George Orwell's Animal Farm

In this story, Orwell deals with the most basic of human needs and how these needs are denied in the animal farm representing Soviet totalitarianism. The pig leaders on the animal farm gradually begin to grant themselves certain privileges, such as sleeping in beds, when previously all the animals had agreed that sleeping in beds was completely forbidden because such a practice is thoroughly human (i.e., capitalistic) and therefore despicable. The pigs finagle and rationalize their way around this commandment, and the other animals immediately are persuaded "and no more was said about the pigs sleeping in the farmhouse beds" (Orwell 80).

The reader might chuckle quietly at such a satirical, fairy tale send-up of the corruption of power and the rhetoric used by the pigs to justify both their own privileges and their abuse of power, but Orwell is trying to awaken the reader, through the for

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what happens. The rebellion predicted by Major takes place, and the pigs Napoleon and Snowball emerge as leaders, likely representing Stalin and Trotsky, with Lenin probably personified by the "brilliant talker" Squealer. At first, after the takeover of the farm, all is well with the animals. Distractions are overcome, including the shallow mare Mollie's desire for sugar and ribbons, and the preaching of Moses the raven about Heaven-sounding Sugarcandy Mountain. Moses offers religion, the "opium of the people," as Marx called it. Boxer and Clover, the carthorses, are the "most faithful disciples" (Orwell 37) of the pig leaders and their revolution. It is no coincidence that Boxer, the hardest working of the animals, the most dedicated to the revolution, is the one who is taken away by the Horse Slaughterer as a result of he betrayal of the principles of that revolution by the pig leaders. Boxer represents the faithful but politically naive believer in communism who is finally crushed by the process he so deeply believed in. His slaughter is Orwell's warning that individuals must think for themselves and not let leaders control their wills, minds, lives and, finally, deaths. Also important is the fact that he is taken away by oth
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Soviet Union, Stalin Napoleon--brutal, Horse Slaughterer, Stalinist Russia, Communist Manifesto, Soviet Communists, Animal Farm, Trotsky Lenin, Boxer Clover, Revolution Soviet, farm animals, fairy tale, animal farm, pig leaders, soviet communists, taking farm animals, pigs communists, animals totalitarian, animals equal, orwell 133, sleeping beds,
Approximate Word count = 1583
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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