Dear George Orwell,

Your book Animal Farm is one of my favorite books due to the allegory to
the USSR, which has always an interesting subject to me, and the startling
analysis of how people react to power.
The most interesting aspect of the book is how you chose to represent
historical figures within Animal Farm. With Napoleon representing Joseph Stalin
you clearly show the brutal and corrupt reign that he propagated. However, your
representation of Old Major as Karl Marx is interesting because it is not critical of
his ideals. He is not shown to be cruel, uneducated, but rather well intentioned
and hopeful for a better future. In the book, you show that it is not Socialism you
disagree with but rather the enforcement of totalitarian communism.
After reading Animal Farm, I still have questions about some of the
characters. For example, the cat appears to have no counterpart in reality. Her
actions seemed to have no significance in the story and I was confused as to
why she was even put in the book. Benjamin the donkey is also an interesting
character to me. His awareness that life could be better but his unwillingness to
do anything about it is somewhat similar to the Mensheviks in Russia but he also
acts distinctly different from them. Namely that he is never shown to agree with
the ideals of communism or socialism.
The corrupt reign of Napoleon that is presented in the book as an analysis
of Joseph Stalins corruption is so accurate because in the book, it is seen that
Napoleon is never once shown to be furthering the goals of Animal Farm but
rather trying to increase his own power. The fact that as soon as Napoleon is
given enough to command the other animals, he trains his own secret police is
particularly frightening because it reveals a fundamental problem in trying to
create a state based on communism. That problem being people that will try to
abuse the system. I believe that this was the goal of your novella Animal Farm
and it has truly spoken to me.

From,
Yanai Perry