ANIMAL FARM

There are three ways to read Animal Farm: Fable: a story told usually with animals as the main characters that has a moral. Allegory : A story told where many of the characters and situations represent something else. Satire: A story told that pokes fun at something else.

Wrote The Communist Manifesto George Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a satire for Communism which was being formed in the Soviet Union. Wrote The Communist Manifesto Called on all poor workers to claim their country “The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite.” Countries such as China and Soviet Union adopted Communism Karl Marx

Russian workers liked communism because they were being treated poorly by the Romanovs: Tsarina Alexandra Tsar Nicholas II

The Tsar was overthrown and executed by the people’s army, and three new leaders were put into place. Lenin: Based many ideas on writings of Karl Marx. In order to succeed in the many reforms for Russia, he became a dictator. He became an absolute ruler like the Tsar he helped overthrow. Died leaving Trotsky and Stalin in charge. Trotsky: He helped build many factories in Russia, helping to industrialize the country, but knew that people needed time to adjust to the change. Did not get a long along with Stalin. He was exiled to Mexico where he was murdered by KGB. Stalin: Wanted absolute rule and got it. Exiled Trotsky. Set up “The five year plans,” plans to industrialize Soviet Union. Blamed Trotsky for their failure. Was paranoid, so he sent KGB to murder Trotsky in Mexico and many of his citizens.

George Orwell George Orwell (1903-1950), pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, was a famous modern British novelist, essayist, social critic and political commentator. He was ranked one of the two best-achieved satirists in English literature, sharing the laureateship with Jonathan Swift, and as one of the three foremost masters of political writing in 20th century, together with Adlous Huxley and Eugene Zamyatin.

Orwell was born in India, where his father was a junior official Orwell was born in India, where his father was a junior official. He returned with his mother to Britain in 1905 and grew up there. His childhood was a sad one. Prejudice and social distinction constantly haunted him and left a permanent dark impression in his mind. This childhood trauma nurtured his antipathy towards hierarchy and authoritarianism, which would become a major political subject in his writings later.

In London Orwell lived together with the poor and sympathized with them, and he wrote about them in some of his books. When serving with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, he witnessed the imperialists’ viciousness and the natives’ misery, which became themes of some other books of his.

In 1936, he, as a socialist, fought in the Spanish Civil War against Fascism and totalitarianism. In Spain he witnessed the ruthless extermination of liberty by the Fascists and realized the danger of the control of thought through language. He left Spain with a complex understanding of power politics and totalitarianism.

The Spanish experience was the most important influence in shaping his political writing. As he declared in 1947, “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.”

The outbreak of World War II intensified Orwell’s concerns over humanity. He found that human liberty was being threatened.

As a writer of artistic enthusiasm and political integrity, Orwell was outraged by all social injustices and evils. Throughout his life, Orwell has searched for a voice for his strong sympathy for human goodness and for his hate against all forms of social evils.

In his writing, he successfully fused his artistic and political purposes into one whole. As he once noted, “What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art.” During his short life of 47 years, he contributed abundant essays, journalistic reports, short stories and novels through his heart and pen, in all of which he exposed totalitarianism and social evils.

His masterpieces are his last two novels, Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1948). 1984 satirizes totalitarianism by setting the story in London which is ruled by “Big Brother”, and Animal Farm is political literature in the disguise of a beast fable.

Both of them express his major concerns: totalitarianism, the corruption of power, and the demise of human nature. The two books won him international fame as a writer and a fighter against social evils.

In addition, he tried to salvage English from corruption. He was known for his simple but vigorous language and style. When he died in 1950, he was eulogized as a “saint” as the “conscience of his generation”.