Story Of A Group Of Farm Animals example essay topic

Animal Farm is a simple story with a complex field of reference, a fable that viciously attacks the history of the Soviet Communism by retelling it as the story of a group of farm animals. Animal Farm is a miniature nation, surrounded by a area full of farms that represent the other nations of the world. Each phase of Jospe h Stalin's rise to power in Russia is present in Animal Farm. The Russian Revolution, here represented by the animals' overthrow of Mr. Jones. The consolidation of power in the hands of the Communist Party, here represented by the pigs' emergence as the animals in charge of the farm. The struggle for power between Trotsky and Stalin, here represented by the struggle between the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, which, as with Trotsky, leads to Snowball's expulsion from the farm.

Trials with which Stalin eliminated his enemies, here represented by the false confessions and executions of animals Napoleon distrusts following the collapse of the windmill. Stalin's emergence as a figure so powerful, here represented by Napoleon and the other pigs' adoption of human characteristics such as walking upright and carrying whips. But Animal Farm is more than just an accusation against Stalin. One of the book's most impressive qualities is its evocation not just of the figures in power, but of the oppressed people themselves.

Animal Farm is not told from the perspective of any particular character. Rather, the story is told from the perspective of the common animals as a whole. Gullible, loyal, slow-witted, and hard-working, the common animals give Orwell a chance to sketch the human qualities that enable oppression to flourish, rather than simply the motives of the oppressors. Orwell's reduction of the novel to the form of a children's fable works on a number of levels: it makes the anti-Communist moral of the novel seem fundamental and obvious, so basic it can form the foundation of a children's story. It makes the reader see the real events it refers to from a new perspective.

It makes the real story of Communism seem massive and pressing, simply because the novel itself is so small and so un-pressing, and it makes the reader marvel at how such a thing could come to pass in reality, simply by making the story so alien and implausible. Orwell calls his book a "fairy story,' but unlike most frightening fairy tales, this one almost literally came true. Perhaps most importantly, the form of fable enables Orwell to assume complete control over the tone and mood of Communist history in a way that would have been impossible had he been writing about historically-based human characters. He is able to portray the Communists as pigs, the suffering people as noble horses, and the masses as mindless sheep. This is not to say that Orwell underestimates the Communists' power or their ability to maintain control of their subjects even when the improvements promised by the Revolution have visibly made things worse. One of Orwell's central concerns is the way in which language can be manipulated as an instrument of control.

In Animal Farm, a simpler rhetoric of socialist revolution is gradually twisted and distorted to justify the pigs' behavior and keep the other animals in the dark. The animals wholeheartedly embrace Old Major's visionary ideal of socialism. After Old Major dies, the pigs gradually inject new nuances of meanings into his words, so that the other animals are seemingly unable to oppose them without also opposing the ideals of the Revolution. Thus by the end of the novel, after Squealer's repeated rephrasing of Old Major's Seven Commandments, the main principle of the farm can be openly stated as "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS. ' This garish abuse of the word "equal' and of the ideal of equality generally is typical of the pigs' method. Orwell's sophisticated construction of this use of language is one of the most compelling and most enduring features of his novel.