How does Orwell’s novel - ‘Animal Farm’ reflect events that happened during the Russian Revolution of 1917?
There are many key events and historical figures from the Russian revolution which are similar to the characters and happenings in Orwell’s book ‘Animal Farm’. The revolution fought to create a civilization which tried to form equality amongst everyone (according to Marx and Engels’ ‘communist Manifesto’ )
With the help of the Russian people, Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin, prevailed over their abusive leader Tsar Nicholas II, who was Orwell’s inspiration for Mr. Jones in Animal Farm.
Communism worked out at first, but a country cannot go without effective leadership and because in this case there were only three leaders, they became power hungry and therefore the whole ideal of a “ greater good” deteriorates. This is what happened in both the book and Russia.
Napoleon, the tough, fierce and ruthless, boar is portrayed as Stalin, who was equally as much of a tyrant as Napoleon. At the start of the book, when old major a wise, old boar made his speech about the great rebellion against the humans, it was very similar to Marx’ statement on communism. Lenin who idolized Marx was inspiration for squealer because when old major gave his speech he used the word “comrade” profusely, and it was a word to unite all the animals against the humans. Squealer adopts this word and uses frequently throughout the book, he benefits from the usage of this word when he tries to get the animals to believe another one of his disgusting lies, he uses it to gain their trust.
This is a preview of the whole essay
Peer Reviews
Here's what a star student thought of this essay
Quality of writing
The Quality of Written Communication shown by this candidate here is the only reason this answer didn't achieve five stars. It is quite frankly appalling for a GCSE student to have such a low level of writing ability. There is very little regard for grammatical standards and the answer is rife with comme splice ("Napoleon, the tough, fierce and ruthless, boar is portrayed as Stalin, who was equally as much of a tyrant as Napoleon.") and there are moments where slashes (/) are used; these should not appear in analytical text as they can and should be replaced with "or". To improve I suggest candidate re-reads their work thoroughly to get a better grasp of how their writing reads to others, because if examiners struggle to decipher incorrect spelling/improper grammar, they will disregard the essay altogether.
Level of analysis
The Level of Analysis, though very systematic, is quite good. With the candidate addressing each link Orwell makes in turn to rise of Communism; the dogs as the secret KGB police; Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin and their representation as the three main pigs Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer; Marx as Old Major; the animals and their submissive oppression, etc. It's all very well-thought through and shows a profound understanding of the political commentary on Russia that the novel proposes. The structure of the answer is also very good. It may be slightly regimented and not entirely the most time-effective approach, but it certainly is the best for getting down a lot of ideas about the links Orwell makes in turn. This is highly recommended if making a plan causes you to lose track of you ideas before candidates begin an exam answer. Candidate should never write in an exam "this I don't understand" or words to tha effect. If candidates "don't understand", then they should not comment. This is in spite of only the candidate themselves as they should realise why Orwell has done something, as everything in novels like these is deliberate - he killed the pigs for a reason - to make Napoleon had to make the pigs look like they were traitors first.
Response to question
This is a response to a question asking candidates to identify the links Orwell makes between the events and characters of his novel 'Animal Farm' and the Russian Revolution. The candidate identifies a number of links and comments on them with some fair analysis, drawing quotes from the source text that, whilst clumsy and over-sized, illustrate their points well. I would argue that in improvement needs to be made in terms of analysis though, as very little here appears openly objective e.g. "and this I don’t understand, maybe they thought that if they confessed and helped Napoleon he would spare their lives, but that is where those poor, naive pigs were wrong, dead wrong. (sic)". The use of "dead wrong" at the end is just unecessary, and does not strengthen the answer at all because it is a personal viewpoint from a candidate; not even itallics mean this irrelevant tag elicits marks.
