May 04 2009
The Allegorical Nature of Orwell’s Animal Farm
1) How is Orwell’s Animal Farm an allegorical retelling of the end of feudalism and the rise and consolidation of communism in Russia?
In the Russia of 1917 after a politically complicated civil war, Tsar Nicholas II, the monarch of Russia, was forced to abdicate the throne that his family had held for three centuries ( Just as Jones was) . Vladimir Ilych Lenin, a Russian intellectual revolutionary, seized power in the name of the Communist Party. The new regime took land and industry from private control and put them under government supervision. This centralization of economic systems constituted the first steps in restoring Russia to the prosperity it had known before World War I and in modernizing the nation’s primitive infrastructure( As Napoleon and Snowball, tried to modernize Animal Farm), including bringing electricity to the countryside (Electrical windmill). After Lenin died in 1924 , Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky (represented as Napoleon and Snowball) jockeyed for control of the newly formed Soviet Union. Stalin (Napoleon), a crafty and manipulative politician, soon banished Trotsky(Snowball), an idealistic proponent of international communism. Stalin then began to consolidate his power with brutal intensity, killing or imprisoning his perceived political enemies and overseeing the purge of approximately twenty million Soviet citizens.(Napoleon killing those who showed any side of rebellion against his plans/orders, and the manipulating of the rest of the animals for his own selfish greed)
2) How does Orwell parallel Czarist Russia and the life of the Russian peasantry in the characters and events of Animal Farm?
Russian society in the early twentieth century was ‘bipolar’: a tiny minority controlled most of the country’s wealth, while the vast majority of the country’s inhabitants were basically peasants. Eventually communism arose in Russia when the nation’s workers and peasants rebelled against and overwhelmed the wealthy and powerful class of capitalists and aristocrats. This relates Directly to Animal farm, where as the animals; treated exactly as peasents, doing the work for the ‘wealthy’; a.k.a. the humans, who evidently rebel against their opressors; Mr. Jones, and others alike.
3) What internal feud within the Communist party is paralleled in the struggle for power between Napoleon and Snowball?
After Lenin died in 1924 (who’s role was basically played as ’Old Major’; also interprated as Karl Marx the idealist) , Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky jockeyed for control of the newly formed Soviet Union. Stalin, a crafty and manipulative politician, had banished Trotsky, just as Napolean banished Snowball, for their idealistic thinking. Stalin then began to consolidate his power with brutal intensity, just as killing or imprisoning his perceived political enemies and overseeing the purge of approximately twenty million Soviet citizens. Just as Napolean had manipulated all the animals on the farm, and any of those who tried to stand against him ( ie. the hens that lead the small ‘egg’ rebellion) were slaughtered immediately, and anyone else who attempted to make a stand were also taken care of.
4) During the Stalinist period the Communist State repeatedly set industrial and agricultural production goals that were often difficult or impossible to reach. These goals played a major role in the government’s Five Year Plan and similar plans. How are these plans represented in Orwell’s novella?
These plans are represented in Orwell’s novella, as Napoleon saughts out almost impossible projects to be completed in minimal timing ( the windmill was a two year project, and once it was destroyed due to a storm, Napoleon expected it to be completed within the same time spand, except thicker built, and using bigger rocks, which make the already heavy workload even worse). Not to mention adding new ongoing projects, such as a schoolhouse for the pigglets, and changing the vacant field; its purpose was for retired animals, into a barly patch.
5) How does Napoleon gradually begin to abuse his power? Why do the other animals of Manor Farm allow him to encroach upon their rights and freedoms?
Napolean gradually began to abuse his power by manipulating the animals into believing that his desires were actually theirs(the rest of the animals) aswell. He made them believe they all had a similar goal, and in order to secure his plans, he used such reasonings as the threat of mankind returning to overthrow them. He scared the animals into thinking that if they don’t follow the almighty, knows everything, Napolean, they were doomed. He also used boxers death as a way of motivating them by telling them that boxer wished for them to follow his; Napoleon’s, every word. No to mention Napoleon promised the animals better brighter futures; giving them false hopes and dreams.
6) How does Napoleon respond to criticism or resistance? Is there a parallel to his behavior in the history of Soviet Union?
Napoleon Kills/ immediately elimates anyone/ any animal that attempts to rebel. (ie. the hens that led the small ‘egg’ rebellion) which is similar to that of Stalin, who killed/ imprisoned all of his perceived political enemies.
7) In the last paragraphs of the novella Napoleon, amongst the other human farmers, is heard to give a toast to the prosperity of Manor Farm. Contained within this scene is the irony that makes Napoleon’s behavior so ghastly. Describe the irony inherent in Napoleon’s behavior, and explain how it corresponds to the behavior of the party elite in the Soviet Union.
It is established how Napolean has officially broken all the original commandments; recent ones being ‘Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.’ and ‘ No animals shall wear clothes.’ and after witnessing the way the pigs were treated in relation to the rest of the animals, the commandment of ‘All animals are equal’ was also broken, especially how Napoleon talked town upon the rest of them at the dinner table alongside the human beings. It was described that ‘ from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which’. Being the very last sentence of the entire novel, after the pigs get into a dispute with their neighbor dinner guests.
So basically, the irony of it all, was how the pigs became everything they rebelled against, and saught to change, just as Stalin did in the Soviet Union; he oversaw the purge of approximately twenty million Soviet citizens.
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