INTRODUCTION TO ANIMAL
FARM- GEORGE ORWELL
GEORGE ORWELL
AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND
Eric Arthur Blair known by his pen name
‘George Orwell’, was an English novelist,
journalist and critic. He is commonly
ranked as one of the most influential
English writers of the 20th century and as
one of the most important chroniclers of
English culture of his generation.
His work is marked by lucid prose,
awareness of social injustice, opposition to
totalitarianism and commitment to
democratic socialism.
Born : June 25, 1903, Motihari, Bengal,
India into the class of the Sahibs.
Died: January 21, 1950 at the University
College Hospital, London, United
Kingdom
Spouses: Sonia Orwell ( 1949-1950)and
Eileen Blair (1936-1945)
Nationality: British, English
Parents: Richard and Ida Blair
Orwell was brought up in an atmosphere
of impoverished snobbery. After returning
with his parents to England, he was sent in
1911 to a preparatory boarding school
on the Sussex coast, where he was
distinguished among the other boys by his
poverty and his intellectual brilliance. He
grew up a morose, withdrawn, eccentric
boy and he was later to tell the miseries of
those years in his posthumously published
Autobiographical essay, Such, Such Were
the Joys (1953).
 He won scholarships to wo of England’s
leading schools, Wellington and Eton.
Aldous Huxley was one of his masters and
it was at Eton that he published his first
writing in college periodicals.
Instead of matriculating at the University,
Orwell decided to follow family tradition
and in 1922 went to Burma as assistant
district superintendent in the Indian
imperial servant.
GEORGE ORWELL’S BOOKS
A Hanging (1931)
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
Burmese Says (1934)
A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935)
The Road to Wignan Pier (1936)
Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936)
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Coming up For Air (1939)
 Animal Farm (1945)
Politics and the English Language(1946)
Nineteen Eighty Four (1949)
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ON
ANIMAL FARM (RUSSIAN REVOLUTION)
One of Orwell’s goals in writing Animal
Farm was to portray the Russian( or
Bolshevik) Revolution of 1917 as one that
resulted in a government more
oppressive, totalitarian and deadly than
the one it overthrew.
Many of the characters and events of
Orwell’s novel parallel those of the Russian
Revolution. In short, Manor Farm is a
model of Russia and Old Major, Snowball
and Napoleon represent the dominant
figures of the Russian Revolution.

Mr. Jones is modeled on Tsar Nicholas
(1868-1918), the last Russian emperor. His
rule (1894-1917) was marked by his
insistence that he was the uncontestable
ruler of the nation. During his reign, the
Russian people experienced terrible
poverty and upheaval marked by the
Bloody Sunday massacre in 1905 when
unarmed protesters demanding social
reforms were shot by the army near
Nicholas’ palace. As the animals under
Jones lead lives of hunger and want, the
lives of millions of Russians exacerbated
during the reign of Tsar.
In World War 1 Russia lost more men than
any country in any previous war. The
Russian people began a series of strikes
and mutinies that signaled the end of
Tsarist control.
Old Major is the animal version of V. I.
Lenin (1870-1924), the leader of the
Bolshevik Party that seized control in the
1917 Revolution. As Old Major outlines the
principles of Animalism, a theory that
posits that all animals are equal and must
revolt against their oppressors.
Lenin was inspired by Karl Marx’s theory of
Communism, which urges the ‘workers of the
world’ to unite against their economic
oppressors. As Animalism imagines a world
where all animals share in the prosperity of the
farm, Communism argues that a ‘communal’
way of life will allow all people to unite against
their economic oppressors’.
One of Lenin’s allies was Leon Trotsky (18791940), another Marxist thinker who
participated in a number of revolutionary
demonstrations and uprisings. His counterpart
in Animal Farm is Snowball, who like Trotsky,
felt that a worldwide series of rebellions was
necessary to achieve the revolutions ultimate
aims.
Trotsky was exiled from U.S.S.R. and killed by
the agents of Joseph Stalin as Snowball was
chased off the farm by Napoleon.
WRITING ASSESSMENT
Write two paragraphs about how knowledge
of the author’s background and the historical
context of the novel aids in having a more
profound understanding of the novel.
RESEARCH
The following terms should be researched based on the context of the novel:
 Animalism Principle
Stalinism
Totalitarianism
Home work
Read chapters 1-2 in preparation for next class discussion on setting and
characters.