U.S. History Teacher

¬Michael Lake
2/15/11
L.A./Per.4
Animal Farm Essay:


Animal Farm, a short novel by George Orwell, seems like an odd story about talking animals on a farm, but underneath there is amazing hidden meaning. Corrupt governments often begin with good intentions, trying to offer a better life to the people. But in the end, the totalitarian dictator along with his leading men, bring suffering to the citizens instead. Napoleon, the pigs and the dogs in Animal Farm represent the dictator and leading men of a corrupt government. A dictator (and his leading men), or in the case of Animal Farm, Napoleon, the pigs and dogs are the ones who benefit. After having observed the Russian regime under Joseph Stalin, George Orwell wrote Animal Farm in the form of a political fable. Animal Farm combined the characteristics of three literary forms; fable, satire, and allegory, to show how power can, and often does, corrupt.

Orwell uses these three literary techniques and writes a story that clearly uses satire to expose the brutality and suffering that are often caused by totalitarian governments. Orwell uses Animal Farm to pretty much show what events happened in the Russian Revolution, using a political fable as his style. Throughout the book, Orwell often mentions the corruption, suffering and brutality that was so common in the government lead by Joseph Stalin. The use of fable as a technique helped to make the Russian Revolution much more understandable. As in a traditional fable, human traits are associated with animals, and in this case where Napoleon and the pigs take over the farm. In Orwell’s novel, he uses allegories to relate how the animals are acting on the farm to how the leaders of the Russian government behaved. The animal’s leadership reminds, the reader of continuous attacks, that the only real enemies that the animals have are humans. Another form of propaganda is the statement that the animal’s hunger and misery would come to an end if there were no... [continues]

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