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= Animal_Farm =
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Introduction
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'Animal Farm' (originally 'Animal Farm: A Fairy Story') is a satirical
allegorical dystopian novella, in the form of a beast fable, by George
Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It follows the
mistreated anthropomorphic farm animals of Manor Farm as they rebel
against their human master, and are hoping to create a society where
all animals can be equal, free, and happy away from human vices and
interventions. However, the rebellion is hijacked and betrayed, and
under the dictatorship of the pigs, the farm ends up in a dystopian
state nearly identical to what it was before.
According to Orwell, 'Animal Farm' reflects events leading up to the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the
Soviet Union, a period when Russia lived under the Marxist-Leninist
ideology of Joseph Stalin. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a
critic of Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude
that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Barcelona May
Days conflicts between the POUM and Stalinist forces, during the
Spanish Civil War. In a letter to Yvonne Davet (a French writer),
Orwell described 'Animal Farm' as a satirical tale against Stalin
("'"), and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946) wrote: "'Animal Farm' was
the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was
doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole."
The original title of the novel was 'Animal Farm: A Fairy Story'.
American publishers dropped the subtitle when it was published in
1946. Other title variations include subtitles like "A Satire" and "A
Contemporary Satire". Orwell suggested the title ' for the French
translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for "bear", a
symbol of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet
Union, '.
Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when
the United Kingdom was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union
against Nazi Germany and the British intelligentsia held Stalin in
high esteem, which Orwell hated. The manuscript was initially rejected
by several British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's
own, Victor Gollancz, which delayed its publication. It became a great
commercial success when it did appear, as international relations and
public opinion were transformed as the wartime alliance gave way to
the Cold War.
'Time' magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language
novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern
Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels, and number 46 on the BBC's
The Big Read poll. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996, and is
included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.
Plot summary
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The animal populace of the poorly run Manor Farm near Willingdon,
England, is ripened for rebellion by neglect at the hands of the
irresponsible and alcoholic farmer Mr. Jones. One night, the exalted
boar Old Major holds a conference, at which he calls for the overthrow
of humans and teaches the animals a revolutionary song called "Beasts
of England". When Old Major dies, two young adult boars, Snowball and
Napoleon, assume command and stage a revolt, driving out Mr. Jones and
renaming the property "Animal Farm". The animals adopt the Seven
Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is "All animals
are equal". These rules are painted in large letters on one side of
the barn. Snowball teaches the animals to read and write, while
Napoleon educates young puppies on the principles of Animalism
separately from the rest of the farm. To commemorate the start of
Animal Farm, Snowball raises a green flag made from Mrs. Jones'
tablecloth with a white hoof and horn symbol. Later, Old Major's skull
is exhumed and put on display. Food is plentiful, and the farm runs
smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and
set aside special food items, ostensibly for their health. Following
an unsuccessful attempt by Mr. Jones and his associates to retake the
farm, henceforth referred to by the animals as the "Battle of the
Cowshed", Snowball announces his plans to modernise the farm by
building a windmill. Napoleon disputes this idea, and matters come to
a head, which culminates in Napoleon's dogs chasing Snowball away and
Napoleon effectively assuming supreme command.
Napoleon enacts changes to the political structure of the farm,
replacing meetings with a committee of governing pigs. Through a
diminutive boar named Squealer, who is a skilled orator, Napoleon
claims credit for the idea of building the windmill, claiming that
Snowball was only trying to win animals to his side. The animals work
harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. When the
windmill collapses after a violent storm, Napoleon and Squealer
persuade the animals that Snowball is trying to sabotage their
project, and begin to purge the farm of animals accused by Napoleon of
consorting with his old rival. When some animals recall the Battle of
the Cowshed, Napoleon, who was not present during the battle,
gradually smears Snowball to the point of saying he is a collaborator
of Mr. Jones, even dismissing the fact that Snowball was given an
award of courage, while falsely representing himself as the main hero
of the battle. "Beasts of England" is replaced with "Animal Farm",
while an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who is presumably adopting the
lifestyle of a man ("Comrade Napoleon"), is composed and sung.
Napoleon then conducts a second purge, during which many animals who
are alleged to be helping Snowball in plots are executed by Napoleon's
dogs, which troubles the rest of the animals. Despite their hardships,
the animals are easily pacified by Napoleon's retort that they are
better off than they were under Mr. Jones, as well as by the sheep's
continual bleating of "four legs good, two legs bad". As Napoleon and
Squealer's increasingly humanlike behaviour repeatedly contradicts the
Seven Commandments, they secretly rewrite the laws to avoid facing
charges.
Mr. Frederick, a neighbouring farmer, attacks the farm, using blasting
powder to blow up the restored windmill. Although the animals win the
battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer the
workhorse, are wounded. Although he recovers from this, Boxer
eventually collapses while working on the windmill due to his age. He
is taken away in a knacker's van, and a donkey called Benjamin alerts
the animals of this, but Squealer quickly waves off their alarm by
persuading the animals that the van had been purchased from the
knacker by an animal hospital and that the previous owner's signboard
had not been repainted. Squealer subsequently reports Boxer's death
and honours him with a festival the following day, while, in truth,
Napoleon had engineered the sale of Boxer to the knacker, allowing him
and his inner circle to acquire money to buy whisky for themselves,
which they used to celebrate the following night.
Years pass, the windmill is rebuilt, and a second windmill is
constructed, which makes the farm a good amount of income. However,
the ideals that Snowball discussed--including stalls with electric
lighting, heating, and running water, along with a three-day work week
for all animals--are forgotten, with Napoleon now advocating that the
happiest animals live simple lives. Snowball has been forgotten, while
Boxer is remembered by only few. Many of the animals who participated
in the rebellion are dead or old. Mr. Jones is known to have died in
an inebriates' home. The pigs now resemble humans: they walk
bipedally, carry whips, drink alcohol, and wear clothes. The Seven
Commandments are abridged to just one phrase: "All animals are equal,
but some animals are more equal than others". The maxim "Four legs
good, two legs bad" is similarly changed to "Four legs good, two legs
better". The Hoof and Horn flag is replaced with a plain green banner,
and Old Major's skull is reburied.
Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and newly allied human
farmers. The other farm animals, who have not been invited, gather at
the window to watch. He abolishes the practice of the revolutionary
traditions and restores the name "The Manor Farm". He explains to the
guests that, contrary to what has been told the animals of the farm,
the "lesser" animals are working more hours and receiving less food; a
practice the other farmers commend and plan to institute with their
own farms. The men and pigs start playing cards, flattering and
praising each other. When the animals outside look at the pigs and
men, they find they have become indistinguishable from one another.
Pigs
======
* Old Major - An aged prize Middle White boar who provides the
inspiration that fuels the rebellion. He is also called Willingdon
Beauty when showing. He is an allegorical combination of Karl Marx,
one of the creators of communism, and Vladimir Lenin, the communist
leader of the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet nation, in that
he draws up the principles of the revolution. His skull being put on
revered public display recalls Lenin, whose embalmed body was left in
indefinite repose at Lenin's Mausoleum. By the end of the book, the
skull is reburied.
* Napoleon - An intimidating, manipulative Berkshire boar who
becomes the leader of Animal Farm after driving out Snowball and
gradually starts living like a human. He is an allegory of Joseph
Stalin.
* Snowball - A boar and Napoleon's rival, who initially leads the
farm after Jones's overthrow. His life parallels that of Leon Trotsky;
although there is no reference to Snowball having been murdered (as
Trotsky was), he is exiled from the farm and subsequently becomes an
image of evil. He may also combine some elements from Lenin.
* Squealer - A small, stout boar who serves as Napoleon's
second-in-command and minister of propaganda, is a collective portrait
of the Soviet nomenklatura and journalists, such as of the national
daily 'Pravda (The Truth)', able to justify every twist and turn in
Stalin's policy.
* Minimus - A poetic pig who writes the second national anthem of
Animal Farm after the singing of "Beasts of England" is banned; later
he composes a poem "Comrade Napoleon". Literary theorist John Rodden
compares him to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who eulogised Lenin and
the Soviet Union, although Mayakovsky neither wrote anthems nor
praised Stalin in his poems.
* The piglets - Hinted to be the children of Napoleon and are the
first generation of animals subjugated to his idea of animal
inequality.
* The young pigs - Four pigs who complain about Napoleon's
takeover of the farm but are quickly silenced and later executed, the
first kind of animals killed in Napoleon's farm purge. Probably based
on the Great Purge of Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin,
and Alexei Rykov.
* Pinkeye - A pig who is mentioned only when he was given the
task of tasting Napoleon's food to make sure it is not poisoned.
Humans
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* Mr. Jones - A heavy drinker who is the original owner of Manor
Farm, a farm in disrepair with farmhands who often loaf on the job. He
is an allegory of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who was forced to abdicate
following the February Revolution of 1917 and was executed, along with
the rest of his family, by the Bolsheviks on 17 July 1918. The animals
revolt after Jones goes on a drinking binge, returns hungover the
following day and neglects them completely. Jones is married, but his
wife plays no active role in the book. She seems to live with her
husband's drunkenness, going to bed while he stays up drinking until
late into the night. In her only other appearance, she hastily throws
a few things into a travel bag and flees when she sees that the
animals are revolting. Towards the end of the book, Napoleon's
"favourite sow" wears her old Sunday dress.
* Mr. Frederick - The tough owner of Pinchfield Farm, a small but
well-kept neighbouring farm, who briefly allies with Napoleon. Animal
Farm shares land boundaries with Pinchfield on one side and Foxwood on
another, making Animal Farm a "buffer zone" between the two bickering
farmers. The animals of Animal Farm are terrified of Frederick, as
rumours abound of him abusing his animals and entertaining himself
with cockfighting. Napoleon allies with Frederick to sell surplus
timber that Pilkington also sought, but is enraged to learn Frederick
paid him in counterfeit money. Shortly after the swindling, Frederick
and his men invade Animal Farm, killing many animals and destroying
the windmill. The brief alliance and subsequent invasion may allude to
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Operation Barbarossa.
* Mr. Pilkington - The easy-going but crafty and well-to-do owner
of Foxwood Farm, a large neighbouring farm overgrown with weeds.
Pilkington is wealthier than Frederick and owns more land, but his
farm needs care as opposed to Frederick's smaller but more efficiently
run farm. Although on bad terms with Frederick, Pilkington is also
concerned about the animal revolution that deposed Jones and is
worried that this could also happen to him.
* Mr. Whymper - A man hired by Napoleon to act as the liaison
between Animal Farm and human society. At first, he acquires
necessities that cannot be produced on the farm, such as dog biscuits
and paraffin wax, but later he procures luxuries like alcohol for the
pigs.
Equines
=========
* Boxer - A loyal, kind, dedicated, powerful, hard-working, and
respectable cart-shire horse, although quite naive and gullible. Boxer
does a large share of the physical labour on the farm. He is shown to
believe that "Napoleon is always right." At one point, he questions
Squealer's statement that Snowball was always against the welfare of
the farm, causing him to be attacked by Napoleon's dogs; however,
Boxer's immense strength repels the attack, worrying the pigs that
their authority can be challenged. Boxer has been compared to Alexey
Stakhanov, a diligent and enthusiastic role model of the Stakhanovite
movement. He has been described as "faithful and strong"; he believes
any problem can be solved if he works harder. When Boxer is injured,
Napoleon sells him to a local knacker to buy himself whisky, and
Squealer gives a moving account, falsifying the circumstances of
Boxer's death.
* Mollie - A self-centred, self-indulgent, and vain young white
mare who quickly leaves for another farm after the revolution, like
those who left Russia after the fall of the Tsar. She is only once
mentioned again, and has an affinity for hair ribbons and sugar cubes.
* Clover - A gentle, caring mare who shows concern, especially
for Boxer, who often pushes himself too hard. Clover can read all the
letters of the alphabet, but cannot form words with them.
* Benjamin - A donkey, one of the oldest, wisest animals on the
farm, and one of the few who can read properly. He is sceptical,
temperamental and cynical: his most frequent remark is, "Life will go
on as it has always gone on - that is, badly". Academic Morris
Dickstein has suggested there is "a touch of Orwell himself in this
creature's timeless scepticism" and indeed, friends called Orwell
"Donkey George", "after his grumbling donkey Benjamin, in 'Animal
Farm'". Benjamin evades the purges and survives despite the threat he
potentially poses given his knowledge, his age, and his equivocal,
albeit apolitical, positions.
Other animals
===============
* Muriel - A goat who is another of the oldest, wisest animals on the
farm and friends with all of the animals on the farm. Similar to
Benjamin, Muriel is one of the few animals on the farm who is not a
pig but can read. She survives, as does Benjamin, by eschewing
politics.
* The puppies - Offspring of Jessie and Bluebell, the puppies were
taken away at birth by Napoleon and raised by him to serve as his
powerful security force.
* Moses - A charismatic raven and personal pet of Mr. Jones with a
natural talent for storytelling. Initially following Mrs. Jones into
exile, he reappears several years later and resumes his role of
talking but not working. He regales Animal Farm's denizens with tales
of a wondrous place beyond the clouds called "Sugarcandy Mountain,
that happy country where we poor animals shall rest forever from our
labours!" Orwell portrays institutionalised religion as "the black
raven of priestcraft - promising pie in the sky when you die, and
faithfully serving whoever happens to be in power". His preaching to
the animals heartens them, and Napoleon allows Moses to reside at the
farm "with an allowance of a gill of beer daily", akin to how Stalin
brought back the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War.
* The sheep - They are not given individual names or personalities.
They show limited understanding of Animalism and the political
atmosphere of the farm, yet nonetheless, they are the voice of blind
conformity as they bleat their support of Napoleon's ideals with
jingles during his speeches and meetings with Snowball. Their constant
bleating of "Four legs good, two legs bad!" is used as a device to
drown out any opposition or alternative views from Snowball, much as
Stalin used hysterical crowds to drown out Trotsky. Towards the end of
the book, Squealer, the propagandist, trains the sheep to alter their
slogan to "Four legs good, two legs better!", which they dutifully do.
* The hens - The hens are promised following the rebellion that they
will get to keep their eggs, which are stolen from them under Mr.
Jones; however, their eggs are soon taken from them under the premise
of buying goods from outside the farm. The hens are among the first to
rebel, albeit unsuccessfully, against Napoleon, being brutally
suppressed through starvation. They represent the Ukrainian victims of
the Holodomor.
* The cows - Unnamed. The cows are enticed into the revolution by
promises that their milk will not be stolen but can be used to raise
their calves. Their milk is then stolen by the pigs, who learn to milk
them. The milk is stirred into the pigs' mash every day, while the
other animals are denied such luxuries.
* The cat - Unnamed and never seen to carry out any work. The cat is
absent for long periods and is forgiven because her excuses are so
convincing and she is naturally charming and affectionate. She has no
interest in the politics of the farm, and the only time she is
recorded as having participated in an election, she is found to have
actually voted both ways.
* The ducks - Unnamed. A brood of ducklings is said to have lost their
mother. They are protected by Clover.
* The roosters - One arranges to wake Boxer early, and a black one
acts as a trumpeter for Napoleon from the time he is a young cockerel.
* The geese - Unnamed. One gander commits suicide by eating nightshade
berries.
* The pigeons -- Unnamed. They attend Major's speech, report the
appearance of Mollie on another farm, and partake in the Battle of the
Cowshed, and are later used to convey messages between the pigs and
humans under Napoleon's watch.
* The rats - Unnamed. Classed among the wild animals, unsuccessful
attempts are made to civilise them and teach them the principles of
Animalism.
* The rabbits - Like the rats, unsuccessful attempts are made to
civilise them. At one point, Jones's former farmhands hunt and kill
them.
Genre and style
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George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' is an example of a political satire and
an allegory that was intended to have a "wider application", according
to Orwell himself, in terms of its relevance. Stylistically, the work
shares many similarities with some of Orwell's other works, most
notably 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', as both have been considered works of
Swiftian satire. Furthermore, these two prominent works seem to
suggest Orwell's bleak view of the future for humanity; he seems to
stress the potential/current threat of dystopias similar to those in
'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'. In these kinds of works,
Orwell distinctly references the disarray and traumatic conditions of
Europe following the Second World War. Orwell's style and writing
philosophy as a whole were very concerned with the pursuit of truth in
writing.
Orwell was committed to communicating straightforwardly, given the way
that he felt words were commonly used in politics to deceive and
confuse. For this reason, he is careful, in 'Animal Farm', to make
sure the narrator speaks in an unbiased and uncomplicated fashion
making the words easier to understand. The difference is seen in the
way that the animals speak and interact, as the general moral animals
seem to speak their minds clearly, while the wicked animals on the
farm, such as Napoleon, twist language in such a way that it meets
their insidious desires. This style reflects Orwell's proximity to the
issues facing Europe at the time and his determination to comment
critically on Stalin's Soviet Russia.
Origin and writing
====================
Just as 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' would be inspired by Yevgeny Zamyatin's
'We', 'Animal Farm' also had its influences: "In 1937, the year in
which Orwell said he first thought of 'Animal Farm', Gollancz's Left
Book Club published both 'The Road to Wigan Pier' and a left-wing
children's book, 'The Adventures of the Little Pig and Other Stories'
by F. Le Gros and Ida Clark."
George Orwell wrote the manuscript between November 1943 and February
1944 after his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, which he
described in 'Homage to Catalonia' (1938). In the preface of a 1947
Ukrainian edition of 'Animal Farm', he explained how escaping the
communist purges in Spain taught him "how easily totalitarian
propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic
countries". This motivated Orwell to expose and strongly condemn what
he saw as the Stalinist corruption of the original socialist ideals.
'Homage to Catalonia' sold poorly; after seeing Arthur Koestler's
best-selling 'Darkness at Noon' about the Moscow Trials, Orwell
decided that fiction would be the best way to describe
totalitarianism.
Immediately before writing the book, Orwell quit the BBC. He was also
upset about a booklet for propagandists the Ministry of Information
had put out. The booklet included instructions on how to quell
ideological fears of the Soviet Union, such as directions to claim
that the Red Terror was a figment of Nazi imagination.
In the preface, Orwell described the source of the idea of setting the
book on a farm:
In a 2025 article in 'The Guardian', Orwell's adopted son Richard
Blair stated that his adoptive mother Eileen Blair, Orwell's first
wife, helped to plan 'Animal Farm' and described the book as "my
parents' teamwork".
In June 1944, the manuscript was almost lost when a German V-1 flying
bomb destroyed his London flat in Mortimer Crescent, Kilburn. Orwell
spent hours sifting through the rubble to find the pages intact.
Writing to T. S. Eliot at his publisher, Orwell noted that the
enclosed manuscript had been "blitzed" and was in "slightly crumpled
condition, but it is not damaged in any way."
Publishing
============
Orwell initially encountered difficulty getting the manuscript
published, largely due to fears that the book might upset the western
wartime alliance with the Soviet Union. Four publishers refused to
publish 'Animal Farm', yet one had initially accepted the work but
declined it after consulting the Ministry of Information. Eventually,
Secker & Warburg in London published the first edition on 17
August 1945.
During World War II, it became clear to Orwell that anti-Soviet
literature was not something which most major publishing houses in
Britain and America would touch - including his regular publisher
Gollancz. He also submitted the manuscript to Faber and Faber, where
the poet T. S. Eliot (who was a director of the firm) rejected it;
Eliot wrote back to Orwell praising the book's "good writing" and
"fundamental integrity", but declared that they would only accept it
for publication if they had some sympathy for the viewpoint "which I
take to be generally Trotskyite". Eliot said he found the view "not
convincing", and contended that the pigs were made out to be the best
to run the farm; he posited that someone might argue "what was needed
... was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs". Orwell let
André Deutsch, who was working for Nicholson & Watson in 1944,
read the typescript, and Deutsch was convinced that Nicholson &
Watson would want to publish it; however, they did not, and "lectured
Orwell on what they perceived to be errors in 'Animal Farm'". In his
'London Letter' on 17 April 1944 for 'Partisan Review', Orwell wrote
that it was "now next door to impossible to get anything overtly
anti-Russian printed. Anti-Russian books do appear, but mostly from
Catholic publishing firms and always from a religious or frankly
reactionary angle". In 2025, Orwell's son Richard Blair wrote:
The publisher Jonathan Cape, who had initially accepted 'Animal Farm',
subsequently rejected the book after an official at the British
Ministry of Information warned him off - although the civil
servant who it is assumed gave the order was later found to be a
Soviet spy. Writing to Leonard Moore, a partner in the literary agency
of Christy & Moore, publisher Jonathan Cape explained that the
decision had been taken on the advice of a senior official in the
Ministry of Information. Such flagrant anti-Soviet bias was
unacceptable, and the choice of pigs as the dominant class was thought
to be especially offensive. It may reasonably be assumed that the
"important official" was an Austrian-born man named Peter Smollett
(born Hans Peter Smolka), who was later unmasked as a Soviet agent.
Orwell was suspicious of Smollett/Smolka, who had come to Britain in
1933 as an NKVD agent codenamed "ABO", and he would be one of the
names Orwell included in his list of Crypto-Communists and
Fellow-Travellers sent to the Information Research Department in 1949.
The publisher wrote to Orwell, saying:
Fredric Warburg also faced pressures against publication, even from
people in his own office and from his wife Pamela, who felt that it
was not the moment for ingratitude towards Stalin and the Red Army,
which had played a major part in defeating Adolf Hitler. A Russian
translation was printed in the paper 'Posev', and in permitting a
Russian translation of 'Animal Farm', Orwell refused in advance all
royalties. A translation in Ukrainian, which was produced in Germany,
was confiscated in large part by the American wartime authorities and
handed over to the Soviet repatriation commission.
When 'Animal Farm' was eventually first published in England in August
1945 (Fredric Warburg of Secker & Warburg had agreed to take it on
in July 1944, but paper shortages and ongoing reluctance to offend the
wartime ally meant it was not published until then) the views towards
the Russians were beginning to change, with Orwell's son Richard Blair
writing in 'The Guardian', "relations with Russia were by then rapidly
cooling and, as my father said, people were "fed up with all [this]
Russian nonsense".
In October 1945, Orwell wrote to Frederic Warburg expressing interest
in pursuing the possibility that the political cartoonist David Low
might illustrate 'Animal Farm'. Low had written a letter saying that
he had had "a good time with 'Animal Farm' - an excellent bit of
satire - it would illustrate perfectly". Nothing came of this,
and a trial issue produced by Secker & Warburg in 1956 illustrated
by John Driver was abandoned. The Folio Society published an edition
in 1984 illustrated by Quentin Blake and an edition illustrated by the
cartoonist Ralph Steadman was published by Secker & Warburg in
1995 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first edition of
'Animal Farm'.
Despite its enormous commercial success in the UK, 'Animal Farm' had a
hard time finding a publisher in the US. Some of the rejections were
straightforward, made on the grounds that the book was "too short for
adequate marketing." Orwell was aware that, as in the UK, some
American publishers had rejected 'Animal Farm' on political grounds.
In January 1946, 'Partisan Review' editor Philip Rahv warned Orwell
that the majority of the American left-wing was "almost solidly
Stalinist." Historian and polemicist Peter Viereck remarked that
'Animal Farm''s initial reception suffered due to "the brilliantly
successful infiltration of Stalinoid sympathizers in the book world."
Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. returned to America from wartime
service in Europe with several 'Animal Farm' copies and attempted to
interest his American publisher. He recalls the firm rejecting the
book because, according to Schlesinger, the editor-in-chief was "a
defender of Stalinism."
The book was eventually published in the US by Harcourt, Brace after
Frank Morley, an editor who previously worked at Faber and Faber,
encountered customers at a Cambridge bookshop in the fall of 1945
seeking to purchase the sold-out 'Animal Farm'. After procuring a
copy, he made a deal in January 1946 to publish the book in the US.
Preface
=========
Orwell originally wrote a preface complaining about British
self-censorship and how the British people were suppressing criticism
of the USSR, their World War II ally:
Although the first edition allowed space for the preface in the
author's proof, it was not included, and the page numbers had to be
renumbered at the last minute.
In 1972, Ian Angus found the original typescript titled "The Freedom
of the Press", and Bernard Crick published it, together with his
introduction, in 'The Times Literary Supplement' on 15 September 1972
as "How the essay came to be written". Orwell's essay criticised
British self-censorship by the press, specifically the suppression of
unflattering descriptions of Stalin and the Soviet government, and
believed that this was a symptom of the weakening of the western
liberal tradition.
Reception
======================================================================
Contemporary reviews of the work were not universally positive.
Writing in the American 'New Republic' magazine, George Soule
expressed his disappointment in the book, writing that it "puzzled and
saddened me. It seemed on the whole dull. The allegory turned out to
be a creaking machine for saying in a clumsy way things that have been
said better directly." Soule believed that the animals were not
consistent enough with their real-world inspirations, and said, "It
seems to me that the failure of this book (commercially it is already
assured of tremendous success) arises from the fact that the satire
deals not with something the author has experienced, but rather with
stereotyped ideas about a country which he probably does not know very
well."
'The Guardian' on 24 August 1945 called 'Animal Farm' "a delightfully
humorous and caustic satire on the rule of the many by the few". Tosco
Fyvel, writing in 'Tribune' on the same day, called the book "a gentle
satire on a certain State and on the illusions of an age which may
already be behind us". Julian Symons responded, on 7 September,
"Should we not expect, in 'Tribune' at least, acknowledgement of the
fact that it is a satire not at all gentle upon a particular
State - Soviet Russia? It seems to me that a reviewer should have
the courage to identify Napoleon with Stalin, and Snowball with
Trotsky, and express an opinion favourable or unfavourable to the
author, upon a political ground. In a hundred years perhaps, 'Animal
Farm' may be simply a fairy story; today it is a political satire with
a good deal of point". 'Animal Farm' has been subject to much comment
in the decades since these early remarks.
Between 1952 and 1957, the CIA, in an operation codenamed Aedinosaur,
sent millions of balloons carrying copies of the novel into Poland,
Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, whose air forces tried to shoot the
balloons down. The Information Research Department, a secret Cold War
propaganda agency of the British government, translated the book into
various languages such as Arabic.
'Time' magazine chose 'Animal Farm' as one of the 100 best
English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31
on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels. It won a
Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996 and is included in the Great Books of
the Western World selection.
Popular reading in schools, 'Animal Farm' was ranked the UK's
favourite book from school in a 2016 poll.
'Animal Farm' has also faced an array of challenges in school settings
around the US. The following are examples of this controversy that has
existed around Orwell's work:
* The John Birch Society in Wisconsin challenged the reading of
'Animal Farm' in 1965 because of its reference to the masses
revolting.
* New York State English Council's Committee on Defense Against
Censorship found that in 1968, 'Animal Farm' had been widely deemed a
"problem book".
* A censorship survey conducted in DeKalb County, Georgia, relating to
the years 1979-1982, revealed that many schools had attempted to limit
access to 'Animal Farm' due to its "political theories".
* A superintendent in Bay County, Florida, banned 'Animal Farm' at the
middle school and high school levels in 1987.
** The Board quickly brought back the book, however, after receiving
complaints of the ban as "unconstitutional".
* 'Animal Farm' was removed from the Stonington, Connecticut school
district curriculum in 2017.
'Animal Farm' has also faced similar forms of resistance in other
countries. ALA also mentions the way that the book was prevented from
being featured at the International Book Fair in Moscow, Russia, in
1977 and banned from schools in the United Arab Emirates for
references to practices or actions that defy Arab or Islamic beliefs,
such as pigs or alcohol.
In the same manner, 'Animal Farm' has also faced relatively recent
issues in China. In 2018, the Chinese government decided to censor all
online posts about or referring to 'Animal Farm'. Despite this move,
as of 2019, the book remains sold in stores. Amy Hawkins and Jeffrey
Wasserstrom of 'The Atlantic' stated in 2019 that the book is widely
available in mainland China for several reasons: because censors
believe the general public is unlikely to read a highbrow book,
because the elites who do read books feel connected to the ruling
party anyway, and because the Communist Party sees being too
aggressive in blocking cultural products as a liability. The authors
stated: "It was - and remains - as easy to buy '1984' and
'Animal Farm' in Shenzhen or Shanghai as it is in London or Los
Angeles". An enhanced version of the book, launched in India in 2017,
was widely praised for capturing the author's intent, by republishing
the proposed preface of the First Edition and the preface he wrote for
the Ukrainian edition.
Animalism
===========
After the revolution, Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old
Major's ideas into "a complete system of thought", which they formally
name Animalism, an allegoric reference to Communism, not to be
confused with the philosophy of Animalism. Soon after, Napoleon and
Squealer partake in activities associated with humans that the Seven
Commandments had explicitly prohibited. They also engage in trade, one
of Old Major's proposed forbidden activities not directly included in
the commandments (the other two being living in houses and smoking
tobacco). Squealer is employed to alter the commandments to account
for this humanisation, an allusion to the Soviet government's revising
of history to exercise control of the people's beliefs about
themselves and their society.
The original commandments are:
# Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
# Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
# No animal shall wear clothes.
# No animal shall sleep in a bed.
# No animal shall drink alcohol.
# No animal shall kill any other animal.
# All animals are equal.
These commandments are also distilled into the maxim "Four legs good,
two legs bad!" which is primarily used by the sheep on the farm, often
to disrupt discussions and disagreements between animals on the nature
of Animalism.
Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to
clear themselves of accusations of law-breaking. The changed
commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded:
Eventually, only the seventh commandment remains, and the "legs" maxim
is replaced by "Four legs good, two legs better!", as the pigs become
more anthropomorphic. This is an ironic twist to the original purpose
of the Seven Commandments, which was supposed to keep order within
Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans and
preventing animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the
revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political
dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda.
Significance and allegory
===========================
Orwell biographer Jeffrey Meyers has written, "virtually every detail
has political significance in this allegory". Orwell himself wrote in
1946, "Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian
revolution ... [and] 'that kind' of revolution (violent conspiratorial
revolution, led by unconsciously power-hungry people) can only lead to
a change of masters [-] revolutions only effect a radical improvement
when the masses are alert". In a preface for a 1947 Ukrainian edition,
he stated, "for the past ten years I have been convinced that the
destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of
the socialist movement. On my return from Spain [in 1937] I thought of
exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by
almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other
languages".
The revolt of the animals against Farmer Jones is Orwell's analogy
with the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The 'Battle of the
Cowshed' has been said to represent the allied invasion of Soviet
Russia in 1918, and the defeat of the White Russians in the Russian
Civil War. The pigs' rise to preeminence mirrors the rise of a
Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR, just as Napoleon's emergence as the
farm's sole leader reflects Stalin's emergence. The pigs'
appropriation of milk and apples for their own use, "the turning point
of the story" as Orwell termed it in a letter to Dwight Macdonald,
stands as an analogy for the crushing of the left-wing 1921 Kronstadt
revolt against the Bolsheviks, and the difficult efforts of the
animals to build the windmill suggest the various five-year plans. The
puppies controlled by Napoleon parallel the nurture of the secret
police in the Stalinist structure, and the pigs' treatment of the
other animals on the farm recalls the internal terror faced by the
populace in the 1930s. In chapter seven, when the animals confess
their non-existent crimes and are killed, Orwell directly alludes to
the purges, confessions and show trials of the late 1930s. These
contributed to Orwell's conviction that the Bolshevik revolution had
been corrupted and the Soviet system become rotten.
Peter Edgerly Firchow and Peter Davison contend that the 'Battle of
the Windmill', specifically referencing the Battle of Stalingrad and
the Battle of Moscow, represents World War II. During the battle,
Orwell first wrote, "All the animals, including Napoleon," took cover.
Orwell had the publisher alter this to "All the animals except
Napoleon" in recognition of Stalin's decision to remain in Moscow
during the German advance. Orwell requested the change after he met
Józef Czapski in Paris in March 1945. Czapski, a survivor of the Katyn
Massacre and an opponent of the Soviet regime, told Orwell, as Orwell
wrote to Arthur Koestler, that it had been "the character [and]
greatness of Stalin" that saved Russia from the German invasion.
Other connections that writers have suggested illustrate Orwell's
telescoping of Russian history from 1917 to 1943, including the wave
of rebelliousness that ran through the countryside after the
Rebellion, which stands for the abortive revolutions in Hungary and
Germany (Ch. IV); the conflict between Napoleon and Snowball (Ch. V),
parallelling "the two rival and quasi-Messianic beliefs that seemed
pitted against one another: Trotskyism, with its faith in the
revolutionary vocation of the proletariat of the West; and Stalinism
with its glorification of Russia's socialist destiny"; Napoleon's
dealings with Whymper and the Willingdon markets (Ch. VI), paralleling
the Treaty of Rapallo; and Frederick's forged bank notes, parallelling
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, after which Frederick
attacks 'Animal Farm' without warning and destroys the windmill.
The book's close, with the pigs and men in a kind of rapprochement,
reflected Orwell's view of the 1943 Tehran Conference that seemed to
display the establishment of "the best possible relations between the
USSR and the West" - but in reality were destined, as Orwell
presciently predicted, to continue to unravel. The disagreement
between the allies and the start of the Cold War is suggested when
Napoleon and Pilkington, both suspicious, each "played an ace of
spades simultaneously".
Similarly, the music in the novel, starting with "Beasts of England"
and the later anthems, parallels "The Internationale" and its adoption
and repudiation by the Soviet authorities as the anthem of the USSR in
the 1920s and 1930s.
According to Masha Gessen, the metamorphosis of the seventh
commandment ("some animals are more equal") was likely inspired by
similar change of a party line which declared all Soviet people equal:
the Russian nation and language suddenly became "first among equals"
in official CPSU publications in 1936-1937.
Stage productions
===================
A theatrical version, with music by Richard Peaslee and lyrics by
Adrian Mitchell, was staged at the National Theatre London on 25 April
1984, directed by Peter Hall. It toured nine cities in 1985.
A solo version, adapted and performed by Guy Masterson, premiered at
the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in January 1995 and has toured
worldwide since.
In 2021, during pandemic restrictions, the National Youth Theatre
toured a stage version of 'Animal Farm;' this run included outdoor
performances on a farm at Soulton Hall.
A new adaptation written and directed by Robert Icke, designed by
Bunny Christie with puppetry designed and directed by Toby Olié opened
at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 2022 before touring the
UK.
The Russian composer Alexander Raskatov has written an opera based on
the book. Its premiere took place on 4 March 2023 in Amsterdam as part
of Dutch National Opera's 2022/2023 season.
Films
=======
'Animal Farm' has been adapted to film three times.
* 'Animal Farm' (1954) is an animated film, in which Napoleon is
eventually overthrown in a second revolution. In 1974, E. Howard Hunt
revealed that he had been sent by the CIA's Psychological Warfare
department to obtain the film rights from Orwell's widow, and the
resulting 1954 animation was funded by the agency.
* 'Animal Farm' (1999) is a live-action TV version that shows
Napoleon's regime collapsing in on itself, with the farm having new
human owners, reflecting the collapse of Soviet communism.
* 'Animal Farm' (2025) is an animated film, directed by Andy Serkis,
with an alternative plot serving as an allegory for business
corruption in the 21st century and features new characters such as a
piglet named Lucky, who serves as the audience surrogate. It also
depicts Snowball as female.
Radio dramatisations
======================
A BBC radio version, produced by Rayner Heppenstall, was broadcast in
January 1947. Orwell listened to the production at his home in
Canonbury Square, London, with Hugh Gordon Porteous, amongst others.
Orwell later wrote to Heppenstall that Porteous, "who had not read the
book, grasped what was happening after a few minutes".
In January 2013, a second radio production was broadcast on BBC Radio
4, using Orwell's own dramatisation of his book, directed by Alison
Hindell and narrated by Tamsin Greig. The cast included Nicky Henson
as Napoleon, Toby Jones as the propagandist Squealer, Patrick Brennan
as Snowball, Liza Sadovy as Clover, and Ralph Ineson as Boxer.
Comic strip
=============
In 1950, Norman Pett and his writing partner Don Freeman were secretly
hired by the Information Research Department, a secret department of
the Foreign Office, to adapt 'Animal Farm' into a comic strip. This
comic was not published in the United Kingdom but ran in Brazilian and
Burmese newspapers.
Video game
============
Developers Nerial and The Dairymen released a game based on the book
in December 2020, entitled 'Orwell's Animal Farm', for Windows, macOS,
iOS and Android in coordination with the Orwell Estate.
See also
======================================================================
* Information Research Department
* Authoritarianism
* History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917-1927)
* History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953)
* Ideocracy
* New class
* Anthems in 'Animal Farm'
* 'Animals', Pink Floyd album loosely based on 'Animal Farm'
Books
=======
* 'Gulliver's Travels' was a favourite book of Orwell's. Swift
reverses the role of horses and human beings in the fourth book.
Orwell brought to 'Animal Farm' "a dose of Swiftian misanthropy,
looking ahead to a time 'when the human race had finally been
overthrown."
* 'The Farm Animals' Revolt' (Скотской бунт), published in 1917 by
Russian historian Nikolai Kostomarov, has a similar premise to 'Animal
Farm'.
* 'Bunt' ('Revolt'), published in 1924 by Polish Nobel laureate
Władysław Reymont, has a similar premise to 'Animal Farm'.
* 'White Acre vs. Black Acre', published in 1856 by William M.
Burwell, is a satirical novel that features allegories for slavery in
the United States similar to 'Animal Farm's' portrayal of Soviet
history.
* George Orwell's own 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' is a dystopian novel
about totalitarianism.
Further reading
======================================================================
*
*
* O'Neill, Terry, '[
https://archive.org/details/readingsonanimal00onei
Readings on Animal Farm]' (1998), Greenhaven Press. .
External links
======================================================================
*
*
*
[
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/17/george-orwell-son-animal-farm-at-80
'Animal Farm was my parents' teamwork': Orwell's son on 80 years of
the satirical classic], The Guardian 17 August 2025
* [
http://literapedia.wikispaces.com/Animal+Farm 'Animal Farm' Book
Notes from Literapedia]
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20051024060250/http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/letters-agent-af.htm
Excerpts from Orwell's letters to his agent concerning 'Animal Farm']
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20070108225314/http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-111/111-pyle.html
Review in the Antigonish Review]
* [
http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/Orwell.html Orwell's original
preface to the book]
*
[
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/molyneux/1989/xx/orwell.html
'Animal Farm Revisited'] by John Molyneux, 'International Socialism',
44 (1989)
* [
http://www.bl.uk/works/animal-farm 'Animal Farm'] at the British
Library
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
