Length: 50,000 to 75,000 words Prose: In paragraph form Uses: Entertainment, propaganda, and expression of a personal philosophy
It is a Genre: Type of literature Theme: The main idea of the novel, usually expressed in one sentence Setting: The time and place of the action of the novel Plot: The events in the novel Point of View: Omniscient, first person, objective, etc. Conflict: The struggles in a novel
Characters: The personalities in a novel Protagonist: A character trying to achieve some goal (usually the main character) Antagonist: A character trying to stop the protagonist
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Real Name: Eric Blair British Political Novelist Born: To English parents in India
Sent to boarding school in England at the age of eight to prepare for Eton, an exclusive prep school. Because he had a scholarship, he was teased and humiliated frequently.
At eighteen, he passed the Empire’s Civil Service Exam and became a police officer in Burma (now Myanmar.)
Returned to Europe
Most fables have two levels of meaning. fable is about animals BUT animals also stand for types of people or ideas way the animals interact/plot unfolds says something about the nature of people or the value of ideas fiction that has multiple levels of meaning in this way is called an allegory.
Def: A composition poking fun at something, usually political. Animal Farm skewers political society after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Russian society in the early twentieth century had two social classes: a tiny minority (bourgeoisie) controlled the country’s wealth. The working class was called the proletariat.
Communism arose in Russia when the nation’s workers & peasants rebelled against and overwhelmed the wealthy and powerful class of capitalists & aristocrats.
Snowball A clever pig with a head for ideas, he becomes one of the main leaders of Animal Farm and the author of its central commandments.
Napoleon A pig with a gift for techniques of control.
Old Major An elderly show pig whose instruction to the animals about "animalism" becomes the philosophical basis for the creation of Animal Farm.
Squealer A pig with the ability to make any idea sound reasonable, he is Napoleon's side-kick and is in charge of communicating to the animals.
Boxer A strong and hard-working carthorse, he shows tremendous faith in the rebellion and its leaders.