The Politics of “Animal Farm”

Introduction

The book “Animal Farm” was written in the year 1944 by George Orwell to denounce the governance of the political leadership of the Soviet Union. The leaders were symbolized by animal characters. This study was aimed at finding the similarities between the characters shown in the book and the characters of the Soviet Union leaders at the time the book was written. Content analysis was applied while examining the aim of this study. The book depicts impartiality, where all the animals stay away from human oppressors. The animals are inspired by Major, an old pig, to take part in a revolution to embrace animalism, wanting a principled state of integrity and development (Orwell, 1984). Later on, Napoleon who is considered as a power-hungry boar, becomes an oppressive dictator, leading the animal farm into tyranny. The leader ends up altering the main commandment of the farm to all animals being the same but at the same time, some being more important than the others.

Summary of the Chapters

The study shows the history of a small farm in England. After constant mistreatment by their human master, the animals decide to listen to Major, an old pig. The boar shares his future ideas, where each of the animals is liberated to carry out their activities, including providing for themselves instead of being provided by humans who are oppressing them. In his vision, every animal is also free to regulate their future destinies and he therefore, convinces the animals to organize on how his vision will be realized in the future. Old Major passes on a few days later, but the boar’s dream was still present among the other animals, including Napoleon and Snowball. The two pigs end up becoming the leading revolutionists of the old Major’s dream, which they rename it to animalism.

The revolution happens earlier than when the animals had arranged. The farm owner, Mr. Jones, falls asleep after drinking, making him not feed the animals. The livestock then proceed to the storage shed as they look for a something to eat. Mr. Jones arrive together with his companions, and start lashing all the animals that came to steal some food. Instead of running away, the animals attack Mr. Jones and his friends, resulting to them being driven off the farm. After the prosperous rebellion, they do away with all the traces of Jones, dine enthusiastically, and celebrate in their newly found independence. The animals do away with Jones’ tools which is seen as instruments of tyranny, and later leave the house intact. Snowball modifies the sign of the farm and writes the rules of animalism, which is a guide for the future as they learn to administer themselves. Later on, the farm owner tries to reclaim the farm but the animals form a tight resistance against the attack under Snowball, which makes Mr. Jones vanish completely.

Notwithstanding the initial troubles found in making use of the farming equipment which is meant for human use, they all join together to complete the yield of their produce. The animals learn to take less time compared to the time the owner and his companions took to complete similar tasks. Boxer differentiates himself from the other animals in the farm, and he is seen as a vigorous and robust worker, making him be admired by the other animals. Later on, the two leaders start conflicting and differing in every aspect of life. Snowball intends to build a windmill which Napoleon does not recommend. The two leaders also debate on other topics that concern the well-being of the animals and Snowball ends up loosing. The later also form various groups but nothing went according to his plans. The only success he had was educating some of the animals with respect to their levels of understanding. Napoleon finally chases away Snowball from the farm using his dogs. He brings forth the idea of developing a windmill to his people, which was originally Snowball’s idea, and he uses the idea against Snowball saying, he was against it.

The windmill idea is implemented and every animal works hard to produce supplies for all the farm animals, but the boars. There is a reduction in the amount of food produced by the animals but they endure the hardships due to the determination they had in them. The leader proposes to carry out trade of the farm’s produce to counter the reduction in supplies, and even though the animals are doubtful the proposal, they all end up agreeing. A strong wind later destroys the windmill, which was yet to be completed. Snowball is deemed responsible for the destruction by Napoleon and other boars even though there was no prove for this claim. The calamity ends up making all the animals in the farm fault Snowball for every disaster that occurs around them. Later on, all the animals work on reconstructing the collapsed windmill. Several hens are found guilty of working with Snowball a few weeks later, and they are executed by napoleon in front of all the other animals. This makes every other animal become terrified even after they were all in agreement that the hens were defectors of the rule of the farm.

The animals continue working on the destroyed windmill. Neighbors of the animal farm come to have trade talks with Napoleon concerning the sale of wood. The animals were against the trade since they knew the bad character of Fredrick, the neighbor. Napoleon end up finalizing the trade and Fredrick pays for the timber, but with fake currency. The neighbors attack the farm and destroy the windmill although the animals win the battle and reclaim their land. The animals then suggest on building the windmill again. Months passed and animals keep working tirelessly while the boars were busy enjoying themselves in their houses. Despite this, the animals were quiet with the happenings. The hardest working horse passes out while laboring on the windmill, who is later taken to hospital for treatment. He later passes on and the boars maintain that he was taken to hospital even though the vehicle that carried the deceased horse was labelled the initials of the horse slayer. The animals are convinced by the words of the pigs and they later proceed with the cruel life they were living.

Years on, after the passing on of the horse, the farm as well as the boars have become wealthy, but the animals continue to live in the same life of hard work with less returns. Notwithstanding, the animals in the farm comfort themselves with the idea that they are laboring for their own benefit instead of the benefit of humans. This takes a turn when the boars start transacting with humans and at the same time, wearing clothes. In addition, the pigs also stride on two legs instead of four. They also alter the name of the farm to Manor Farm rejecting the claims that a revolution ever occurred. The pigs are also seen dining with humans, which makes the animals incapable of distinguishing between the boars and humans. They later conclude that the revolution they had did not alter anything.

Topics of Analysis

Corruption on Socialists Principles In the book, we see how corruption is evident in different cases. Snowball is thrown away from the animal farm by his counterpart Napoleon after the rebellion from the farm owner. Leon Trotsky is seen as the less dominant person, Snowball, while Stalin is viewed as Napoleon. The expulsion of Snowball is compared to the expulsion of Leon Trotsky who is seen as an enemy of Stalin. The latter threw away Trotsky to secure his political area. Animals that are considered traitors are also executed by Napoleon after the windmill was destroyed in an attack. The dictatorship rule of Stalin and leaving out the principles that found the rebellion is depicted in the novel when the boars carry out cruel administration of the farm and also following human behavior and characters. In the book, the seven rules that were enacted by the leadership of the animal farm was later done away with, showing the hypocritical behavior of leaders to favor themselves. The section criticizes the mode of administration Stalin used in governing the Soviet Union in favor of his personal gains and not his people. This idea is described by Fukuyama (2011, p. 90), that even though the human species started in Africa, human beings have thrived better in other parts of the world. This is as a result of the high corruption rates in the countries present in the continent, where leaders are greedy of power. The best way to counter the issue of corruption in various countries is through learning of positive values at a young age, and accountability of all government workers. The author is seen is unbiased in the animal farm since he shows how the state of corruption was prominent among the leaders in the book. This is seen when only the pigs formed the committee of assistants for Napoleon. Countries should aim at denouncing corrupt activities to ensure that all citizens benefit from their hard earned labour.

Establishment of Class Structures

The novel gives a commentary on the creation of classes by humans and their affinities towards maintaining the structures even though the people root for evenness amongst themselves. Animal Farm shows how the classes that are brought together to deal with a mutual rival end up becoming separated after the rival is eradicated. This is seen in the book when the animals unite against the people to do away with the latter. The eviction of Jones from the farm brings about a void in terms of power execution, and not so long does another dictators takes control of the animal farm completely. The learned and the laborers are seen to be divided amongst themselves, and the boars become the intellects who are seen to oppress the laborers, who are the other animals. Class structurers in the society always end up becoming a risk to the democracy (Van, 1956, p. 257). Liberal democracy, where the popular can elect a leader, should have been practiced by the society, to prevent the pigs from taking control of the entire animal farm for their own benefit. The result of forceful acquisition of power is division in the society where the leaders will end up becoming the wealthy, leaving alone the laborers and other casual workers to become poor in spite of their hard work. This creates class stratification in the society. Liberal democracy is the most common choice of democracy as well as the preferred method (Ferris, 2020), and is considered as the political left. The best way to deal with class stratification is through inclusion of all members of the society in governance. The author is seen as unbiased since the books reflects a true happening of the Soviet era where the rulers of the state were richer compared to the other citizens. Nations across the globe should work towards eradicating societal classes for the benefit of their citizens.

False Loyalty

This is when people claim their allegiance amongst themselves, and later on be disloyal to their claims. This is depicted in the book when the pigs end up betraying the claims they had and which they carried out a revolution for. The animals in the farm fought together to eradicate their human oppressor from the farm to become independent and produce their own produce. The animals form several rules of the farm which excluded human interactions with the animals. The pigs later on end up collaborating with the same humans behind the back of the other animals. This depicts how evident false loyalty was deep-rooted among the rulers of the animal farm. Fredrick also showed disloyalty to the boars while they were transacting for timber. The pigs later on discover that Fredrick used counterfeit currency to transact for the timber. The author describes that such people in the society, especially rulers, will continue to increase in quantity. This can only be countered by citizens of the given society becoming more political aware of such rulers in their countries. This is carried out through mass education and it will result to election of selfless leaders in the society.

Works Cited

Ferris, Timothy. Huffpost. 6 December 2017. Article. 11 May 2020.

Fukuyama, Francis. The origins of political order: From prehuman times to the French Revolution. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

Orwell, George. 1984 & Animal Farm. Text Publishing, 2017.

Von Clausewitz, Carl. On war. Vol. 2. Jazzybee Verlag, 1956.