"Animal Farm"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how George Orwell's "Animal Farm" can be interpreted as an attack on totalitarianism. It looks at how Orwell had experience as a farmer from 1936 and 1940 and how this experience was utilized in the novel to allegorically attack communist politics in the USSR and to attack communism in general. It also examines how, told in the form of a fable, the story draws some parallels between real figures that existed at the time and farm animals.

From the Paper:

"Orwell had experience as a farmer from 1936 and 1940 and this experience was utilized in the novel to allegorically attack communist politics in USSR and to attack communism in general. Like any form of communication, this novel had a meaning embodied in it and like any other communication, it is important to be familiar with the background to understand the context in which the book is written. The book was clearly an indictment of the communist principles that had violated the ideals on which Soviet Union had been created. Told in the form of a fable, the story draws some parallels between real figures that existed at the time and farm animals. Some other parallels have also been used. For example "Farmer Jones" was a caricature of Czar of Russia , "The Pigs" represented "The Bolsheviks" , "Major" was none other than Marx plus Lenin, and so on. The novel is full of parallels and symbolic correspondences. The Soviet flag with hammer and sickle is symbolized by the hoof and the horn, the song Beasts of England was like the Communist hymn The Internationale. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• "Why I Write," in George Orwell, A Collection of Essays ( New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1953), p. 314
• Animal Farm ( New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993)
• V. I. Lenin, What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement (New York: International Publishers, 1969)
• Sanford Pinsker, A Note to the Teaching of Orwell's Animal Farm," CEA Critic (1978): 18-19.
• Appendix II, Animal Farm (Knopf edition), p. 113.

More papers on "Animal Farm":

• Book Review # 93158 : "Animal Farm"
• Analytical Essay # 125445 : "Boxer in "Animal Farm"
• Analytical Essay # 133686 : "A Character in "Animal Farm"
• Analytical Essay # 50344 : "Animal Farm"

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