Essay/Term paper: Animal farm by george orwell

Essay, term paper, research paper:  George Orwell

Animal Farm compared to the Russian Revolution



All of the characters in Animal farm have counterparts in real life. This

book was based on the Russian Revolution, and all the important populace

of the revolution are symbolized. Some of the animals represent

individuals in the Russian Revolution, and some types of animals

represent different types of Russian citizens. The book carries out much

like the actual revolution. It starts out with hopes of an empire where

all are equal and the unfair unjust leader is thrown out. Then it moves

on to where some individuals begin to take more power than is rightfully

theirs. At the end the rulers have completely taken over and the kingdom

is as it was under the original rulers. I will compare the animals from

top of the social class to the bottom. At the top were the pigs. Each pig

represented someone different in the revolution. Old Major is compared to

Lenin. He was an ideologist who dreamed up a wonderful government where

all the animals were equal and the humans, or the czars, were pushed out.

Unfortunately his dream would never materialize. Then we are left with

his predecessors. The first is Snowball. Snowball believed one hundred

percent in Old Majors ideals. He wanted all the things Old Major wanted,

such as the welfare of the animals. In the Russian Revolution his

counterpart would be Trotsky. Trotsky believed and wanted the same things

as Lenin, and wanted to continue what Lenin had started. Then comes

Napoleon. Napoleon was selfish and greedy. He did not want to share the

power or the decision making with any other individual. This was the same

for Stalin. At first Napoleon and Snowball shared the decision making and

had debates about what course of action they would take. This worked for

awhile. Then Napoleon grew weary of long debates, and he thought he could

make the decision by himself. He then forced Snowball out of the farm and

started to spread lies about Snowball to get the entire farm against him.

Stalin did the same thing against Trotsky and forced Trotsky into hiding

into Mexico, where he was eventually assassinated. Both Stalin and

Napoleon ruined any hopes of equal and fare government and instead set up

dictatorships. Then comes the final important pig, Squealer. Squealer did

not make the decisions in the government but acted more like the

controlled media as in the Russian government. His job was to influence

the people by exaggerating and re-writing history and sometimes telling

plain lies all together. The people would listen to him, and he would

always listen to Napoleon. Other animals were the worker class type

citizens. The types of citizens range from hard working to selfish and

lazy. Molly, for instance, only cared about her ribbons, and wasn"t much

of a thinker. All she wanted to do was eat sugar, and look pretty.

Benjamin was a critic who always said "I"ve seen that before" and "It"ll

never work." The cat was just plain lazy, and was always disappearing

whenever work had to be done. The ducks were weak and did not get much

done. Then there were other donkey"s which worked much harder and never

thought of their own needs. The pigeons acted as message carriers

spreading propaganda between farms, spreading Napoleon"s words from farm

to farm, or in the actual Russian Revolution, country to country.

Although all these animals are very different, they all shared one common

trait. They were all weak. They all let Napoleon take over without much

resistance. Just like Stalin took over Russia. These animals were too

weak, too scared, or just lacked the intelligence required to do

something about it. This is where it is the fault of the people. They

should have stood up to Napoleon for what they fought for in the first

place. The people must stand up to those who would destroy the system or

else all is lost. I think that this story was a good representation of

the actual Russian Revolution. But it is even more than that. It shows

how people can let certain individuals get away with anything just

because they do not feel like standing up to them. If you tried, this

story could also be compared to other times in history when the people

let dictatorships form in their own country. I enjoyed this book a lot

but I do not think that it should be just compared to the Russian

Revolution.