Short Work in Depth: Animal Farm
By Shi Xinying
George Orwell’s Animal Farm, one of his most prestigious masterpieces, is short in length but profound in depth. In only about thirty thousand words, the author depicts an allusive story in which a group of animals expulsed the farmer and then managed the farm on their own.
In the beginning of the novel, the farm was supervised by Mr. Jones and the animals lived miserably like slaves. The night when the respectable boar old Major delivered a speech became the turning point. He appealed the animals to rebel against Jones. Though he did not live to witness the success of the revolution, two other pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, succeeded in expelling Jones and exercised full sovereignty over the farm. As an achievement of the rebellion, the seven commandments, reduced from old Mayor’s Animalism, formed ―an unalterable law by which all the animals on Animal Farm must live for ever after‖ (Orwell, 1983, p.22). However, the pigs gradually obtained the dominance over the whole farm as the most literate and intelligent animals. In the late chapters appeared internal controversies between the leaders, heavier working burden and poorer living conditions for animals except pigs, and even killings that should have been abandoned from this independent beasts’pasture. Few realized that they were deceived and exploited by pigs, the new privileged stratum. None dared to revolt or simply complain: if they do so, they will be murdered. Finally, law and order was changed and the farm virtually returned to what it had been.
Orwell’s language is simple. He rarely uses hard vocabulary that even a kindergarten child can read his tale. But a kid can never understand the implications of his words. According to Orwell’s own saying, the book was the first he tried ―to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole‖ (Orwell, 1956, p.395). It is obvious that the fiction is mainly an animal version of Russian Revolution. In the aspect of the characters, for instance, the dead old Mayor who firstly raised the ideology of Animalism represents Lenin; Snowball, the scholarly ex-leader who was slandered enemy of all animals, shares a similar experience of injustice with banished Russian revolutionist Trotsky; dictator Napoleon stands for Stalin with no doubt; other animals, though still different in details, symbolize the majority of Russian civilians. Moreover, evidences can be found almost everywhere in the plots. The abolishment of the song ―Beasts of England‖ resembles the original Russian national anthem ―Internationale‖; the green banner with hoof and horn came from Soviet national flag with hammer and sickle; their neighbour Pinchfield Farm’s deception and attack suggests the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Bolshevik and Nazi; the building of the windmill s the New Economy Policy and etc.
Nevertheless, it is unfair to regard this story merely as ―a rollicking caricature of the Russian Revolution‖ (Meyers, 1975, p.198). Some paragraphs also remind readers of history in western society. ―Long live Napoleon‖ is in the identical structure with ―long live the king‖ and ―long live Hitler‖. The last commandment ―all animals are equal‖, which is in the end added ―but some animals are more equal than others‖ can either be an irony on the Declaration of Independence in this way: all men are created
equal, but white men are more equal than other men and women. Orwell himself also said that his purpose was ―directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism‖ (Orwell, 1956, p.394). Therefore, it is totally wrong to take Animal Farm as a criticism towards Soviet or Socialism. In fact, it is ―more meaningfully an anatomy of all political revolutions‖ (Lee, 1969, p.109). The author never sticks his writing to limited region or social system. Sarcastically, the beast fable became a vivid portrayal of the future world politics to some extent. Perhaps that is why Orwell is crowned ―wintry conscience of a generation‖ (Meyers, 1975, p.34).
Master as he is, Orwell still leaves some small regrets in the book—namely the lack of a resolution to the problem. Until the finale of the fiction the obedient animals still altered nothing. The creatures were only able to stand beside, looking ―from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible
to say which was which‖ (Orwell, 1983, p.122).
However, the little pity cannot hinder Animal Farm from being one of the most significant literatures in twentieth century. Generally, it is worth reading and chewing, better together with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. Only do everyone learn by heart
―how revolutionary ideals of justice, equality and fraternity always shatter in the event‖(Lee, 1969, p.109) will the future be bright for common civilians.
References
1.Lee, Robert A. (1969). Orwell’s Fiction. London: University of Notre Dame
Press.
2.Meyers, Jeffrey. (Ed.)(1975). George Orwell. London and Boston: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.
3.Orwell, George. (1983). Animal Farm. Penguin Books in Association with
Martin Secker & Warburg.
4.Orwell, George. (1956). The Orwell Reader: Fiction, Essays, and Reportage
with an introduction by Richard H. Rovere. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.