George Orwell and Symbolism in "Animal Farm"
Uploaded by spootyhead on Apr 18, 2007
George Orwell and Symbolism in "Animal Farm"
George Orwell, born Eric Blair, was a cynical writer who expressed his views on the Russian Revolution through a book called Animal Farm. By the use of animals and farm life, George Orwell portrays people and events from the Russian Revolution in an allegorical form. To understand Animal Farm properly you need to understand Orwell’s life and beliefs. If not, Animal Farm could be interpreted as either a fable about farm animals or an angry citizens stand against the ruling of Stalin and his communist ways.
To appreciate the political philosophy evident in Animal Farm you first need to understand the author, George Orwell. Orwell was born in 1903, in India but lived in England for the majority of his life. His parents were considered middle-class so Orwell got the best education at Eton College. After graduating near the bottom of his class, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922 to 1927. This gave Orwell a first hand experience on what it was like to see inequality and oppression from another point of view, from the top. This experience left Orwell confused and bitter about how society was run. When he moved to Paris to become a writer, he was astounded to see how rich the rich were and how poor the poor were. In 1936, Orwell joined the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War and fought for his idealistic Marxist views, which were shattered by the reality of communism at work. Orwell came home disturbed by totalitarianism and wrote Animal Farm, a book, which comments on the Russian Revolution.
George Orwell on why he writes -
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism...Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole."
Animal Farm is a satirical book about the Russian Revolution. In the beginning Manor Farm, later changed to Animal Farm, was run by old Mr. Jones, a drunken farmer. The animals worked day by day until Old Major, the wise old pig, gathered the animals together to tell them his dream. He dreamed of a place where animals ruled and united together as one to work in harmony....