Essay on George Orwell

In the Russian Revolution, the Tsarist Autocracy was dismantled by a series of revolutions and the Stalin ultimately gained power of the country. George Orwell, an author who writes in a satirical manner, created an allegorical fable portraying his perceptions of the Russian government and its relation with the common people. He does this through the ‘Manor Farm’, which acts as a metaphor for the country of Russia and uses the animals of the farm to represent the proletariat. Mr. Jones is portrayed as a member of the ruling class of the Tsarist Autocracy, but the pigs in the fable are soon to overtake his role. The central irony of the story is that the pigs, once members of the proletariat, are soon to resemble the tyrant Mr. Jones who they recently replaced. Orwell presents us his message and views of the governing powers of 20th Century Russia through caricatured animals, black humour and ironic situations.

The relationship that Mr. Jones of the Manor Farm had with his animals was characterised by his tyranny towards them and the animals complete obedience of all his commands. “You Boxer, the very day that those muscles lose their power, Jones will sell you to the Knacker” So said Old Major as he incites the animals to overthrow the man who “was too drunk to shut the pop holes in the hen house” Orwell narrates his story in the 3rd person perspective using simple language in the manner of the classic fable to emphasise the ease with which persuasive language can bring about a revolution.

After the dismantling of Jones’ power, the pigs gained control of the less intelligent animals and were able to manipulate them to do their will. Through propaganda and Squeeler’s persuasive language, the pigs were able to convince the proletariat that “Snowball who, as we know, was no better than a criminal” The eloquent lies of the pigs enable the other animals to ironically juxtapose the “criminal” Snowball to Napoleon as a great “leader”.

Another method other than propaganda that Stalin used in Russia to gain control of the people was the use of violence through developing an army. Similarly, in Animal Farm Napoleon develops his own army of dogs that “wagged their tails to him in the same way as the other dogs had been used to do to Mr. Jones” and brought violence among the people to enforce his power. With this, Napoleon was able to bring fear and eliminate objectors within his society.

Throughout the story it was obvious that the pigs and the other animals had a social gap between them where the pigs became the upper class of the farm. This was mainly due to their intelligence levels as “the pigs were

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