Animal Farm

EARLY LIFE...

1917, enters Eton College

• One of his teachers there was: Aldous Huxley ( Dystopian novelist who inspires young Orwell)

• Born on 25th June 1903
• Eastern India (British colony at the time)
• 1922 moves to England

• Financial problems
• Can't study at University

St.Cyprian boarding school

• He is different: poor but brilliant

• Difficult period as a child

joins Indian Imperial Police in Burma (Myanmar)

1953, Autobiographical essay

1954, Autobiographical novel

''Such,such were the joys''

'' Burmese days''

Around Europe...

''The road to Wigan Pier''

After he resigned from Indian Imperial Police

• Why? felt ashamed and didn't approve colonialism

1937, Orwell's 1^ socialist book

About the dramatic living conditions of unemployed miners in Northern England

In 1928, starts a period living in extreme poverty in the slums between Paris & London

• Experienced by the Author

'' Down and out in Paris & London''

1933, Orwell's 1^ important novel

• provides a brutal look at the lives of the poor working class

The fight against totalitarianism...

1938, ''Homage to Catalonia''

1936, travels to Spain to fight against Franco's nationalists in spanish civil war

One of his major political works about his experience in Spain

Forced to abandon by soviet-backed communists

Experience that turned him into a life-long anti-Stalinist

1945, ''Animal farm''

Orwell's reaction...

Writes the essay

''The Freedom of the Press''

Preface of ''Animal farm''

(published only 70 years after the 1^ publication of the book)

Critic against English literary intelligentsia

At the beginning of the essay...

• Defends British government, which didn't impose strict censorship during war

''Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome''

''On the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. ''

To conclude...

To explain an justify his position

chooses a quote from Milton:

‘’By the known rules of ancient liberty.’’

adj.ancient

Freedom

To emphasize the deep-rooted tradition of intellectual freedom

OLD MAJOR

• A wise and persuasive pig

He inspires the rebellion by telling the other animals about his strange dream.

"Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever. "

Orwell based Major on both :

OLD MAJOR

All the animals demonstrates the great respect they have for such an important figure. ---> 'Major' .

The Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilych Lenin.

• "Remove Man from the scene" "the root cause of hunger and overwork will be abolished forever".

He believes that Man is able only of doing harm and that animals are able only of doing good.

German political economist Karl Marx.

• He dies shortly after presenting his vision to the animals.

The early-eighteenth-century French general Napoleon, who betrayed the democratic principles on which he promised to power.

NAPOLEON

• The pig who emerges as the totalitarian pig leader of Animal Farm after the Rebellion.

• He makes the farm prosperous but keeps most of the wealth for himself.

He never shows interest in the strength of Animal Farm itself, only in the strength of his power over it.

NAPOLEON

• A "fierce-looking" boar "with a reputation for getting his own way."

• The only project he undertakes with enthusiasm is the training of the puppies.

Modeled on the figure of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

They become his own private army or secret police, a violent means by which he imposes his will on others.

He also represents, in a more general sense, the political tyrants that have emerged throughout human history.

SNOWBALL

• The pig who challenges Napoleon for the control of Animal Farm after the Rebellion.

His conflicts with Napoleon will end with his exile.

SNOWBALL

• Intelligent, passionate, eloquent, and less subtle than his counterpart, Napoleon.

He represents the banished Russian leader Leon Trotsky.

Emerges as a fervent ideologue who throws himself heart and soul into the attempt to spread Animalism worldwide and to improve Animal Farm’s infrastructure.

SQUEALER

To squeal means to betray.

Squealing refers to a pig’s typical form of vocalization.

• Squealer is Napoleon's second pig in command, who spreads stories and propaganda to keep the animals in line.

SQUEALER

• He presents false information.

misleads the animals into believing what he says is true.

Orwell uses Squealer to explore the ways in which those in power often use rhetoric and language to twist the truth and gain and maintain social and political control.

MR. JONES

than

• He was a capable farmer

An incapable farmer and a drunken man.

but

• Jones forgets to shut the pop-holes for the hen-houses

MR. JONES

remembering to pour himself a glass of beer before falls into a drunken sleep.

• The rebellion started by Jones' forgetting to feed the animals

Jones is not able to care about animals and his own farm.

Jones represents Tsar Nicholas II

Mrs. Jones

Jones' wife;

she flees from the farm when the animals rebel.

removed the Russian Revolution.

BOXER

“I will work harder.”

• Boxer is the strongest animal on the farm.

BOXER

• Boxer is a great hardworking horse who believes that every problem can be solved with hard work and persistence.

"an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together [...] he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work" (1.3).

• All the animals look up to him because his belief in Animalism is pure and his intentions are good.

Boxer represents

• His lack of intelligence cause him to follow the pigs blindly.

naive trust in the good intentions of the intellectuals and an inability to recognize forms of political corruption

the proletariat, or working-class people.

“Napoleon is always right.”

BENJAMIN

• Benjamin is Animal Farm’s donkey.

"the oldest animal on the farm and the worst tempered. He seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark" (1.3).

BENJAMIN

• He is the only animal who never really believes in the rebellion

he doesn’t oppose it.

Benjamin represents

all intellectuals who choose to ignore politics.

the intellectuals who failed to oppose Stalin.

MOLLIE

• Mollie is a shallow materialist, vain and stupid mare who cares nothing for the struggles of her fellow animal.

"took a place near the front and began flirting her white mane, hoping to draw attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with" (1.4).

MOLLIE

• Her first appearance in the novel suggests her personality:

- she comes late to Old Major's speech chewing sugar

AND

She represents the aristocracy.

- sitting in the front so that the others will be able to admire the red ribbons she wears in her mane.

• The first thing she wants to know is:

"Will there be sugar after the rebellion?" (2.3);

MOSES

• Moses is a clever talker who tells the animals about a mysterious country called "Sugarcandy Mountain."

where the animals can live free from oppression and hunger.

MOSES

• At first, the pigs find him irritating.

As conditions on the farm worsen, the pigs allow Moses to stay.

Moses represents the Russian Orthodox church.

"Religion is the opium of the people."

DOGS

• Three dogs

Bluebell, Jessie, Pincher.

• The nine puppies born between Jessie and Bluebell

DOGS

taken by Napoleon and raised to be his guard dogs.

They represent the KGB or the bodyguards of Stalin.

CLOVER

• Clover is a working horse and a good-hearted female.

CLOVER

• She is described as

'a stout motherly mare approaching middle life, who had never quite got her figure back after her fourth foal.' (2.8)

• She learns the letters of the alphabet, but has been unable to learn to read.

She represents the female proletariat workers and laborers.

OTHER CHARACTERS

• THE SHEEPS

• MINIMUS

those people who have little understanding of their situation and thus are willing to follow their government blindly.

the takeover of art by propaganda in a totalitarian state that aims to control what its citizens think.

• THE HENS

• THE COWS

OTHER

• THE PIGEONS

those people who act expecting something in return.

the Ukrainian peasants who attempted to resist Stalin’s five-year plan and died.

Soviet propaganda, not to Russia, but to other countries, like Germany, England, France, and even the United States.

• THE RATS

all poor people, beggars or gypsies (lower class) that were around during the time of the Russian Revolution.

Old Major’s speech is the summary and the mirror of the main theories of The Communist Manifesto.

invoke overwhelming feelings

figures of speech

(repetitions and rhetorical questions)

anger, betrayal and blame