Animal Farm
Animal Farm is an allegoric and satirical short novel written by George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair) and published in 1945.
The story tells about a rebellion in Manor Farm by the animals who live there. The owner of the farm, Mr Jones, mistreats his animals. At this point, Old Major, the eldest pig, tired about this situation, says that he has dreamt a life without human beings where animals lived in peace and where they were happier. Therefore, he incites other animals to rebel against Mr Jones’ tyranny.
“Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this
life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and
the produce of our labour would be our own. Almost overnight, we could become
rich and free. What then must we do? Why, work day and night, body and soul for
the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you comrade: Rebellion!”
“No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he
is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery
and slavery: that is the plain truth.”
The animals
agree with Old Major. Therefore, the animals, led by the pigs of the farm, rise
up against Mr Jones to send him away.
Then, they base their rules on equality and on the hate towards human beings. Indeed,
they write Seven Commandments:
1.
Whatever
goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2.
Whatever
goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3.
No
animal shall wear clothes.
4.
No
animal shall sleep in a bed.
5.
No
animal shall drink alcohol.
6.
No
animal shall kill any other animal.
7.
All
animals are equal.
Among all the
pigs, Napoleon and Snowball begin to stand out. However, Napoleon succeeds in sending
his rival away and in instituting a
reign based on terror and on his decisions.
“They had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce,
growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn
to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.”
Ruling the farm
that way, Napoleon does not respect the Seven Commandments. Actually, they will
be substituted with only one commandment:
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Therefore, Napoleon
goes against all the ideals and the principles that had led to the Rebellion and he becomes just like human
beings.
“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.”
George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a satire of the
beginning of the Russian Revolution until Stalin’s totalitarian regime. To
avoid censorship, he satirized politics through an allegoric fable. There are
many references to events and characters of the Russian Revolution. For
example, Napoleon represents Stalin and Snowball Trotsky. Moreover, the sheep,
who do everything pigs tell them, symbolize the ignorant population, while Boxer,
the horse whose motto is “I will work
harder”, stands for the working class. However, Animal Farm can be a tragicomic parody of any revolution turned
into a regime. Like any fable, Animal
Farm has its moral: at first, every revolution wants to delete a tyranny,
but later on it will assume the same characteristics of tyranny, because anyone
who has too much power in their hands is then corrupted by it.
George Orwell
George
Orwell, pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, was born on 25th June 1903
in India, where his father worked as administrative officer of the British
Empire. However, he and his sister spent their childhood in England. There, he
attended Saint Cyprian School in Eastbourne, where he had unhappy years.
Indeed, Orwell wrote Such, Such Were the
Joys (published in 1947), where he told about his problems during those
years: in this college, he felt alone, and he hated the narrow-mindedness of
his schoolmates who were from rich families.
Then, thanks
to a scholarship, Orwell attended Eton College, where he started to cultivate
his intellectual interests.
After his
studies, he returned to India and he enlisted in the Imperial Police in
Burma. He stayed there from 1922 to
1927. This experience inspired him to write Burmese
Days (his first work, but published only in 1934) and two essays: A Hanging (published 1931) and Shooting an Elephant (published in 1936).
Then, Orwell
made a social experiment: he lived in the slums of London and, later, of Paris.
Thanks to this experience, he published in 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London, where he faced the problem of
poverty in the two big European capitals. He signed his works with the
pseudonym George Orwell .
In 1935, during
a party, he met Marie O'Shaughnessy, who would be his wife the next year.
In 1936, he and
his wife went to Spain to take part in the Spanish Civil War. However, while Orwell
was fighting at the front, he was hit in his throat by a sniper and, for this
reason, they had to return to England, where he wrote Homage to Catalonia.
When the
Second World War started, he tried to enlist in the army, but he could not take
part in it because of his health problems.
In 1941, he
began working for BBC, where he transmitted cultural and political programmes
for India. Then, he became editor for the Tribune.
Furthermore,
in 1944, Orwell and his wife adopted an infant, who they called Richard Horatio
Blair. However, the next year, Marie O'Shaughnessy died during an operation,
probably because of the anaesthetic.
In 1948, he
published one of his most famous works, 1984.
George Orwell
got married to Sonia
Brownell, but, few weeks later, on 21st January 1950, he died
because of tuberculosis in a hospital of London.
On 7th November
2017, George Orwell’s statue by Martin Jennings was positioned outside Broadcasting
House, the headquarters of the BBC, in London. On the wall behind the statue,
there are Orwell’s words:
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell
people what they do not want to hear"
Angelica, 3scB
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