Jeff Fargo
Animal Farm
In his 1946 novel Animal Farm, George Orwell creates an astounding fable that
has two tiers. At face value it is a great novel about talking pigs that take over a farm, but
beneath the surface it is so much more. The novel has allegorical value that links it to the
Russian Revolution in almost every way possible. In one of the book’s opening scenes,
Old Major, one of those talking pigs, makes a speech that has clear similarities to Karl
Marx's communist manifesto. The Battle of the Windmill is symbolic of the battle of
Stalingrad. Furthermore, Fredrick and his workers are modeled to after Hitler and the
Nazis. Animal Farm and all the characters and events that happen in and around it stand
for an event that happened in real life or a direct representation of a particular person or
group from the 1900s.
The book starts with the animals being treated poorly by the farm’s neglectful
owner Mr. Jones, who is clearly modeled after Russia’s Czar Nicholas II who ruled from
1894 until he was abdicated by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Disgruntled about his quality of
life, Old Major; who is representative of Karl Marx, the author of the Communist
Manifesto and founder of Communism; calls a meeting to discuss a dream that he had the
night before. Old Major had dreamt of a new world. It was a world where animals would
rule themselves, and be free of the human’s tyrannical reign. He dreamt of animalism.
This dream shows many similarities to the Communist Manifesto, the journal in which
Marx revealed his ideas of communism. The animals of the farm responded, Old Major
creates a song and names it “Beasts of England”, which is clearly modeled after “The
Internationale” an international anthem of communism and the original national anthem
of the USSR. “Beasts of England” unified the animals, and inspired their rebellion.
Jeff Fargo
Staying true to the allegory, Old Major, like Karl Marx, criticized the existing system
more than he talk about his own ideas. Marx explained that: “The proletariats are owners
of labour power (the ability to work), and mere owners of labour power, with no other
resources than the ability to work with their hands, bodies, and minds. Since these
workers have no property, in order to survive and obtain an income for themselves and
their families, they must find employment work for an employer. This means working for
a capitalist-employer in an exploitative social relationship.” This quote is very similar to
the part of Old Major’s speech in which he says: “Now, comrades, what is the nature of
this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born,
we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who
are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant
that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No
animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No
animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain
truth.” Old Major’s speech is too similar in structure and topic to the Communist
Manifesto for George Orwell not to have at least read it while writing this particular part
of his own work.
The Battle of the Windmill is a broad representation of all of Russia and
Germany’s encounters over the course of WWII, most notably the Battle of Stalingrad.
In this battle the farmers are the Nazis, and the animals represent the communists. In the
Battle of the Windmill, all the animals fought their hardest while the two leading pigs,
Squealer and Napoleon, stayed back and watched the battle from a distance. After the
Jeff Fargo
battle, the two pigs came down to the scene and claim responsibility for the victory, but
in reality the only reason they won was because of the drudgery of the working class.
Boxer is the hardest worker in the whole farm, and is in many ways a
representative of Russia’s working class. Boxer’s name is derived from the Boxer
Rebellion, a rebellion that took place in 1899. The rebellion consisted of China’s
Proletariat rose up against the ruling class. Boxer never rebelled against the powers of
Napoleon, in fact he was one of the most loyal, featuring such catch phrases as
“Napoleon is always right,” and “I will work harder.” However, despite this loyalty,
when Boxer was sick Napoleon did not think twice about selling him to the glue factory
This is an allegory in the sense that just as the workers in China worked the hardest and
were still being starved, Boxer was the hardest worker on the farm and somehow he was
treated the worst.
Based on just the few examples provided, the correlation is very prominent. I
think that the way Orwell chose to narrate this story is very effective. Through the
examples he provides, his many morals are clear, such as history repeats itself, and that
once somebody gets a taste of power, he will not be satisfied until he has all of it. To
create a work of this stature it takes a very perceptive mind, and throughout this work
George Orwell shows he is more than apt over and over again.