Animal farm — revisited
ANIMAL Farm is a 1945 novelette by George Orwell, and is a satire of Stalinist totalitarianism. Although the plot of the novella is an allegory in which animals play the roles of the Bolshevik revolutionaries and overthrow and oust the human owners of the farm, setting it up as a commune in which, at first, all animals are equal — soon disparities start to emerge between the different species or classes. The novel describes how a society’s ideologies can be changed and manipulated by individuals in positions of power or those manipulating the protagonists.
The characters of “Animal Farm” have their parallels in the real world and are present in every society. If we look around, we can perceive either explicit or implicit comparisons. Orwell’s intent was tyranny or dictatorship, which must be overthrown. The major characters are firstly the pigs, in which Old Major represents either Marx or Lenin, who implanted the idea of revolution. Napoleon, the boar, is the main villain, who gradually builds up his power using puppies — he raised to become vicious dogs as his secret police. Orwell modelled him after Joseph Stalin. Snowball, another boar is Napoleon’s rival, inspired by Trotsky, wins over most animals, is driven out of the farm by Napoleon’s dogs and is blamed for all the ills befalling the animals. Squealer, another pig serves as Napoleon’s spin doctor, twisting and abusing language to excuse, justify and extol all of Napoleon’s actions. He represents all the propaganda Stalin used to justify his actions. The three horses – Clover, Mollie and Boxer – represent the three social classes. Boxer represents the lower class, Clover the middle and Mollie the upper. In the end, Boxer, or the lower class, is the one that gets the most exploited by the pigs — a criticism of how the proletariat was most exploited by the Communist Party in the (erstwhile) Soviet Union. Boxer directly relates to the working class that laboured under strenuous and exceedingly difficult conditions throughout the Communist regime with the hope that their work would result in a more prosperous life. Boxer represents this clearly at points when he utters such quotes as “I will work harder” in response to any sort of difficulty. In the context of the story, this also allows Boxer to become a tool of propaganda to be used by Napoleon and his regime later on once Boxer has been murdered to pay for a crate of whiskey for the pigs.
Benjamin is a donkey who is cynical about the Revolution and life in general. Though he is as knowledgeable as and wiser than the pigs and is the only animal who sees the pigs for the tyrants they are, he never makes an attempt to change anything, replying to questions only with the cryptic response of “Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey”. Meaning, those who keep quiet will live longer. Moses is a tame raven, who represents the Russian Orthodox Church, which was brutally persecuted under Communism and later exploited by the State to control and observe the population. Muriel the goat can read and represents intelligent labour. The Sheep show the blind loyalty of the masses, who are initially taught the slogan “Four legs good, two legs bad!” and later are retaught “Four legs good, two legs better!” when the pigs make a deal with the humans and start walking on two legs to imitate them.
After taking over the farm, the new rulers rename Manor Farm ‘Animal Farm’, and set about running things themselves and draw up seven commandments which all animals should abide by: among other things, these commandments forbid an animal to kill another animal — and include the mantra ‘four legs good, two legs bad’ — because animals (who walk on four legs) are their friends while their two-legged human overlords are evil and where every animal is equal. One fine day, the farm animals discover that the seven commandments written on the barn wall have been rubbed off, to be replaced by one single commandment: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ ‘Animal Farm’ is renamed ‘Manor Farm’.
The end of the novelette is thought provoking, as the pigs move into the farm house, when the animals hear merrymaking, they peep from the window to see the pigs wearing human clothes, trotting upright on two legs and partying with the same humans, they had earlier thrown out. The closing lines are haunting “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
The book also clearly ponders whether a focus of power in one person is healthy for a society. Perhaps the largest overriding theme in “Animal Farm” is the famous quote by Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian Revolution and the formation of a Communist regime in Russia (as the Soviet Union). The scarlet thread is that, although “Animal Farm” was subtitled “A Fairy Story”, Orwell’s novella is far from being a straightforward tale for children. It’s also a political allegory, and even satire. The cleverness of Orwell’s approach is that he manages to infuse his story with this political meaning while also telling an engaging tale about greed, corruption and ‘society’ in a more general sense.
If we compare the characters and events with our own contemporary history, with a little stretch of imagination, we find eerie similarities. In the novella, Snowball — a popular boar, who was favoured by the other animals but is disliked by Napoleon, the primary antagonist — is driven out of the farm by Napoleon’s dogs and is blamed for all the ills befalling the animals. Does that ring a bell, where a populist leader was shunted out, discredited and later blamed for all the ills befalling the masses. We can easily identify Squealer, Napoleon’s spin doctor, adept at twisting and abusing language to excuse, justify and extol all of Napoleon’s actions. I rest my case!
—The writer is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China.
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