P2.A.AT*Animal Farm* (Orwell) — totalitarianism, propaganda, corruption of revolution; Boxer, Snowball, Napoleon; the Russian Revolution allegory

George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) is a political allegory — a satirical fable that uses a cast of farm animals to critique the Soviet Union under Stalin, and more broadly, the corruption of revolutionary ideals by power. Written during WWII but not published until after (several publishers refused it as diplomatically inconvenient), it remains one of the most precise and devastating accounts of political propaganda ever written.

Plot in brief

Old Major, a prize pig, inspires the animals of Manor Farm with a vision of animal equality and rebellion against human oppression. After Major's death, the pigs — especially Napoleon and Snowball — lead the rebellion. Mr Jones is expelled; the animals run the farm under the Seven Commandments of Animalism. Gradually Napoleon, aided by his enforcer Squealer and his personal guard of dogs, consolidates power: Snowball is expelled by the dogs, blamed for all failures, made into an enemy (paralleling Trotsky's exile and demonisation). The Seven Commandments are rewritten one by one. The pigs move into the farmhouse and sleep in beds; they trade with humans. By the end, the pigs and the humans are indistinguishable: "The creatures outside looked 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."

Key themes

Corruption of power — the pigs begin as liberators and become oppressors. The progression is gradual and insidious: each step is justified by Squealer. Orwell's central argument: revolutions are corrupted by the self-interest of new leaders.

Propaganda and language — Squealer is the novel's most chilling figure: he rewrites history, adjusts the Commandments, and convinces the animals that what they remember is wrong. "Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones to come back?" — the threat of the old regime silences dissent.

Class and equality — "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." The final rewritten Commandment is the novel's most famous irony. Equality becomes hierarchy.

Loyalty and betrayal — Boxer, the cart horse, is the novel's most tragic figure: working class loyalty to the Revolution, singing "Napoleon is always right." His betrayal — sold to the knacker's yard while at his weakest — is the novel's most emotionally devastating moment.

Memory and history — the animals cannot remember the original Commandments clearly. Squealer exploits this: "Surely you do not remember it correctly, comrade?" The manipulation of historical memory is central to totalitarian control.

Key characters

• Napoleon — Stalin; power-hungry, cruel, manipulative. Uses the dogs as secret police.
• Snowball — Trotsky; intelligent, idealistic, eventually expelled and demonised.
• Squealer — propaganda minister; rewrites history; makes the unacceptable acceptable through language.
• Boxer — the proletariat; huge strength, absolute loyalty, dim understanding; betrayed and killed.
• Old Major — Marx/Lenin; the originating visionary; dies before the revolution he inspired becomes its opposite.
• Benjamin — the cynical donkey; knows everything is wrong but refuses to act. Represents the intellectual who sees but does not resist.

Historical allegory

Context (AO3)

• Orwell's biography — fought in the Spanish Civil War; witnessed Stalinist betrayal of the Republican cause; became a committed democratic socialist and anti-Stalinist.
• WWII publication context — Stalin was Britain's ally; publishers refused the novel as diplomatically dangerous.
• Fable/allegory tradition — uses animal characters to satirise human politics, distancing and universalising simultaneously.

Form and structure

• Fable form — simple language, clear moral, animal protagonists — but Orwell's satire is multilayered.
• The Seven Commandments — each rewriting is a structural marker of moral decline.
• The final image — the indistinguishability of pig and man is Orwell's most powerful structural device: circular corruption.