George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an allegory depicting the events of the Russian Revolution of 1917 when Tsar Nicolas was overthrown and the Bolsheviks took power. Orwell tells this story using farm animals as the key characters of his story to make his political message more accessible to general audiences and because the Russian economy was largely agricultural at the time of the revolution. The novella centers around the Russian Revolution and the subsequent power plays between the principal revolutionary leaders. Orwell intended that his novella highlight the betrayal of the revolutionary powers against their supporters. The novel is meant as a warning  against totalitarianism, particularly as the Soviet Union and its leaders were being praised for the role the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin played helping crush Hitler and naziism during World War II.   

The novella begins with the oppression of the farm animals by their human owner, Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones is portrayed as neglectful and cruel.  Old Major, a respected and wise boar, who is nearing the end of his life, calls upon the animals to tell of his dream of a society where animals can be equal, free and happy and calls on them to rebel against their human farmer.   The animals rebel and victorious take over and with a new sense of their own worth, they set about building a farm where all “animals are equal.”  However, early in the process of rebuilding, the pigs establish themselves as separate from the others, opting out of the daily chores and installing themselves as “leaders.”  As the novella progresses, the pigs continue to assert their authority and use propaganda to control the other animals. Orwell shows the total corruption of those in power and the tragedy of the betrayal of the common animals who continue to believe in the revolution and its ideals.

Big Ideas:

• Totalitarianism

• Power corrupts

  • Absolute power corrupts absolutely

• History repeats itself

• Human Societies naturally tend to break themselves into class hierarchies 

• Language is power (pigs control language.  Revision of the commandments)

  • Education is power (animals are naive, pigs educate themselves and assume control by filtering information)

• Intelligence, in and of itself, will not produce value. (Pigs have intelligence, but much of what they do fails).  It is how you apply your intellect.  Intelligence is knowing/Wisdom is understanding?