Book Report On Animal Farm Essay, Research Paper

Many authors write about topics that they know and about historical events that are going on while they write their story. In the book Animal Farm by George Orwell this is definitely true. Orwell modeled many of his characters after Russian leaders. He ingeniously depicts the troubles of Russia in a book about farm animals.

The story begins with a prize winning boar named Old Major, he gathers all of the farm animals around to tell them of a dream that he has. He tells them about a society of only farm animals, they would run everything with out humans. The farm animals like this idea and make a song called Beasts of England about their new freedom. Three days after announcing his dream, Old Major dies. Two younger pigs,Snowball and Napoleon, put Old Major s ideas into a philosophy and call it Animalism. The animals chase Farmer Jones off of the farm and claim it as their own, calling it Animal Farm . Everyone works together to bring happiness to the farm. Boxer the cart-horse devotes all of his strength to the farm, Snowball teaches the animals to read, and Napoleon educates a group of puppies on the topic of Animalism. Soon there is a struggle for power between Snowball and Napoleon. Snowball wants to erect a windmill to produce power for the animals. Napoleon is opposed to this idea and sends attack dogs to chase Snowball out of town. Now Napoleon has all power and begins to run the farm like he wants it. He decides that the pigs will run the farm, he also changes his mind about the windmill. They finally build it, but the next day they find it toppled onto the ground. Napoleon tells everyone that Snowball toppled the windmill. So anyone that goes against the words of Napoleon would then be with Snowball and would be put to death by the dogs. Napoleon starts to act more like a human, sleeping in a bed, wearing clothing, drinking whiskey, walking upright, and he even engages in trades with the neighbors. The farm animals are now cold, hungry, overworked, and miserable. Boxer ,the most loyal of all of the animals, is sold to a glue-maker for money so Napoleon can buy some whiskey. At the end Napoleon sits down with Farmer Pilkington for dinner, as the farm animals look through the window they can not tell which one is the pig and which one is the human.

George Orwell is the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair. He was born in 1903 and died in 1950. He served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922 to 1927. When Orwell resigned from his position in Burma, he resolved to speak out against the domination of any person over another. During World War 2, he was war correspondent for the BBC and the Observer, and wrote for the Tribune. His condemnation of totalitarian society and his intellectual honesty motivated his biting satire of Communist ideology in Animal Farm written in 1945, and in the novel Nineteen Eighty-four written in 1949.

When a book is written, the author is most likely trying to get a point across to the reader. When Orwell wrote Animal Farm he was trying to show the reader his point of view on Soviet Communism. Joseph Stalin became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1922 to 1953. Orwell wrote Stalin into the book as Napoleon, the power hungry pig. In the story Napoleon chases Snowball off the farm because Snowball has different ideas. Orwell wrote Leon Trotsky in as Snowball, Trotsky was exiled from the USSR by Stalin. Trotsky was a Russian Marxist theorist and revolutionary, who was one of the principal leaders of the USSR government until he was exiled. The Bolshevik revolution is shown with the animals revolting against farmer Jones and chasing him off the farm. The Bolsheviks titled themselves the Russian Communist Party in March 1918 and the All-Union Communist Party in December 1925. Just like the farm animals renamed the farm Animal Farm and created Animalism . Other historical events that effected Orwell s writing are the coming to power of Adolf Hitler and World War 2. In both of these events many countries were afraid of the threat of Communism taking over the world.

The 1940 s was a time of great change. World War 2 ended in 1945, and changed society in many countries. After Word War 2 the baby boom took place. A lot of literature had to do with propaganda against Communism. Animal Farm is one form of propaganda, putting the problems of Russia in the perspective of a group of farm animals.

This book has taught me more about Soviet Communism then I will ever learn in school. It gave a perspective of the people under the rule of communism. Not from the perspective of another government looking down upon communism, like we learn in social studies. This book kept me entertained all the way through, I like that the story is an allegory. This means it has an inside meaning to it. No matter if you look to Animal Farm for educational value or if you look to it for pure entertainment, it is still a very good book.