Old major could have started talking about his dream first but he did not, this could be because he wanted to begin by showing them how they are all in the same situation (treated badly by Mr Jones). He tends to end up inspiring them to take action. He provides evidence at the beginning so they realise why they need to take action. He uses emotive words like ‘evil’ and ‘tyranny’ to remind what Mr Jones and his harsh treatment is like.
Old Major represents Karl Marx, who had the idea of communism and believed that everyone is equal so everyone should be treated equally and that they have the same of wealth.
Mr Jones’ bad treatment also leads the animals to rebel against him.
‘Our lives are miserable, laborious and short.’ ‘Miserable’ and ‘laborious’ are powerful words, which makes you want to get out of this condition because none of the animals wanted to be miserable and slaves. They want to get away from Mr Jones.
In this book, Mr Jones represents Tsar Nicholas II, the leader of Russia before Stalin took over. He was a weak leader and did not keep his promises.
The animals symbolises the peasants or the poor Russian people. These people lived in poor conditions that happened by hardship and suffering due to low wages and little food – just like the animals in the farm. After rebelling, the amount of food decreases and they were treated worse than before (this happens when Napoleon takes over).
The workers, who work for Mr Jones, are lazy. ‘The men… gone out rabbiting without bothering to feed the animals.’ The led the animals to rebel because you wouldn’t want to stay hungry, especially when Mr Jones is drunk so comes home and goes start to bed.
Old Major left some rules for them and they are, ‘No animal must ever live in a house, no animal must ever sleep in a bed, No animal must ever drink alcohol, No animal must ever wear clothes, No animal must ever smoke tobacco, No animal must ever touch money, No animal must ever get into trading, All acts of human is disliked, No animal must ever tyrannize his own kind. (This rule isn’t clear, does he mean that one species cannot tyrannize his own kind (e.g. pig – pig) or does it mean that the specie should not tyrannize any animal /species), No animal must ever kill any other animal, all animals are equal’.
In Russia, in 1917, people demonstrated in Petrograd, because of the low wages and little food. Nicholas II was forced to surrender his position as a Tsar. This is similar in animal farm – when the animals were not fed for a whole day, they started to help themselves. The cows broke the shed with their horn because there was food init, then Mr Jones (Tsar) and his men tried to stop them but the animals chased them out of the farm, realising that the day that Old Major was talking about which allowed their freedom came soon.
Mollie already broke a rule; ‘she had taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs Jones dressing table…’ Before this, everyone burned anything that reminded the animals of Mr Jones, such as, Boxer throwing away his hat and mollies ribbons. However, Mollie is against this because she is clearly seen wearing ribbons in Mrs Jones room. She is the first person to break a rule that was set by Old Major, ‘no animal must ever wear clothes’ and ‘all acts of human is disliked’ because most likely a little girl would wear ribbons. This is the first minor sign of the failure of the rebellion.
Snowballs wrote out the commandments on a wall and were called ‘seven commandments’: -
“1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.”
Snowball has missed out some other commandments said by Old Major either because he cannot remember it or he purposely left them out because I think he knows that some of the things they’ll be doing on the farm, will relate to human work.
When the cows were milked, the milk had disappeared when they came back. ‘… and when they came back in the evening, it was noticed that the milk had disappeared.’ This shows that Napoleon and the other pigs are greedy because Napoleon was the one who said to leave it where it is and he will sort it out. Greed is one of the factors that failed the revolution.
Another incident, similar to this happened but this time with apples and this time squealer said ‘it is your sake that we drink that milk and apples.’ This is not just showing greed but also misplacing trusts of the animals that were illiterate to understand this because they are not drinking for the sake of the animals but for themselves. Rule number seven is broken because this is an unfair act – the pigs do nothing apart from directing and supervising others. Squealer somehow manages further questions arising by saying ‘you wouldn’t want Jones to be back.’ He says this as it reminds the rest of the animals back the olden times (the torment they suffered by Jones).
Power, I think was a major factor in the failure of the revolutions. Snowball wanted to educate his people just like Trotsky where as Napoleon wanted socialism in one country just like Stalin.
Jealousy between the two leaders start to occur, i.e. they disagree with each other all the time and soon starts to be come obvious to the other animals, ‘these two were never in agreement’. Soon when the idea of building a windmill comes, Napoleon wants to get rid of Snowball because he is getting more attention and he does this by sending his dogs. Because of jealousy, the rule, ‘all animals are equal’ is broken. Both the leaders were meant to be working together to keep the farm running.
After Snowball was chased out of the farm by Napoleons dogs (Stalin forced Trotsky out of Russia by the secret police), they killed four pigs they had secretly kept in touch with Snowball and had also been with him in destroying the windmill. Three hens confessed to being the ringleaders of the rebellion over the eggs. A goose confessed to stealing and eating six ears of corn, in the harvest. A sheep confessed to urinating in a drinking pool, two other sheep confessed of murdering an old ram by chasing him round and round a bonfire when he had a cough.
The executions scared the other animals into silence. Nobody dared to say anything because they were frightened of what the dogs would do them.
Muriel reads out the sixth commandment for Clover. It reads, "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause". The two words "without" and "cause" have been added to the sixth commandment. This is obviously more of Napoleons work.
Rules keep breaking throughout the book especially by the pigs just to get what they desire. “No animal must live in a house or sleep in a bed” They break this rules because the pigs decide to move into the farmhouse. The pig’s deicide to move into there because they needed a ‘quite place work,’ because they were the clever ones.
The lack of education the other animals got was another factor because if they were educated enough they would have realised Napoleons evil acts.
In chapter 10, the pigs are seen coming out of the farmhouse, walking on their back legs. The other animals are very shocked because yet another rule has been broken. "What ever goes upon two legs is an enemy". So, by walking on their hind legs the pigs are automatically classing themselves as enemies, but as we already know from the rest of the story they are enemies anyway
Over all I think the revolution failed because of power. The pigs became corrupted by power and a new tyranny is established under Napoleon (Stalin).
When Mr. Jones appears to take back his farm, the animals defeat him; this was known as the Battle of the Cowshed. However, later in the book Napoleon and Snowball increasingly argue over the future of the farm, and they begin to struggle with each other for power and influence among the other animals.
Napoleon tries to expand his powers and he does succeed but he also begins to act more and more like a human being, I think that he forgot whom he is!
George Orwell’s message could have been that good ideas do not always work in practice. There is no such thing as utopia because every single person is somehow different from you in a different way. Animal Farm is about utopia, which the animals did not get because they had two different leaders who had different ideas. Snowball wanted utopia in a different way to Napoleons. Greed is a human nature, which can destroy a revolution for example Stalin (the Soviet Union). History can repeat itself, there have been many corrupt politicians for example Hitler, he also wanted a communist country but it failed.
In the whole novel, the animals did not have any freedom during Jones time and after Jones time.
The very last line in the book shows that it has taken the whole novel for the animals to realise what has actually happened, and the pigs only ever had there own interests in mind. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig…it was impossible to tell which was which"
