G Orwell | Animal Farm | A Brief Comment
G Orwell | Animal Farm | A Brief Comment
G Orwell | Animal Farm | A Brief Comment
George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ is an allegorical novel about Political revolution. The background of the story of the novel is the Russian Revolution of 1917 in which the Proletariats rebelled against the age-long despotic rule by the Tsars. But the novelist has not narrated the story of that revolution directly but indirectly through an allegorical story of an Animal Farm in England.
The novelist tells that in England there was an animal farm known as ‘Manor Farm’ owned by Mr. Jones. The animals of the farm under him were compelled to labour hard, but they were kept in poor condition. In short, the animals were exploited. So, one day an old boar whom everybody called Major invoked all animals to a meeting and decided to start a rebellion against their despotic lord. Every animal was excited by his speech. But soon the old boar died and two other boars by the name of Snowball and Napolian took up the leadership.
One day, the rebellion broke out suddenly, when a cow broke into the store shed and other animals too joined the cow. “All men are enemies and all animals are comrades” became the slogan of the revolution. The owner of the farm Mr. Jones tried his best to put down the rebellion but failed. At last, the animals owned the rebellion and took the power of controlling and governing themselves. The despotism of the human lord came to an end. At first, it seemed that socialism and communism were established there, but later on the leader boars—Snowball and Napolian—stood against each other for power. Strategically Snowball was put down by Napolian and then Napolian began to be despotic like a human lord. Napolian and his guard dogs became luxuriant and ease-loving and the subordinate animals again began to be exploited. At last, Napolian seemed to be allied with the human lords of other animal farms and thus Napolian forgets all the commandments and ideas of revolution.
Thus the novelist shows that though socialism is good yet if the power is given to a single hand it corrupts him and then socialism turns into despotism.
The allegorical meaning may be interpreted as such—the old boar who instigated the animals to rebellion (who died before seeing the fruit of the rebellion) is Marx or Lenin. Mr. Jones, the human lord of the Manor Farm represents Tsar Nicholas II, Napolian and Snowball represent Stalin and Trotsky. The guard dogs are the secret police of the leaders.
As in the story happens, so happened in the Russian Revolution. To the broadest outlook, the allegory of the story may be interpreted to be the parallels of the Great France Revolution of the late eighteenth century and even in the late twentieth century after the novel was written, it may be said to have been the pre-told story of what had happened in Bangladesh after 1970.
The story of the novel is single and there is not any interwoven story or incident; becomes integrated and well-arranged.
The characters in the novels, though they are animals, yet represent reality. Napolian very successfully represents Stalin and such are other characters.
The language of the novel is typically Orwellian which is direct, lucid and sometimes ironic which colours the characters. 0 0 0
Read More: Use of Wit and Irony in Pride and Prejudice
N. B. This article entitled ‘The Animal Farm-A Brief Comment’ originally belongs to the book ‘World Novel Criticism‘ by Menonim Menonimus. Animal Farm
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Books of Literary Criticism by M. Menonimus:
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- World Essay Criticism
- Indian English Poetry Criticism
- Indian English Poets and Poetry Chief Features
- Emily Dickinson’s Poetry-A Thematic Study
- Walt Whitman’s Poetry-A Thematic Study
- Critical Essays on English Poetry
- Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Novel: Return of the Spirit-An Analytical Study
- Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Novel: ‘Yawmiyyat Naib Fil Arayaf’-An Analytical Study
- Analytical Studies of Some Arabic Short Stories
- A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Pre-Islamic Period …
