The use of characters by Orwell as an allegory to express his disappointment with the corruption of the communist ideal.

Vivek Radhakrishnan

English 10

5th November 2007

Period B

The use of characters by Orwell as an allegory to express his disappointment with the corruption of the communist ideal.

In Animal Farm, George Orwell uses the setting of a farm to satirically express his views of the communist revolution in Russia. He paints a very vivid picture of the events before, during and after the revolution. The characters are thinly veiled, offering enough clues to the readers so that they can recognise the true personalities they represent. Orwell uses these characters allegorically to express his disappointment with the corruption of the communist ideal.

In the story, the pigs that declared the idea to throw the humans out are the equivalent of the ‘Politburo’, who started the communist ideology in Russia. The pigs are headed by an elderly pig called Old Major, who is always “highly regarded on the farm” (1). Orwell uses him to symbolically represent Lenin and Karl Marx. Major has a dream in which he realises the “tyranny of human beings” (5). He decides that all the animals will have to do is to “get rid of Man, and the produce of our [their] labour would be our [their] own”. He then sets rules as to how the farm should be run and formulates this as Animalism. This event represents the establishment of a communist ideal and the publishing of the Communists’ Manifesto. Old Major unfortunately dies before the animals get together and dispel Mr. and Mrs. Jones. They then set up a new system of governance and enforce the laws Old Major has set. This represents the overthrowing of the Russian monarchs and the establishment of the Soviet Union. From this point on the expectations are high for the prosperity of the animals in the farm and this was also the case with the people of the Soviet Union immediately after the revolution.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The pigs “who were manifestly cleverer than the other animals” (30) take responsibility for the administration of Manor Farm. The first thing they do is to rename the farm as Animal Farm. This represents the renaming of Russia as Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The pigs would order all the animals to labour, but they would never do any work themselves. They would order all the animals to pick fruits and to milk the cows. However, the pigs would intelligently convince all the animals that it was “absolutely necessary to [for] the well being of a pig” (23) to have all the milk and fruits. By doing this the pigs establish themselves as a separate class of animals. This depicts the Soviets’ exploitation of the nation’s wealth for personal purposes and hence, establishing themselves as elite class that had special regulations. The pigs do not abide by Major’s rules as the power they now possess is too intimidating. They even start fighting within themselves for dominance. They are headed by two equally talented archrival pigs: Napoleon and Snowball. The two of them would “disagreed [disagree] at every given point where disagreement was possible.” (30) Snowball would win the hearts of the animals “by his brilliant speeches” (31) and Napoleon would do so by “canvassing support for himself” in between Snowball’s speeches. They resemble the eloquent Leon Trotsky and the calm and authoritative Joseph Stalin. In their battle for dominance, Napoleon emerges as the victor after chasing Snowball out of the farm using his “nine enormous” (34) and brutally aggressive dogs. This symbolizes the way Stalin used the Narodniy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD) to chase Trotsky out of Soviet Union and eventually assassinated him. This was an absolute deviation from the original intentions of equality to all in animalism and in the communist ideal.

The pigs needed a mean of covering up the corruption done by them from the other animals. They came up with the idea of utilising a propagandist who would mislead the animals and distort the facts. This propagandist is none other than Squealer. He is representative of the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Information or Pravda, both mediums of propaganda for the USSR. The job of Squealer was to maintain the superiority of the ‘ruling’ pigs who symbolized the Politburo. Squealer employs all methods possible to make the animals believe him, he says:

“You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? …. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well being of a pig. …. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us …. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back!”

The above is a clear example of how Squealer would justify each and every action of the pigs. He first ‘creates’ a fact by saying that milk and apples are scientifically proven to be good for the health of the pigs. He then goes on to explain that it is essential that the pigs stay healthy as they are the ones organising and running the farm. Finally he evokes fear in the animals and forces them into submission. The pigs’ corruption was to such an extent that they had to constantly keep changing the laws of animalism. However, some of the other animals were intelligent and remembered the old laws. It is part of Squealer’s job to change the laws and convince the other animals that they are wrong and that the laws were not changed. Again these are attempts taken by the pigs in order to hide the failure of the revolution.

Furthermore, the largest failure of the revolution was the continuous working of the other animal. The animals would be force to labour for “a sixty-hour week” (39) and in the end they would die without being able to enjoy the fruits of their labour. This is an exact representation of what happened in the Soviet Union when people were taken to Siberia to work in the mines and then they would never return. The perfect example for this is Boxer the Horse. He represents the hard working class who remained as myrmidons to the Soviet Union. Boxer throughout the plot dedicates his life for the development of the farm, he would keep saying: “I will work harder” (40). He volunteers to work overtime every day irrespective of how bad the weather is or how little food they are fed.

“He had made arrangements with the cockerel to call him three-quarters of an hour earlier in the mornings instead of half an hour. And in his spare moments, …. He would go to the quarry, collect a load of broken stone and drag it down…”

This clearly exhibits Boxer’s believes that there was no place for rest until in his agenda until the true goals of animalism were achieved. Late one evening just a few days before his retirement Boxer is hurt during one of his overtime sessions. The pigs’ promise to get him treated in a hospital. However, they have nothing such as that in their minds. The pigs “taking [sent] Boxer to the knacker’s!” (79). This is preposterous behaviour on the part of the pigs as they have gone down to the limit of killing the best and the most hardworking animal on the farm just because he is hurt, wishes to retire and will not be able to do any more labour. This strong imagery of the hardships of the common man demonstrates the deep anguish felt by Orwell for the victims of the Russian Revolution.

The most tragic event that leads to the absolute failure of the revolution is the pigs slowly becoming human beings. Orwell uses this event to portray how the Soviets who actually set off the Russian Revolution in a hope of a bright new future but end up only replacing the former high classes with themselves. The pigs sequentially break each and every one of the established laws of Animalism. They even abolish all the laws and make one new law that states: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.” (88) The pigs befriend their old foes, humans, these were people who had once suppressed and enslaved all the animals. They finally do the most prohibited thing according to Animalism by having human habits such as gambling, drinking, and walking upright. Orwell reaches the zenith of disappointment at this point and says that “it was impossible to say which was which”.