological manipulation, as
it prevents the common animals from doubting the pigs’ abilities and unites them against a
supposed enemy. The ultimate conversion of the windmill to commercial use is one more sign of
the pigs’ betrayal of their fellow animals. From an allegorical point of view, the windmill represents
the enormous modernization projects undertaken in Soviet Russia after the Russian Revolution.
Study Questions & Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. Compare and contrast Napoleon and Snowball. What techniques do they use in their struggle
for power? Does Snowball represent a morally legitimate political alternative to the corrupt
leadership of Napoleon?
As Joseph Stalin did, Napoleon prefers to work behind the scenes to build his power through
manipulation and deal-making, while Snowball devotes himself, as Leon Trotsky did, to winning
popular support through his ideas, passionate speeches, and success in debates with his
opponent. Snowball seems to work within the political system, while Napoleon willingly
circumvents it. Napoleon, for instance, understands the role of force in political control, as is made
clear by his use of the attack dogs to expel Snowball from the farm.
Despite Napoleon’s clearly bullying tactics, Orwell’s text doesn’t allow us to perceive Snowball as
a preferable alternative. Snowball does nothing to prevent the consolidation of power in the hands
of the pigs, nor does he stop the unequal distribution of goods in the pigs’ favor—he may even, in
fact, be complicit in it early on. Furthermore, the ideals of Animal Farm—like Orwell’s ideal version
of socialism—are rooted in democracy, with all of the animals deciding how their collective action
should be undertaken. For any one animal to rise to greater power than any other would violate
that ideal and essentially render Animal Farm indistinguishable from a human farm—an
unavoidable eventuality by the end of the novella. Though their motives for power may be quite
different—Napoleon seems to have a powerful, egocentric lust for control, while Snowball seems
to think himself a genius who should be the one to guide the farm toward success—each
represents a potential dictator. Neither pig has the other animals’ interests at heart, and thus
neither represents the socialist ideals of Animal Farm.
2. Why do you think Orwell chose to use a fable in his condemnation of Soviet communism and
totalitarianism? Fiction would seem a rather indirect method of political commentary; if Orwell had
written an academic essay, he could have named names, pointed to details, and proven his case
more systematically. What different opportunities of expression does a fable offer its author?
Historically, fables or parables have allowed writers to criticize individuals or institutions without
endangering themselves: an author could always claim that he or she had aimed simply to write a
fairy tale—a hypothetical, meaningless children’s story. Even now, when many nations protect
freedom of speech, fables still come across as less accusatory, less threatening. Orwell never
condemns Stalin outright, a move that might have alienated certain readers, since Stalin proved
an ally against Adolf Hitler’s Nazi forces. Moreover, the language of a fable comes across as
gentle, inviting, and unassuming: the reader feels drawn into the story and can follow the plot
easily, rather than having to wade through a self-righteous polemic. In writing a fable, Orwell
expands his potential audience and warms it to his argument before he even begins.
Because fables allow for the development of various characters, Orwell can use characterization
to add an element of sympathy to his arguments. Especially by telling the story from the point of
view of the animals, Orwell draws us in and allows us to identify with the working class that he
portrays. Thus, a fable allows him to appeal more intensely to emotion than a political essay might
enable him to do.
Additionally, in the case of Animal Farm, the lighthearted, pastoral, innocent atmosphere of the
story stands in stark contrast to the dark, corrupt, malignant tendencies that it attempts to expose.
This contrast adds to the story’s force of irony: just as the idyllic setting and presentation of the
story belies its wretched subject matter, so too do we see the utopian ideals of socialism give way
to a totalitarian regime in which the lower classes suffer. Finally, by writing in the form of a fable,
Orwell universalizes his message. Although the specific animals and events that he portrays
clearly evoke particular parallels in the real world, their status as symbols allows them to signify
beyond specific times and places. Orwell himself encourages this breadth of interpretation: while
the character of Napoleon, for example, refers most directly to Stalin in deed and circumstance,
his name evokes his resemblance to the French general-turned-autocrat Napoleon.
3. From whose perspective is Animal Farm told? Why would Orwell have chosen such a
perspective?
Animal Farm is not told from any particular animal’s perspective; properly speaking, it doesn’t have
a protagonist. Rather, it is told from the perspective of the common animals as a group: we read,
for example, that “[t]he animals were stupefied. . . . It was some minutes before they could take it
all in.” This technique enables Orwell to paint a large portrait of the average people who suffer
under communism. Through this choice of narrative perspective, he shows the loyalty, naïveté,
gullibility, and work ethic of the whole class of common animals. In this way, he can effectively
explore the question of why large numbers of people would continue to accept and support the
Russian communist government, for example, even while it kept them hungry and afraid and even
after its stated goals had clearly and decisively failed.
Suggested Essay Topics
1. How does Orwell explore the problem of rhetoric in Animal Farm? Paying particular
attention to the character of Squealer, how is language used as an instrument of social control?
How do the pigs rewrite history?
2. Discuss Boxer. What role does he play on the farm? Why does Napoleon seem to feel
threatened by him? In what ways might one view the betrayal of Boxer as an alternative climax of
the novel (if we consider Napoleon’s banishment of Snowball and the pigs’ initial consolidation of
power as the true climax)?
3. Do you think Animal Farm’s message would come across effectively to someone who
knows nothing about Soviet history or the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky? What might such a
reader make of the story?
4. Of all of the characters in Animal Farm, are there any who seem to represent the point of
view of the author? Which of the animals or people do you think come(s) closest to achieving
Orwell’s perspective on Animal Farm?