Animal Farm the Revolution that doesn’t Make a Difference

Upon reading the Animal Farm, your first impression is that it is a children’s tale story. But as you keep reading it you will begin to parallel characters and systems in real life. However, each of you can have your own experience and can make your own parallels between characters and systems in your real life. For a full understanding of this allegory you must go back to the Russian Revolution at 1917. The novel began with Mr. Jones who parallels the elite class that exploits the labor of the poor class to gain highest profits while filling them with misery, and Moses who parallels religion which “provide the workers a reason to endure suffering rather than the motivation to overthrown their oppressors (Animal Farm Study Guide 11).

The rising action began with Old Major who parallels a wise revolutionary man who shared his vision with his comrades to boost a possible revolution. Following with Snowball, Napoleon and Squealer, the most intelligent animals, became the leaders of the farm. Boxer and his lack of knowledge represent how the lower class works harder and easily assimilate the idealism and oppression from its leaders.

This story describes how a democratic system runs offstage when autocracy walks onstage. By using the help of slogans (labels) to manipulate, pacify and gradually brainwash the farm society finally turning it into a totalitarian system. The oppression of the mass takes place all around the world in special where totalitarianism is predominant. George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an allegory with a very strong political meaning hiding in a tale story in which the author presents how the public officials proceed in a gradual way using language as an effective way to incorporate the autocracy in a democrat system and finally turns it into a totalitarianism system. George Orwell was inspired on “Russian Revolution at 1917, the civil war that followed (1918-20), and the later rise of Stalin’s dictatorship in the Soviet Union. The Novel draws clear parallels between Josef Stalin and Napoleon (Animal Farm Study Guide 1).

The conflicts between public officials (leaders), the use of propaganda and the violence described in detail on Animal Farm parallel the totalitarian rule in Russian. Soon or later the day is coming On the day that set us free. (Animal Farm, 8) in the begin, the language starts modeling the animals through a lyric introduced by Old Major, a visionary who share his vision few days before die, which later on inspired them for a rebellion against their oppressor Mr. Jones who gets drunk and forgot to feed the animals boosting the rebellion to take place. Tired to be enslaved the animals were already being organized and meeting were taking place every night in secret and with the upcoming of the revolution they finally took over the farm and the animals with higher language skills and apparently “superior knowledge, Snowball and Napoleon, took the leadership of the animalism era. Soon they were being to take advantages of the other animals as they were “superior in Knowledge.

Now with a better understanding of the lyric they decided to summarize it in seven commandments. As many animals were struggling to memorize it still they reduce it to a single slogan. “FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD (Animal Farm, 19). The slogan was a very strategic tool used by the leaders to contain and motivate all the animals to accept the autocracy system. The Snowball was popular and admired for his brilliants ideas. His most brilliant idea was to build a windmill. But with the constant disagreement between Snowball and Napoleon, Napoleon strategically oppose it. This episode ends with the expulsion of Snowball. The violence used by Napoleon was also a treat to the upcoming days. The Napoleon Era was marked by fear, intimidation and treat; however, Squealer, the voice of the Animal Farm (spokesman), was a master in propaganda. He knows how to use language and in special slogans to maintain control over the animals with poor knowledge and memory.

Under the leadership of Napoleon, the totalitarianism and violence were remediated with slogan and propaganda. The Amendments was breaking one by one as the authoritarianism was given place to totalitarianism. The seven commandments were strategically modified by Squealer to pacify and maintain power. “4. No animal shall sleep in a bed. (Animal Farm, 14) replaced with “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets” (Animal Farm, 35). The “5. No animal shall drink alcohol. (Animal Farm, 15) replaced with “No animal shall alcohol TO EXCESS. (Animal Farm, 56). The “6. No animal shall kill any other animal. (Animal Farm, 15) replaced with “No animal shall kill any other animal WITHOUT CAUSE. (Animal Farm, 46). And finally the main Slogan “Four Legs good, two legs bad (Animal Farm, 9) replaced with “Four legs good, two legs BETTER! (Animal Farm, 68).

Works Cited

1. Hero, Course. Animal Farm Study Guide. 2018. https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Animal-Farm/ Orwell, George. Animal Farm. 1944.
2. eBooks@Adelaide, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011.txt

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