• Did Animal Farm end the way you expected? Explain
why or why not.
Warm Up #10
SENIOR PROJECT
Due today: #10
Due Next Class: #11
Animal
Farm
George Orwell
• Answer the following questions:
• 1. What problems do the animals run into in building the windmill? How are these
problems solved?
• 2. Why does it become necessary to trade with the humans?
• 3. What happens when an animal begins to express doubt or concern with
Napoleon’s decisions? Why is this important?
• 4. How does Squealer justify Napoleon’s decision to trade with humans?
• 5. To where do the pigs move? How are these new arrangements justified?
• 6. How does Napoleon react to the destruction of the windmill? Whom does he
blame? Why does he do this?
• 7. How does Napoleon try to hide the poor conditions of Animal Farm?
• 8. Why does Napoleon order that the hens’ eggs be sold? What happens when the
hens rebel?
• 9. What is Snowball rumored to be doing during the winter and spring months? How
does Squealer distort the details of the Battle of the Cowshed? How does this work
in Napoleon’s favor?
• 10. Why do the animals confess to being traitors? How do the animals react to the
executions?
• 11. Why does Napoleon order the animals to stop singing “Beasts of England?” How
does he justify this change?
Reading Questions Ch. 6-7
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1. How have the Commandments been changing throughout the novel? Who do you think is responsible? Why
do you think the animals doubt their memories?
2. Why does Squealer read the figures to the animals? What is the purpose he is trying to serve?
3. What other names are given to Napoleon? What is your reaction to these titles?
4. How do the pigs continually strip Snowball of his honor? What is the purpose of this degradation?
5. Describe the scandal surrounding the wood pile.
6. How is the battle against Frederick’s men different from the Battle of the Cowshed?
7. Why do you think Napoleon proclaims the drinking of alcohol punishable by death? What happened to him
the night before?
8. How does another Commandment change at the end of this chapter?
9. Why are the animals so easily fooled, even when they find Squealer with a ladder and paint?
10. How has the animal’s quality of life changed?
11. What is Boxer looking forward to at the end of summer next year?
12. What celebrations are happening, despite the animal’s hardships?
13. To where does Squealer say Boxer will be sent? To where is he actually sent?
14. How does Squealer claim Boxer spent his last hours?
15. How has the farm changed over the years?
16. What final Commandment do the animals still hold on to with faith?
17. What does Clover see in the yard? Why is this shocking to the animals? How is this new skill supported by
the sheep?
18. What is the single Commandment? What does the word “equal” really mean in this context?
19. For what does Pilkington praise the pigs?
20. What causes the animals to run back to the window?
21. What do the animals see when they look in the window? What is the significance of this sighting?
Reading Questions Ch. 8-10
• Born as Eric Blair in Bengal, India in 1903 and moved to England in
1904.
• Went to Eton and later served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.
• Blair became a socialist, speaking openly against the excesses of
governments east and west and fighting briefly for the socialist cause
during the Spanish Civil War(1936 to 1939)
• Orwell’s stint in a Trotskyist (Leon Trotsky followers) battalion
influenced his plans for a critique of totalitarian communism.
• HATED totalitarianism and Communism
• When writing, used the pen name of George Orwell, so if his writing
failed, no one would know.
• Lived among the poor of London and Paris and wrote about their lives
• Died of tuberculosis January 21, 1950
George Orwell Biography
• Orwell believed that the Soviet Union was
not a positive representation of the
possibilities of socialist society.
• Orwell could not turn a blind eye to the
cruelties and hypocrisies of Soviet
Communist Party, which had overturned
the semi-feudal system of the tsars only to
replace it with the dictatorial reign of
Joseph Stalin.
• Orwell became a sharp critic of both
capitalism and communism, and is
remembered chiefly as an advocate of
freedom and a committed opponent of
communist oppression.
Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1917
• Socialism seemed the only remedy for the invidious problem
of poverty, a political and economic philosophy arguing that
only when the state controls the means of production and
distribution will all members of a nation share its profits and
rewards. HAVE AND SHARE ALIKE.
• Unlike capitalism, where a nation’s production/distribution is
privately owned and controlled, socialism argues that only
government regulation of a nation's economy can close the gap
between the rich and the poor. GOVERNMENT OWNS AND
EVERYONE SHARES.
Socialism: Political and
Economic Philosophy
• In Das Kapital (Capital), Karl Marx
(German philosopher) advanced an
economically predetermined interpretation
of human history.
• Marx argued that society would naturally evolve—from a
monarchy and aristocracy, to capitalism, and finally into
communism, in a system which all property would be held in
common.
• Capitalist oppressed poor workers would have their dignity
restored, and all people would live as equals.
• Marx followed with The Communist Manifesto, an impassioned
call to action that urged, “Workers of the world, unite!”
The Revolution
(and betrayal)
• In February 1917, Tsar Nicholas II, the tsar (monarch) of Russia, abdicated and the
socialist Alexander Kerensky became premier. On November 7 , Kerensky was
ousted.
• Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Russian Revolution, became chief commissar.
As wars raged on virtually every Russian front, Lenin’s chief allies began
jockeying for power in the newly formed state; the most influential included
Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Gregory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev.
• Trotsky and Stalin emerged as the most likely heirs to Lenin’s vast power. Trotsky
was a popular and charismatic leader, famous for his impassioned speeches, while
the taciturn Stalin preferred to consolidate his power behind the scenes.
• After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin orchestrated an alliance against Trotsky. Stalin
became the unquestioned dictator of the Soviet Union and had Trotsky expelled
from the Communist Party and finally from Russia altogether in 1936. Trotsky
fled to Mexico, where he was assassinated on Stalin’s orders in 1940.
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Joseph Stalin (OR Josip Tito, Mao Tsetung, Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet, and
Slobodan Milosevic)
Napoleon seems most similar to the
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Napoleon generally represents the
political tyrants that have emerged
throughout human history.
Named after the early-eighteenth-century
French general Napoleon, who betrayed
the democratic principles on which he
rode to power, becoming a despot just
like the aristocrats.
Both the fictional Napoleon and historical
dictators use lying and bullying tactics.
Napolean
Snowball
• As a parallel for Leon
Trotsky, Snowball appears
as an idealist who throws
himself heart and soul into
the spread Animalism
worldwide and to improve
Animal Farm’s
infrastructure.
• Relying only on the force
of his own logic and
rhetorical skill to gain his
influence, he proves no
match for Napoleon’s
show of brute force.
Enemy of the People
In 1934, Stalin’s ally Serge Kirov was
assassinated in Leningrad, prompting Stalin to commence his infamous
purges of the Communist Party.
Holding “show trials”—trials whose outcomes he and his allies had already
decided Stalin had his opponents officially labeled as “enemies of the
people,” involved Trotskyist or anti-Stalinist conspiracies with a sentence
that guaranteed immediate execution. Just by a mere mention Trotsky’s
name with yours would ensure your immediate elimination from the
Communist Party.
As the Soviet government’s economic planning faltered and failed, Russia
suffered under a surge of violence, fear, and starvation. Stalin used
Trotsky as a common national enemy and thus a source of
negative unity. Trotsky was a frightening specter used to
conjure horrifying eventualities, in comparison with which
the current misery paled.
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In the Russia of 1917, it appeared that Karl Marx’s
dreams were to become reality. The tsar abdicated the
throne that was in the family for 300 years and a
intellectual revolutionary had seized power in the
name of the Communist Party.
The new regime took land and industry from private
control and centralized them under government
supervision. Restoring Russia to pre-WWI prosperity
and modernizing infrastructure and adding electricity
to rural areas.
After Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin and Leon
Trotsky had a power struggle for position in the
newly formed Soviet Union.
Stalin, a crafty and manipulative politician, soon
banished Trotsky, an idealistic proponent of
international communism.
Stalin then began to consolidate his power with brutal
intensity, killing or imprisoning his perceived political
enemies and overseeing the purge of approximately
twenty million Soviet citizens.
Leaders in and out
• Animal Farm was written as an attack on a specific
government, but its general themes of oppression,
suffering, and injustice have far broader application. In
modern times, we have come to see Orwell’s book as a
powerful attack on any political, rhetorical, or military
power that seeks to control human beings unjustly.
• Where in the world is this happening now?
Themes beyond the text
• Russian society in the early twentieth century was
bipolar: a tiny minority controlled most of the country’s
wealth, while the vast majority of the country’s
inhabitants were impoverished and oppressed peasants.
• Communism arose in Russia when the nation’s workers
and peasants, assisted by a class of concerned
intellectuals known as the intelligentsia, rebelled against
and overwhelmed the wealthy and powerful class of
capitalists and aristocrats. They hoped to establish a
socialist utopia based on the principles of the German
economic and political philosopher Karl Marx.
Sound familiar?
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Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
“FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD”
• Specifically, Animal Farm is an allegory about the
Russian Revolution of 1917.
• Orwell creates fictional characters, cleverly disguised as
animals, who represent specific people and ideas
surrounding the events of the Russian Revolution.
• Although Orwell was immensely influenced by the events
occurring during this time, it is still important to remember
the broader implications, themes, and symbols of this
novella.
Allegory
Old Major
Similarities
Fictional Character/ Concept
Real Person/Group
Karl Marx
(1818-1883)
wrote the
Communist
Manifesto and
set ideas of
revolution and
the Communist
ideal in motion.
Old Major
introduced the
idea that
“humans are
bad” and set the
Animal Farm
revolution in
motion.
Connecting to History
Connecting to History
Joseph Stalin
Napoleon
Leon Trotsky
Snowball
Propaganda department
Squealer
Czar Nicholas II
Mr. Jones
Communism
Animalism
Dedicated supporters of Stalin; generally undereducated and
highly naïve.
Boxer
Former Aristocracy; moved away from Russia to continue to
live their lavish lifestyle.
Mollie
The Communist Anthem, “The Internationale,” replaced by
Stalin with the “Hymn of the Soviet Union.”
“Beasts of England”
Stalin’s development of the NKVD, which became the KGB,
Russia’s secret police.
The Dogs
Critics of political and social change.
Benjamin
• To the animals, they created a utopia in which they ruled
themselves and everything they did benefitted the whole
of Animal Farm. In groups of 5 create a fictional utopia of
your own. Include the following:
• the governmental system: you may use existing systems, or
create your own.
• the commandments (laws): include here personal freedoms
protected and things outlawed.
• the class system: explain how many there are and how they
are determined.
• the main export: choose the one thing your country is
known for creating and providing, this will be your main
source of income.
• a map: can be based off a real land mass or made up.
HOMEWORK
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Senior Project #11
Study for Animal Farm test
Finish any activities not finished in class