Literature Review: Animal Farm

Title and year of publication: Animal Farm, published in 1945

Author: George Orwell. His other works include Burmese Days (1934), Down and Out in Paris
and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
Genre(s) & Theme: Fantasy fiction, a satire of political environment about communism and
heroism leading the society to a so-called better world in the 1940s. Its about a group of pigs
and animals leading the farm after expelling the human beings out of the farm, but finally it
turned to a mess.

Main Characters: Napoleon, the leading pig in Animal Farm, played an authoritative and
heroic role to bring the society into a better world. Mr. and Mrs. Jones, the couple who own
the Animal Farm and later they were expelled by the animals. Boxer is a powerful horse that is
obedient to Napoleon because of his authority and wisdom. Snowball is another pig who was
regarded to be leaguing with Mr. Jones and to ruin the farm by doing all kinds of nasty things,
for example, pulling down the newly build windmill, stealing milk and eggs and so on. Other
main characters include Clover, Major, Benjamin, Muriel, the cows, hens, cats and dogs.
Plot summary: The animal farm was once run by Mr. and Mrs. Jones, a couple running a farm in
England, but later on they were expelled by the animals because the animals wanted to get rid of
the slaughter from human beings, and they looked for freedom, communism of the society and
the utopia where peace is their ultimate goal of developing their own farm and setting all kinds
of rules among themselves. However, the running of farm was finally a failure.

Narrative style: Classical style beginning-middle-end structure

Opening few pages / first chapter: Man is the only real enemy we have a claim made by a
mature pig, Major, in his speech to the animals in the first chapter of the book. Are human
beings really the enemy of the animals because they slaughter them for food and clothes, or the
animals are just imagining that human beings are their potential enemy, that they actually dont
exist? We may not be able to find the answer in this chapter, and that gives us reasons to
continue reading the book and finding our own answer to this sentence. The use of pigs as an
intelligent creature to run the farm draws much of our attention from the human beings
perspective, pigs are stupid creatures ever in the world, but in the eyes of pigs, human beings are
as stupid as other illiterate animals and nothing good for them because they are unproductive (in
the sense that they dont know producing milk, laying eggs and so on). Such conflict set up in
the first chapter of this book and other lines of conflicts that come later have aroused readers
interest to continue reading the story.

Setting: The scene of the story is set in the farm, a well-managed farm run by Mr. and Mrs.

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Jones. But once the animals have taken up the job after the rebellion, the farm was being ruined
because they know little about how to manage the farm and produce goods efficiently and
effectively by using machine and making good use of their different capabilities and
intelligence for farming. Such contrast or change in the first few chapters of the book laid
good reasons for readers to believe why the farm was to be run by the human beings again.
Style: The author uses a lot of descriptions to tell the story rather than using a lot of dialogues to
illustrate how the characters in the story react with each other and what the messages that this
story conveys. The language of this story is easy, but the messages conveyed are complicated
and heavily loaded on every sentence or description because the story involves lots of
complicated humanity, ethnic and moral issues for us to think about. The descriptions of the
story may have sometimes made the message complicated to some extent, yet it should be
manageable for upper-intermediate readers.

Symbols: As fantasy fiction as it seems, the author uses a lot of figures to symbolize every little
thing, from characters to the way that the characters are dressing, to reflect on the satire of the
political environment in the 1940s. Napoleon, an outstanding character in the story, symbolizes
a heroic, authoritative leader who knows making use of knowledge to manipulate his comrades
mind. To my interpretation, he symbolizes the role of todays political man, like Saddam
Hussein, who is a model for being worshipped as the God / Father of the country. The Animal
Farm, on the other hand, symbolizes a newly developed society and a product of the revolution.
It also symbolizes that this is their victory after their rebellion, but their inability to manage the
farm and the conflict between the strong power (as what Napoleon and Squealer have) and other
animals has told us that this would be a total failure in the end. The animals, on the other hand,
symbolize people with different aptitudes, while the fierce dogs growling all the time to the
animals symbolize the solders holding guns on their arms and shoulders, forcing people to listen
to the leader. Windmill symbolizes new development in the modern world, but in fact the
process of making such new development reflects on their stupidity and inability to develop
their own society because it has been ruined for a few times with ease by the humans bombs or
weapons. Such windmill also reflects on how fragile and weak the animals can be they can be
defeated by human beings easily. The animals hardworking characteristics symbolize their
expectation to the new society and future prospectus, their hope of freedom, dreams, their
achievement and contribution to the society. That is why they work very hard every day and
enjoy their hard work although they are going to suffer from starvation. The bed sheets
symbolize human invention and their wisdom, or this can be a symbol of comfort in the human
world. That the animals imitate the way people live is also a symbol implying that animals are
the slaves of human beings they dont know how to invent something new on their own
because they are illiterate. They have to rely on human beings to bring them good things, as
what the ending of the story tells us.

Point of view: Third-person narrator. The narrator tells the whole story from an objective point
of view.

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Most impressive character: Napoleon. As Napoleon is playing an important role in generating
such a big conflict between human beings and animals, the story wont be an impressive one
without his leadership, and the sarcasm of this story would not have been brought out without
his presence.

Most impressive feature: The author tries to use Animal Farm as the miniature of the real
society in the 1940s to reflect on how ridiculous the leaders were in that century, and by
describing how the animals expel the human beings out of the farm and develop their own farm
or utopia. The idea of using animals as characters to run the farm is an irony itself, and this has
exactly expressed the essence of the story Who is the ultimate leader in the world? Who is
the most stupid creature? Who is governing who?

Least impressive aspect: Too many descriptions. Sometimes reading such long descriptions
can be boring when the climax has not come yet, and descriptions may not get readers involved
in the story very effectively, and they may lose track of what comes after when they have to do
something else after reading just a few pages (just like what I have been doing I tried hard to
keep myself reading the story, but I usually did my reading on the train, and I found it a bit
difficult to get involved in the story again).

The message the book conveys: This book is not just a fantasy fiction which is only the
childrens cup of tea, but many issues brought up in the story are worthwhile for our thinking.
The first chapter of the book has set the scene of a farm run by human beings, but the hard work
of the farmers, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, is not satisfying to the animals. Their usual way of running
the farm has actually provoked a lot of disagreement and even rebellion from the animals. Are
the animals strong? Maybe. Are they weak and fragile? Indeed. Throughout the years and
decades of hard work developing the farm, sacrifice of animals lives is unavoidable to
Napoleon and some other comrades, but their ignorance to their own weakness has blinded them
to think that human beings have not contributed anything to the development of the society but
consumption of their products. Their nave way of thinking leads them to dream of fighting for
individualism and communism all animals are equal. But are they actually equal in having
the same rights, sharing the same benefits that some animals have contributed? Some animals in
the farm know a little English language, while some are just illiterate. Napoleon is so far the
best language learner in the farm because he knows how to play tricks on the use of language
especially when writing the seven commandments at a later stage to well fit in his will and so as
not to violate any of these commandments to lose his authoritativeness among his comrades. But
has he succeeded? The animals have to rely on the human beings to run the farm again and to
avoid starvation finally.

Napoleon, when leading his comrades to run the farm, is successful in a sense to lead the
animals to think the way he thinks. His wisdom by writing those seven commandments with his
limited knowledge about English has already proved to his society that he is the best leader ever
in the farm and nobody can replace his authoritativeness. His use of fierce dogs at the later stage

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of the story is a symbol that he needs some powerful things to control what the crowds think
they have to be obedient to him, otherwise they will suffer from the attack of those fierce dogs
growling at them. Yet, what is interesting is all the animals are listening to him, and even
worship him as the God, Father, or Master of the Comrades. Such a heroic character is always
popular among the public, and we can still find such kind of characters in nowadays society or
in our history Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler. Napoleons mastery of language is a tool to
manipulate the animals mind and thoughts to work as slaves, as if what nowadays political
leaders to use their political status or authority to control the publics mind. It might be
commented as a way to develop a society, but it can also be a tragedy if it goes to the extreme.

There is really so much to say if I continue. But to sum up, it is a very nice fantasy fiction with
heavy load of ethnical and moral messages bringing up to force us to think deeply who we are,
what we are doing and what our dreams are.

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My rating of the book: 4. The plot is fantastic, and it has brought up a lot of issues for us to
think deeply about. Issues such as animalism, rebellion, communism, terrorism by using
violence, such as guns and fierce dogs, slavery of labour, making use of the language, a symbol
of knowledge, as the tool to play tricks on the commandments to well fit in the leaders needs
while sacrificing the public for his own good are all worthwhile for our discussions. The mark
deducted is the dominance of using a lot of long descriptions to tell the story, making it a bit
dull and boring when the climax has not come yet. More dialogues are recommended to use if
this story has to be edited again. But generally speaking, it is a wonderful fiction for adolescents
to read to explore different issues about human beings.