Animal Farm

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Orwell wrote Animal Farm between November 1943 and February 1944, while working at the BBC and later as literary editor of Tribune, drawing on his disillusionment with Soviet communism that began during the Spanish Civil War (1936-37), where he witnessed communist suppression of rival leftist factions. Subtitled "A Fairy Story," the novella is a beast fable allegorizing the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its betrayal under Stalin. Old Major represents Marx and Lenin combined, Napoleon stands for Stalin, Snowball for Trotsky, Squealer for Soviet propaganda organs, and Boxer the carthorse for the exploited proletariat. Orwell struggled to find a publisher: wartime Britain was allied with the USSR, and several publishers, including Faber & Faber (where T.S. Eliot rejected it), were wary that the satire would damage relations with Stalin. It was finally published by Secker & Warburg on 17 August 1945, days after Japan's surrender brought the Second World War to its close. The book's success established Orwell's reputation and financial security; he died in 1950, shortly after completing Nineteen Eighty-Four.

On Manor Farm, the aged boar Old Major inspires the animals with a vision of rebellion against their human master, Mr. Jones, and dies soon after. The pigs Napoleon and Snowball lead the animals in a successful uprising, renaming the property Animal Farm and establishing Seven Commandments of Animalism, the chief being "All animals are equal." Initially the farm thrives under collective management, with the tireless carthorse Boxer adopting the motto "I will work harder." Napoleon and Snowball soon clash over the farm's direction, particularly the building of a windmill; Napoleon uses a pack of dogs he has secretly raised to drive Snowball off the farm and seizes total power. Using the persuasive pig Squealer to twist language and rewrite history, Napoleon gradually blames Snowball for every failure, alters the Commandments to suit the pigs' privileges, and begins trading with neighboring humans. The pigs move into the farmhouse, walk on two legs, and adopt human vices, while the other animals endure hardship and broken promises. Boxer, worked to exhaustion, is sold to a knacker when he collapses, though the pigs claim he died peacefully. In the final scene, the other animals watch through a window as the pigs dine and quarrel with human farmers, and find they can no longer distinguish pig from man.

• The corruption of revolutionary ideals by power
• Totalitarianism and the cult of leadership
• Propaganda, language, and the manipulation of truth
• Class inequality re-emerging under new rulers
• Exploitation of labor and the working class
• The failure of collective utopian idealism
• Historical revisionism and control of memory

• ◆Allegory — the entire farm narrative maps onto the Russian Revolution and Stalinist USSR
• ◆Beast fable — anthropomorphized animals satirize human political behavior
• ◆Irony — the Commandments' amendments (e.g., "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others") expose hypocrisy
• ◆Satire — mocks Soviet propaganda, show trials, and personality cults
• ◆Symbolism — characters and objects stand for historical figures and institutions
• ◆Repetition and sloganeering — simplified maxims like "Four legs good, two legs bad" mimic totalitarian propaganda techniques
• ◆Foreshadowing — early hints (the pigs taking milk and apples) anticipate the final betrayal

• ◆The pigs — the ruling communist elite/Bolshevik leadership
• ◆Napoleon — Joseph Stalin and dictatorial power
• ◆Snowball — Leon Trotsky, the exiled rival
• ◆Boxer — the exploited proletariat and naive faith in the regime
• ◆The windmill — Soviet industrialization projects and Five-Year Plans
• ◆The Seven Commandments — the founding ideals of communism, progressively corrupted

Animal Farm became one of the twentieth century's most influential political satires, cementing the beast fable as a viable vehicle for serious political critique and shaping later dystopian and allegorical fiction. Alongside Nineteen Eighty-Four, it made Orwell's name synonymous with warnings against totalitarianism, and terms and concepts associated with his work entered common political vocabulary. The novella has been widely used in schools worldwide as an accessible introduction to propaganda, authoritarianism, and revolutionary betrayal, and it remains a staple reference point in political commentary whenever revolutionary movements are seen to replicate the abuses they overthrew.

• ◆Animal Farm (1954 animated film, Halas and Batchelor)
• ◆Animal Farm (1999 television film, Hallmark)

• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
• Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
• Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

1. 1Orwell subtitled the book 'A Fairy Story,' though most editions omit this from the cover.
2. 2The novella was rejected by several British publishers; at Faber & Faber, T.S. Eliot's rejection letter objected on ideological grounds, questioning the book's anti-Soviet 'Trotskyite' viewpoint at a time when Britain and the USSR were wartime allies.
3. 3The book was published on 17 August 1945, only days after Japan's surrender brought the Second World War to its end, complicating its reception given Britain's wartime alliance with the Soviet Union.