Animal Farm by George Orwell
Note:
The following review was written by Jack Griffin aged 14. Jack, I thank you for your words on this powerful book and thoroughly enjoy hearing your thoughts on the topics raised in Orwell's work.
George Orwell the man
George Orwell was a brilliant writer and critic born at the start of the new twentieth century in 1903.
He was a child when the of the Great War began in 1914, however, he would be greatly impacted by the war and wars to come.
Throughout his career he was a police officer in the British Raj and a soldier of the Democratic Republic of Spain. Orwell went on to fight in the Spanish Civil War- against the Fascist regime.
His time in the Spanish militia group POUM inspired a hatred of Totalitarianism and Fascism. It also spurred on his admiration for socialism and equality.
Following the Republics defeat in 1939 and the beginning of the Second World War later in September that same year; George Orwell began to write his critiques. His writings voiced warnings against the Soviet Union and the failures of its revolution.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal"
-Napoleon (The Pig)
George Orwell's great novella 'Animal Farm': Symbolism in the yard
‘Animal farm’, written 1944, was George Orwell’s first major novel. It is Orwell’s renowned critique of the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.).
Each character in ‘Animal Farm’ represents a significant political member from this time, including Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. There is also mention of the proletariat manifest- a book clear in its depictions and criticisms of the world systems.
In Animal Farm, Orwell depicts the trappings of Totalitarianism and we see the poor conditions that lead the animals to a revolt. The revolution’s ideology is for freedom against the oppressors and to establish a fair system for all the people.
However, once the new system is implemented, the ‘Animal Farm’ and its inhabitants, find themselves starving and dying as slaves, rather than free and equal citizens. All the while one ‘revolutionary’ sits above them all- their newest tyrant.
This story concludes with George Orwell’s ultimate concerns about power and corruption.
Animal farm remains one of the greatest critiques of the Russian Revolution, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. Beyond that, this novel reveals the fragility of freedom and how easily the masses can be manipulated into a system that does not benefit them.
FURTHER READING...
George Orwell stated; "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it."
