animal farm george orwell thesis

A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s Animal Farm

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Animal Farm is, after Nineteen Eighty-Four , George Orwell’s most famous book. Published in 1945, the novella (at under 100 pages, it’s too short to be called a full-blown ‘novel’) tells the story of how a group of animals on a farm overthrow the farmer who puts them to work, and set up an equal society where all animals work and share the fruits of their labours.

However, as time goes on, it becomes clear that the society the animals have constructed is not equal at all. It’s well-known that the novella is an allegory for Communist Russia under Josef Stalin, who was leader of the Soviet Union when Orwell wrote the book. Before we dig deeper into the context and meaning of Animal Farm with some words of analysis, it might be worth refreshing our memories with a brief summary of the novella’s plot.

Animal Farm: plot summary

The novella opens with an old pig, named Major, addressing his fellow animals on Manor Farm. Major criticises Mr Jones, the farmer who owns Manor Farm, because he controls the animals, takes their produce (the hens’ eggs, the cows’ milk), but gives them little in return. Major tells the other animals that man, who walks on two feet unlike the animals who walk on four, is their enemy.

They sing a rousing song in favour of animals, ‘Beasts of England’. Old Major dies a few days later, but the other animals have been inspired by his message.

Two pigs in particular, Snowball and Napoleon, rouse the other animals to take action against Mr Jones and seize the farm for themselves. They draw up seven commandments which all animals should abide by: among other things, these commandments forbid an animal to kill another animal, and include the mantra ‘four legs good, two legs bad’, because animals (who walk on four legs) are their friends while their two-legged human overlords are evil. (We have analysed this famous slogan here .)

The animals lead a rebellion against Mr Jones, whom they drive from the farm. They rename Manor Farm ‘Animal Farm’, and set about running things themselves, along the lines laid out in their seven commandments, where every animal is equal. But before long, it becomes clear that the pigs – especially Napoleon and Snowball – consider themselves special, requiring special treatment, as the leaders of the animals.

Nevertheless, when Mr Jones and some of the other farmers lead a raid to try to reclaim the farm, the animals work together to defend the farm and see off the men. A young farmhand is knocked unconscious, and initially feared dead.

Things begin to fall apart: Napoleon’s windmill, which he has instructed the animals to build, is vandalised and he accuses Snowball of sabotaging it. Snowball is banished from the farm. During winter, many of the animals are on the brink of starvation.

Napoleon engineers it so that when Mr Whymper, a man from a neighbouring farm with whom the pigs have started to trade (so the animals can acquire the materials they need to build the windmill), visits the farm, he overhears the animals giving a positive account of life on Animal Farm.

Without consulting the hens first, Napoleon organises a deal with Mr Whymper which involves giving him many of the hens’ eggs. They rebel against him, but he starves them into submission, although not before nine hens have died. Napoleon then announces that Snowball has been visiting the farm at night and destroying things.

Napoleon also claims that Snowball has been in league with Mr Jones all the time, and that even at the Battle of the Cowshed (as the animals are now referring to the farmers’ unsuccessful raid on the farm) Snowball was trying to sabotage the fight so that Jones won.

The animals are sceptical about this, because they all saw Snowball bravely fighting alongside them. Napoleon declares he has discovered ‘secret documents’ which prove Snowball was in league with their enemy.

Life on Animal Farm becomes harder for the animals, and Boxer, while labouring hard to complete the windmill, falls and injures his lung. The pigs arrange for him to be taken away and treated, but when the van arrives and takes him away, they realise too late that the van belongs to a man who slaughters horses, and that Napoleon has arranged for Boxer to be taken away to the knacker’s yard and killed.

Squealer lies to the animals, though, and when he announces Boxer’s death two days later, he pretends that the van had been bought by a veterinary surgeon who hadn’t yet painted over the old sign on the side of the van. The pigs take to wearing green ribbons and order in another crate of whisky for them to drink; they don’t share this with the other animals.

A few years pass, and some of the animals die, Napoleon and Squealer get fatter, and none of the animals is allowed to retire, as previously promised. The farm gets bigger and richer, but the luxuries the animals had been promised never materialised: they are told that the real pleasure is derived from hard work and frugal living.

Then, one day, the animals see Squealer up on his hind legs, walking on two legs like a human instead of on four like an animal.

The other pigs follow; and Clover and Benjamin discover that the seven commandments written on the barn wall have been rubbed off, to be replace by one single commandment: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ The pigs start installing radio and a telephone in the farmhouse, and subscribe to newspapers.

Finally, the pigs invite humans into the farm to drink with them, and announce a new partnership between the pigs and humans. Napoleon announces to his human guests that the name of the farm is reverting from Animal Farm to the original name, Manor Farm.

The other animals from the farm, observing this through the window, can no longer tell which are the pigs and which are the men, because Napoleon and the other pigs are behaving so much like men now.

Things have gone full circle: the pigs are no different from Mr Jones (indeed, are worse).

Animal Farm: analysis

First, a very brief history lesson, by way of context for Animal Farm . In 1917, the Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, was overthrown by Communist revolutionaries.

These revolutionaries replaced the aristocratic rule which had been a feature of Russian society for centuries with a new political system: Communism, whereby everyone was equal. Everyone works, but everyone benefits equally from the results of that work. Josef Stalin became leader of Communist Russia, or the Soviet Union, in the early 1920s.

However, it soon became apparent that Stalin’s Communist regime wasn’t working: huge swathes of the population were working hard, but didn’t have enough food to survive. They were starving to death.

But Stalin and his politicians, who themselves were well-off, did nothing to combat this problem, and indeed actively contributed to it. But they told the people that things were much better since the Russian Revolution and the overthrow of the Tsar, than things had been before, under Nicholas II. The parallels with Orwell’s Animal Farm are crystal-clear.

Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian Revolution and the formation of a Communist regime in Russia (as the Soviet Union). We offer a fuller definition of allegory in a separate post, but the key thing is that, although it was subtitled A Fairy Story , Orwell’s novella is far from being a straightforward tale for children. It’s also political allegory, and even satire.

The cleverness of Orwell’s approach is that he manages to infuse his story with this political meaning while also telling an engaging tale about greed, corruption, and ‘society’ in a more general sense.

One of the commonest techniques used in both Stalinist Russia and in Animal Farm is what’s known as ‘gaslighting’ (meaning to manipulate someone by psychological means so they begin to doubt their own sanity; the term is derived from the film adaptation of Gaslight , a play by Patrick Hamilton).

For instance, when Napoleon and the other pigs take to eating their meals and sleeping in the beds in the house at Animal Farm, Clover is convinced this goes against one of the seven commandments the animals drew up at the beginning of their revolution.

But one of the pigs has altered the commandment (‘No animal shall sleep in a bed’), adding the words ‘ with sheets ’ to the end of it. Napoleon and the other pigs have rewritten history, but they then convince Clover that she is the one who is mistaken, and that she’s misremembered what the wording of the commandment was.

Another example of this technique – which is a prominent feature of many totalitarian regimes, namely keep the masses ignorant as they’re easier to manipulate that way – is when Napoleon claims that Snowball has been in league with Mr Jones all along. When the animals question this, based on all of the evidence to the contrary, Napoleon and Squealer declare they have ‘secret documents’ which prove it.

But the other animals can’t read them, so they have to take his word for it. Squealer’s lie about the van that comes to take Boxer away (he claims it’s going to the vet, but it’s clear that Boxer is really being taken away to be slaughtered) is another such example.

Communist propaganda

Much as Stalin did in Communist Russia, Napoleon actively rewrites history , and manages to convince the animals that certain things never happened or that they are mistaken about something. This is a feature that has become more and more prominent in political society, even in non-totalitarian ones: witness our modern era of ‘fake news’ and media spin where it becomes difficult to ascertain what is true any more.

The pigs also convince the other animals that they deserve to eat the apples themselves because they work so hard to keep things running, and that they will have an extra hour in bed in the mornings. In other words, they begin to become the very thing they sought to overthrow: they become like man.

They also undo the mantra that ‘all animals are equal’, since the pigs clearly think they’re not like the other animals and deserve special treatment. Whenever the other animals question them, one question always succeeds in putting an end to further questioning: do they want to see Jones back running the farm? As the obvious answer is ‘no’, the pigs continue to get away with doing what they want.

Squealer is Napoleon’s propagandist, ensuring that the decisions Napoleon makes are ‘spun’ so that the other animals will accept them and carry on working hard.

And we can draw a pretty clear line between many of the major characters in Animal Farm and key figures of the Russian Revolution and Stalinist Russia. Napoleon, the leader of the animals, is Joseph Stalin; Old Major , whose speech rouses the animals to revolution, partly represents Vladimir Lenin, who spearheaded the Russian Revolution of 1917 (although he is also a representative of Karl Marx , whose ideas inspired the Revolution); Snowball, who falls out with Napoleon and is banished from the farm, represents Leon Trotsky, who was involved in the Revolution but later went to live in exile in Mexico.

Squealer, meanwhile, is based on Molotov (after whom the Molotov cocktail was named); Molotov was Stalin’s protégé, much as Squealer is encouraged by Napoleon to serve as Napoleon’s right-hand (or right-hoof?) man (pig).

Publication

Animal Farm very nearly didn’t make it into print at all. First, not long after Orwell completed the first draft in February 1944, his flat on Mortimer Crescent in London was bombed in June, and he feared the typescript had been destroyed. Orwell later found it in the rubble.

Then, Orwell had difficulty finding a publisher. T. S. Eliot, at Faber and Faber, rejected it because he feared that it was the wrong sort of political message for the time.

The novella was eventually published the following year, in 1945, and its relevance – as political satire, as animal fable, and as one of Orwell’s two great works of fiction – shows no signs of abating.

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George Orwell

• Literature Notes
• Major Themes
• Animal Farm at a Glance
• Book Summary
• About Animal Farm
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Character Analysis
• Character Map
• George Orwell Biography
• Critical Essays
• The Russian Revolution
• Full Glossary
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays Major Themes

Satire is loosely defined as art that ridicules a specific topic in order to provoke readers into changing their opinion of it. By attacking what they see as human folly, satirists usually imply their own opinions on how the thing being attacked can be remedied. Perhaps the most famous work of British satire is Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), where the inhabitants of the different lands Gulliver visits embody what Swift saw as the prominent vices and corruptions of his time. As a child,  Orwell discovered and devoured Swift's novel, which became one of his favorite books. Like Gulliver's Travels , Animal Farm is a satirical novel in which Orwell, like Swift, attacks what he saw as some of the prominent follies of his time. These various satirical targets comprise the major themes of Orwell's novel.

Broadly speaking, Animal Farm satirizes politicians, specifically their rhetoric, ability to manipulate others, and insatiable lust for power. Despite his seemingly altruistic motives, Napoleon is presented as the epitome of a power-hungry individual who masks all of his actions with the excuse that they are done for the betterment of the farm. His stealing the milk and apples, for example, is explained by the lie that these foods have nutrients essential to pigs, who need these nutrients to carry on their managerial work. His running Snowball off the farm is explained by the lie that Snowball was actually a traitor, working for Jones — and that the farm will fare better without him. Each time that Napoleon and the other pigs wish to break one of the Seven Commandments, they legitimize their transgressions by changing the Commandment's original language. Whenever the farm suffers a setback, Napoleon blames Snowball's treachery — which the reader, of course, knows is untrue. Napoleon's walking on two legs, wearing a derby hat, and toasting Pilkington reflect the degree to which he (and the other pigs) completely disregard the plights of the other animals in favor of satisfying their own cravings for power. Thus, the dominant theme of Animal Farm is the tendency for those who espouse the most virtuous ideas to become the worst enemies of the people whose lives they are claiming to improve.

Role of the Populace

Orwell, however, does not imply that Napoleon is the only cause for Animal Farm's decline. He also satirizes the different kinds of people whose attitudes allow rulers like Napoleon to succeed. Mollie , whose only concerns are materialistic, is like people who are so self-centered that they lack any political sense or understanding of what is happening around them. Apolitical people like Mollie — who care nothing for justice or equality — offer no resistance to tyrants like Napoleon. Boxer is likened to the kind of blindly devoted citizen whose reliance on slogans ("Napoleon is always right") prevents him from examining in more detail his own situation: Although Boxer is a sympathetic character, his ignorance is almost infuriating, and Orwell suggests that this unquestioning ignorance allows rulers like Napoleon to grow stronger. Even Benjamin , the donkey, contributes to Napoleon's rise, because his only stand on what is occurring is a cynical dismissal of the facts: Although he is correct in stating that "Life would go on as it had always gone on — that is, badly," he, too, does nothing to stop the pigs' ascension or even raise the other animals' awareness of what is happening. His only action is to warn Boxer of his impending death at the knacker's — but this is futile as it occurs too late to do Boxer any good.

Religion and Tyranny

Another theme of Orwell's novel that also strikes a satiric note is the idea of religion being the "opium of the people" (as Karl Marx famously wrote). Moses the raven's talk of Sugarcandy Mountain originally annoys many of the animals, since Moses, known as a "teller of tales," seems an unreliable source. At this point, the animals are still hopeful for a better future and therefore dismiss Moses' stories of a paradise elsewhere. As their lives worsen, however, the animals begin to believe him, because "Their lives now, they reasoned, were hungry and laborious; Was it not right and just that a better world should exist somewhere else?" Here, Orwell mocks the futile dreaming of a better place that clearly does not exist. The pigs allow Moses to stay on the farm — and even encourage his presence by rewarding him with beer — because they know that his stories of Sugarcandy Mountain will keep the animals docile: As long as there is some better world somewhere — even after death — the animals will trudge through this one. Thus Orwell implies that religious devotion — viewed by many as a noble character trait — can actually distort the ways in which one thinks of his or her life on earth.

False Allegiance

A final noteworthy (and again, satiric) theme is the way in which people proclaim their allegiance to each other, only to betray their true intentions at a later time. Directly related to the idea that the rulers of the rebellion (the pigs) eventually betray the ideals for which they presumably fought, this theme is dramatized in a number of relationships involving the novel's human characters. Pilkington and Jones ; Frederick , for example, only listen to Jones in the Red Lion because they secretly hope to gain something from their neighbor's misery. Similarly, Frederick's buying the firewood from Napoleon seems to form an alliance that is shattered when the pig learns of Frederick's forged banknotes. The novel's final scene demonstrates that, despite all the friendly talk and flattery that passes between Pilkington and Napoleon, each is still trying to cheat the other (as seen when both play the ace of spades simultaneously). Of course, only one of the two is technically cheating, but Orwell does not indicate which one because such a fact is unimportant: The "friendly" game of cards is a facade that hides each ruler's desire to destroy the other.

Thus, as Swift used fantastic places to explore the themes of political corruption in the eighteenth century, so Orwell does with his own fantastic setting to satirize the twentieth. According to Orwell, rulers such as Napoleon will continue to grow in number — and in power — unless people become more politically aware and more wary of these leader's "noble" ideals.

Previous The Russian Revolution

Animal Farm by George Orwell: Literary Analysis Essay

The significance of the novel’s title, the major themes emerging from the novel, important passages and their significance, the setting of the novel and its effects on the plot, the main characters and their motivations, important relationships among characters in the novel, the narrator of the story and impact of his perspective on the narration, the ending of the novel, recommendation of the novel, works cited.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is often discussed as an allegorical story having the features of the fable and satire. The significance of the novella’s title is in its satirical nature. An animal farm is traditionally discussed as a place where animals are bred by humans. The farms are usually named after the owner. However, Animal Farm is rather different. It is a place where animals are owners of the properties (Orwell 6). While referring to the meaning and significance of the phrase which is used for the title of the novella, it is important to emphasize the opposition between animals and humans as well as their differences.

The name “Animal Farm” is chosen by the characters in order to accentuate the meaning of this specific place where animals can rule instead of humans and without being exploited by them. However, the ownership of the farm by animals is a rather provocative idea. While focusing on the fact that the purpose of the novella is to present the political regime in the Soviet Union before World War II, it is possible to state that the title is significant because it stresses on the inhuman nature of Joseph Stalin’s regime.

Providing the title for the work, Orwell seems to ask the questions about the differences in the regime of the Soviet Union and irrational rule of animals at the farm. The satirical title is significant because the reader also starts asking questions about the political and social meaning of the work’s message and ideas. Using the metaphor in the title, Orwell draws the readers’ attention to the Animal Revolution as his allegory to demonstrate the results of the Russian Revolution of 1917. That is why, the title is significant to represent the double meaning of the story and stimulate the readers’ interpretation of the literal and allegorical aspects of the title’s meaning.

The major themes represented in the novella are the leadership and power in the Soviet Union, corruption, inequality, the role of an individual in the society, exploitation, and control. In his novella, Orwell discusses the power in the Soviet Union as unlimited and focused in the hands of the elite, as it is typical for the totalitarian governments. These leaders are allegorically described in the characters of pigs which are powerful, but selfish, brutal, and vicious.

The theme of corruption is discussed with the help of stating that the absolute power makes people corrupted or depraved because of receiving the unlimited resources. Thus, those pigs which were the leaders of the Animal Revolution betrayed their ideals and principles and chose to live in Manor’s house because of the convenience and extreme desire to satisfy their needs while ignoring the needs of the other working animals.

These animals chose to follow the principle “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” (Orwell 112). Thus, Orwell also discusses the themes of inequality and the role of an individual in the society. In spite of the fact that the Animal Revolution was declared to be organized for the welfare of all animals, only the leaders received the real benefits. The same situation was observed in the Soviet Union. The social stratification and the division into rich and poor were not overcome, but these problems were hidden now.

The other significant themes discussed in the fable are exploitation and control supported by the leaders of the revolution. The pigs were satisfied with the work of hard-working animals, but any differences in the views could result in violent punishment. This allegory represents how Stalin chose to resolve the problems with dissenters. Thus, the institution of control in the Soviet Union was People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and the guarantee of the pig’s control was dogs which were used to persecute dissenters.

The first passage that attracts the reader’s attention is Major’s speech about the role of a man in the world. Thus, Major states in his speech, “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing…Yet he is lord of all the animals” ( Orwell 6 ). Major notes that a man makes animals work, but he does not care about them and only “prevent them from starving” ( Orwell 6). Major persuades the animals that they are better than men, and they have to rebel while focusing on the threats of exploitation. This statement reflects the Socialists’ arguments declared during the Revolution period. However, the significance of the passage is in the fact that the pigs forget about their statements and ideals while receiving some power, and they begin to exploit the others.

In Chapter 3, the principles of the Socialists’ attitude to work and the belief of the poor men in the better future are reflected. The horse Boxer becomes the inspiration for each animal at the farm because he follows the principle “I will work harder!” (Orwell 25). This principle is actively followed by lower class animals, but it is also used by the pigs to exploit workers. The ideology prevents these animals from seeing the real situation at Animal Farm.

The expulsion of Snowball with the help of dogs can be discussed as the important allegorical description of the struggle between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky observed in the Soviet Union. Napoleon used any means to realize his goals. Thus, he even used dogs to fear Snowball and other animals, “there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws” (Orwell 48). Napoleon could not support his leadership with the other resources, and he used violence to state his high social position. This moment is symbolic to represent the deterioration of any Socialist principles declared at Animal Farm.

The next significant passage is about judging Snowball as a scapegoat. This moment is important to describe the reality of Animal Farm and make the reader think about the Soviet Union. Snowball was accused of any crime at the farm only because he did not support Napoleon. Thus, “If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it” (Orwell 66). This situation is the first step in persecution of ‘suspicious’ animals who were killed because of possible relations with Snowball. Thus, the authorities used all the cruel methods to justify and support their regime while violating the basic principles of their ideologies.

The setting of the novella is imaginary Manor Farm located in England. This place becomes the communal territories owned by the animals after the Animal Revolution. The time period associated with the described events is not stated clearly. Animal Farm becomes the place where animals live according to the principles of Animalism and equality of all the animals. These equal animals have the only enemy in men who previously exploited them (Orwell 4).

Concentrating on the allegorical meaning of the novella, it is possible to note that the setting of the story is the Soviet Union after the period of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and during the rule of Joseph Stalin. The setting can be considered as affecting the plot significantly because all the described events occur at Animal Farm where animals try to develop the communal way of life. This farm becomes the place where the pigs win the people and receive the power.

It is possible to state that the story could be told in a different setting, but the features of the fable can be lost because the main distinctive feature of the novella is its allegorical character. While putting the characters of the novella in the real-life setting, it is possible to discuss the moments from the history of the Soviet Union without using any allegories and metaphors in order to accentuate the dramatic features of the regime. That is why, this story about the corrupted leaders and exploited workers presented in a different setting can be discussed as ineffective to reveal the author’s main idea.

The main characters of the novella are Napoleon, Snowball, Boxer, Squealer, and Old Major. The character of Napoleon is based on the personality of Joseph Stalin. This ambitious pig tries to become a leader at Animal Farm after the death of Old Major. Napoleon uses all the means to achieve the goal, and these means are mostly persuasive speeches and unlimited violence. As a result, Napoleon can be described as a political tyrant.

The character of Snowball is based on the personality of Leon Trotsky, the main rival of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. Snowball is an idealist, and he also wants to become a leader at Animal Farm, but he fails because of avoiding the use of extremely violent means and because of basing only on clear reasoning. That is why, Napoleon makes Snowball to become a scapegoat in order to receive the opportunity to cope with the smart competitor.

Boxer is a cart-horse who represents the working class at Animal Farm. Boxer works hard in order to contribute to the farm’s intensive development. He is loyal, strong, naïve, and dedicated to the ideals of Animalism. Boxer can be discussed as motivated by the belief in the better future and achievements of the working animals.

Squealer is a pig who develops the active propaganda at Animal Farm in order to support Napoleon’s ideas and personality (Orwell 20). This pig speaks in a language that is understandable for other animals, and he is motivated by possible Napoleon’s appraisal.

Old Major is an old pig whose character is written basing on the personalities of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Old Major is rather wise, and he is focused on finding better ways for living at farm while avoiding the exploitation of the animals as the lower class (Orwell 3-4).

The character to whom it is possible to relate oneself is Boxer. This cart-horse is the appropriate choice because he discusses the hard work as the only way to build the better future, and he tries to inspire the others to do their best to create something good.

The novella is based on the description of the problematic relationships between Napoleon and Snowball. These pigs are rivals in their fight for leadership at Animal Farm. In spite of the fact that both Napoleon and Snowball orient to receiving the unlimited leadership and influence, the methods which they use to complete the goals are different. That is why, Napoleon who uses violence and fear becomes more powerful than Snowball who uses reasoning. Although Napoleon and Snowball start applying the ideals of Animalism to the regime at Animal Farm as a team, they need more leadership after the death of Old Major. These relations are typical for the ruling class where the fight for power is not only extreme but also prolonged.

The other type of relationships is described with references to workers Boxer and Benjamin. Orwell describes these animals’ relations the following way, “the two of them usually spent their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking” (Orwell 4). The horse and the donkey represent different visions and attitudes to the world and situation, but they live to support each other. Boxer can be described as more enthusiastic and positive while discussing the ideals of Animalism. Benjamin is more passive in spite of the fact that he understands the real situation at Animal Farm. Benjamin chooses not to do anything to fight cruelty of Napoleon’s regime. Thus, this character represents the visions of the majority in the Soviet Union.

The narrative point used in Animal Farm is third-person, and this point of view can be discussed as impersonal and omniscient because Orwell is not presented as a character in the work. First, it seems that the narrator’s perspective is limited, but then it can be found that readers know more than animals which are discussed in the story. Thus, the anonymous narrator not only retells the actions of the animals, but he also presents the motives and thoughts of such characters as Napoleon, Squealer, Boxer, and Benjamin (Orwell 3-14). As a result, this perspective can affect the way according to which the story is told and understood by the reader. The used approach helps accentuate the differences observed in the pigs’ words and their actions toward horses and other animals who work hard to support the commune.

The narrator can also be described as detached, and there are more opportunities for the author to present and develop the allegorical meaning of the novella while focusing on the real motivation of such characters as Napoleon and Squealer while comparing their words, thoughts, and actions with the activities of the other animals at the farm (Orwell 58-64). This point of view is effective to be used in the allegorical novella because the reader can understand all the hidden meanings of the described activities and words while referring to the narrator’s ironical remarks and hints. That is why, the choice of the perspective is rather appropriate to address the idea or message of this satirical story.

The ending of the novella can be discussed as appropriate to represent the result of corruption of the ideals and principles developed at Animal Farm. Thus, animals betrayed their ideals because of the benefits of working with their human enemies. However, the last scene demonstrates that animals and men have many features in common because of their focus on cheating, exploiting, and expanding only their own properties. The quarrel between animals’ leaders and people observed by the other animals through windows of the house reveals that “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” (Orwell 118). Thus, Orwell effectively stresses on how tyrants can use the ideals against the lower classes and support their power with the methods used by the previous leaders.

Animal Farm should be recommended for reading to others because this allegorical novella is helpful to understand the nature of the totalitarian regimes which can be based on the effective ideals. Furthermore, the novella is interesting to help readers become detached from the historical reality associated with the Russian Revolution and look at the events from the other perspective. The satirical anti-utopian story makes the reader think about the true nature of many things observed in different types of the society. In his work, Orwell effectively discussed the threats of the totalitarian regimes which can be corrupted because of the aspects of the human nature. That is why, the novella can be actively recommended to the readers to look at the political events from the perspective of the satirical fable.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1990. Print.

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Animal Farm by George Orwell – Summary and Themes

Analysis and summary of the key themes in george orwell's classic fairytale about the russian revolution..

Lucy Davidson

01 jan 2022, @lucejuiceluce.

Animal Farm is a novella written by George Orwell, published in 1945. The book tells the story of a group of animals who live on a farm and overthrow their human farmer. The animals then establish their own government, led by the pigs. However, over time, the pigs begin to abuse their power and the other animals start to rebel.

The book is an allegory for the Soviet Union , and it critiques the Stalinist regime. Orwell believed that Stalinism was a form of authoritarianism, where those in power abused their authority and oppressed the people. Though described as a ‘fairy story’, Animal Farm derives nearly all of its events and characters from real historical events or groups of people.

Here’s a brief analysis of the key themes in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

The Soviet Union

Animal Farm broadly attacks all forms of totalitarianism. However, it specifically targets the then Soviet Union , which, in the decades before and during World War Two , became a totalitarian state under Stalin. The first section of the book parallels the final years of the 19th century, where Russia was ruled by Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Like Mr. Jones, the Tsar was seen as decadent and uncaring that millions of Russians were starving and angry. Just as the animals overthrow their oppressors at Manor Farm, so did the Russian people overthrow the Tsar via the Russian Revolution.

However, a democratic coalition of animals which represent Lenin (Old Major), Stalin (Napoleon) and Trotsky (Snowball) quickly gives way to the consolidation of power among the pigs. The pigs then establish themselves as the new ruling class and manipulate the other animals into bending to their will, to the extent that some even confess to, and are executed for, imaginary crimes. Moreover, the blame for the failings of the harvest and the destruction of the windmill are laid at the feet of external forces or characters, such as the exiled Snowball.

Just like Napoleon with Animalism, Stalin eventually abandoned the founding principles of the Russian Revolution in pursuit of tyrannical rule and the consolidation of his own power. The pigs’ journey into violent government and the adoption of human behaviours and even clothing demonstrate that they have become the oppressors that the revolution was initially designed to overthrow.

Abuse of the working class

Though the novel is never specifically narrated from one character, it depicts both despotic rulers, as outlined above, and oppressed workers. More specifically, the novel is told from the perspective of the common animals as a collective. The pigs quickly distance themselves from the other animals by claiming that they themselves are ‘mindworkers’, leaving the common animals to do the physical labour on the farm. The common animals such as Clover and Boxer are depicted as loyal and hardworking but ultimately gullible, with little access to education or a union which might allow them to understand how they are being manipulated.

For instance, hardworking Boxer chooses to accept Napoleon’s often puzzling and damaging rulings by telling himself that ‘Napoleon is always right’. However, when Boxer grows weak and his usefulness expires, he is sent to the knacker’s yard. Orwell thus demonstrates how the inability or unwillingness to question authority entraps the working class in an inescapable cycle of abuse.

Language and propaganda

Throughout the novel, language is weaponised to create a power imbalance between the common animals and the pigs, with the aim of consolidating the pigs’ power and political rulings. Moreover, Orwell points out that education – or lack of it – allows for power abuses to occur because some are able to understand language, while others aren’t.

At the beginning of the novel, the animals are broadly educated to the same level. However, after the rebellion, Napoleon and Snowball reveal that they have distilled Old Major’s ideas into the theory of Animalism, and that they have also taught themselves to read. This allows the pigs to distance themselves as an intellectual class, and refer to themselves as ‘mindworkers’ who know what is best for everyone. This allows them to be propelled to power.

Moreover, the common animals are either unintelligent or occupied with too much manual labour to be able to be educated, which thus keeps them subservient to the educated pigs. This is encapsulated in Napoleon’s demand that they build a school for his children, which allows the pigs to consolidate their educational power for another generation, and quite literally occupies the common animals with a manual task.

The common animals having no education also means that they struggle to question the Seven Commandments as they are changed in the pigs’ favour. Instead, the pigs project an image of power because of their education which means that animals such as Boxer obey them unquestioningly. The most famous slogan from the book, “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” is almost meaningless; however, because the language sounds similar to the original ideals of Animalism, characters like Squealer are able to manipulate the common animals into believing that the principle still benefits them.

Human abuse of animals

In addition to the animals being an allegory for humans exploiting one another, Orwell draws a more literal comparison between the abuse of animals at the hands of humans. For instance, the initial rebellion occurs because Mr. Jones has forgotten to feed all of the animals again; their anger at being mistreated is justified.

We learn of the animals’ perception of the cruelty of Mr. Jones’ farm, which is home to equipment similar to many farms today: “…wipe out the last traces of Jones’s hated reign. The harness-room at the end of the stables was broken open; the bits, the nose-rings, the dog-chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had been used to castrate the pigs and lambs, were all flung down the well”.

Chapters of Animal Farm

Animal Farm – Chapter 1 Animal Farm – Chapter 2 Animal Farm – Chapter 3 Animal Farm – Chapter 4 Animal Farm – Chapter 5 Animal Farm – Chapter 6 Animal Farm – Chapter 7 Animal Farm – Chapter 8 Animal Farm – Chapter 9 Animal Farm – Chapter 10

For an overview of the novel’s key characters and what they represent, click here .

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Aranda, Assed

Karlsson, jasper mauro, abstract [en].

This essay aims to research the writing of George Orwell by analysing the four main pigs in his novel Animal Farm from a linguistic and rhetorical perspective. The paper's purpose is to explore occurrences of chosen phenomena tied to linguistic and rhetorical theory, with the goal to create an understanding of how Orwell portrays his characters exercising leadership and how their communicative strategies differ or coincide. In order to investigate occurrences of linguistic and rhetorical phenomena, the method of qualitative content analysis with a directed approach will be applied. This method of choice leaves room for interpretation based on the chosen theories and can assist in answering the research question. The results incline towards the pigs in Orwell’s novel applying various forms of linguistic and rhetorical strategies, often to persuade, manipulate and/or deceive the animals. Additionally, it is prevalent that there are both similarities and differences in the pigs' use of leadership as well as the use of linguistic and rhetorical strategies. Lastly, the paper will discuss and reflect on the results in order to draw conclusions and answer the research question.

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Keywords [en], national category, identifiers, subject / course, supervisors, jakobsson, mattias, open access in diva, file information, by organisation, on the subject, search outside of diva, altmetric score.

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The Freedom of the Press

Proposed preface to Animal Farm , first published in the Times Literary Supplement on 15 September 1972 with an introduction by Sir Bernard Crick. Ian Angus found the original manuscript in 1972.

This material remains under copyright and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Orwell Estate . The Orwell Foundation is an independent charity – please consider  making a donation  or becoming a Friend of the Foundation to help us maintain these resources for readers everywhere. 

This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published (in spite of the present book shortage which ensures that anything describable as a book will ‘sell’), and in the event it was refused by four publishers. Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political colour. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it. Here is an extract from his letter:

I mentioned the reaction I had had from an important official in the Ministry of Information with regard to Animal Farm. I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think… I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs[1]. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.

This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.

Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian ‘co-ordination’ that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.

Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news—things which on their own merits would get the big headlines—being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. And this nation-wide conspiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough, against a background of genuine intellectual tolerance. For though you are not allowed to criticise the Soviet government, at least you are reasonably free to criticise our own. Hardly anyone will print an attack on Stalin, but it is quite safe to attack Churchill, at any rate in books and periodicals. And throughout five years of war, during two or three of which we were fighting for national survival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advocating a compromise peace have been published without interference. More, they have been published without exciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of the USSR is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld. There are other forbidden topics, and I shall mention some of them presently, but the prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group.

The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicised with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. To name only one instance, the BBC celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Red Army without mentioning Trotsky. This was about as accurate as commemorating the battle of Trafalgar without mentioning Nelson, but it evoked no protest from the English intelligentsia. In the internal struggles in the various occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favoured by the Russians and libelled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence in order to do so. A particularly glaring case was that of Colonel Mihailovich, the Jugoslav Chetnik leader. The Russians, who had their own Jugoslav protege in Marshal Tito, accused Mihailovich of collaborating with the Germans. This accusation was promptly taken up by the British press: Mihailovich’s supporters were given no chance of answering it, and facts contradicting it were simply kept out of print. In July of 1943 the Germans offered a reward of 100,000 gold crowns for the capture of Tito, and a similar reward for the capture of Mihailovich. The British press ‘splashed’ the reward for Tito, but only one paper mentioned (in small print) the reward for Mihailovich: and the charges of collaborating with the Germans continued. Very similar things happened during the Spanish civil war. Then, too, the factions on the Republican side which the Russians were determined to crush were recklessly libelled in the English leftwing press, and any statement in their defence even in letter form, was refused publication. At present, not only is serious criticism of the USSR considered reprehensible, but even the fact of the existence of such criticism is kept secret in some cases. For example, shortly before his death Trotsky had written a biography of Stalin. One may assume that it was not an altogether unbiased book, but obviously it was saleable. An American publisher had arranged to issue it and the book was in print — I believe the review copies had been sent out — when the USSR entered the war. The book was immediately withdrawn. Not a word about this has ever appeared in the British press, though clearly the existence of such a book, and its suppression, was a news item worth a few paragraphs.

It is important to distinguish between the kind of censorship that the English literary intelligentsia voluntarily impose upon themselves, and the censorship that can sometimes be enforced by pressure groups. Notoriously, certain topics cannot be discussed because of ‘vested interests’. The best-known case is the patent medicine racket. Again, the Catholic Church has considerable influence in the press and can silence criticism of itself to some extent. A scandal involving a Catholic priest is almost never given publicity, whereas an Anglican priest who gets into trouble (e.g. the Rector of Stiffkey) is headline news. It is very rare for anything of an anti-Catholic tendency to appear on the stage or in a film. Any actor can tell you that a play or film which attacks or makes fun of the Catholic Church is liable to be boycotted in the press and will probably be a failure. But this kind of thing is harmless, or at least it is understandable. Any large organisation will look after its own interests as best it can, and overt propaganda is not a thing to object to. One would no more expect the Daily Worker to publicise unfavourable facts about the USSR than one would expect the Catholic Herald to denounce the Pope. But then every thinking person knows the Daily Worker and the Catholic Herald for what they are. What is disquieting is that where the USSR and its policies are concerned one cannot expect intelligent criticism or even, in many cases, plain honesty from Liberal writers and journalists who are under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions. Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy must not be seriously discussed. This rule has been almost universally observed since 1941, but it had operated, to a greater extent than is sometimes realised, for ten years earlier than that. Throughout that time, criticism of the Soviet régime from the left could only obtain a hearing with difficulty. There was a huge output of anti-Russian literature, but nearly all of it was from the Conservative angle and manifestly dishonest, out of date and actuated by sordid motives. On the other side there was an equally huge and almost equally dishonest stream of pro-Russian propaganda, and what amounted to a boycott on anyone who tried to discuss all-important questions in a grown-up manner. You could, indeed, publish anti-Russian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly the whole of the highbrow press. Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest. This attitude was usually defended on the ground that the international situation, and the urgent need for an Anglo-Russian alliance, demanded it; but it was clear that this was a rationalisation. The English intelligentsia, or a great part of it, had developed a nationalistic loyalty towards me USSR, and in their hearts they felt that to cast any doubt on the wisdom of Stalin was a kind of blasphemy. Events in Russia and events elsewhere were to be judged by different standards. The endless executions in the purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicise famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in the Ukraine. And if this was true before the war, the intellectual atmosphere is certainly no better now.

But now to come back to this book of mine. The reaction towards it of most English intellectuals will be quite simple: ‘It oughtn’t to have been published.’ Naturally, those reviewers who understand the art of denigration will not attack it on political grounds but on literary ones. They will say that it is a dull, silly book and a disgraceful waste of paper. This may well be true, but it is obviously not the whole of the story. One does not say that a book ‘ought not to have been published’ merely because it is a bad book. After all, acres of rubbish are printed daily and no one bothers. The English intelligentsia, or most of them, will object to this book because it traduces their Leader and (as they see it) does harm to the cause of progress. If it did the opposite they would have nothing to say against it, even if its literary faults were ten times as glaring as they are. The success of, for instance, the Left Book Club over a period of four or five years shows how willing they are to tolerate both scurrility and slipshod writing, provided that it tells them what they want to hear.

The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every opinion, however unpopular — however foolish, even — entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly any English intellectual will feel that he ought to say ‘Yes’. But give it a concrete shape, and ask, ‘How about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?’, and the answer more often than not will be ‘No’. In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organised societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg [sic] said, is ‘freedom for the other fellow’. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: ‘I detest what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilisation means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. Both capitalist democracy and the western versions of Socialism have till recently taken that principle for granted. Our Government, as I have already pointed out, still makes some show of respecting it. The ordinary people in the street – partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them – still vaguely hold that ‘I suppose everyone’s got a right to their own opinion.’ It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice.

One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. This argument was used, for instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were guilty of all the things they were accused of: but by holding heretical opinions they ‘objectively’ harmed the régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to massacre them but to discredit them by false accusations. The same argument was used to justify the quite conscious lying that went on in the leftwing press about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was released in 1943.

These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a workingmen’s college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals — the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this. In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whether or not he had committed any technical crime. We were fighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quisling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in 1943 was an outrage. The general failure to see this was a bad symptom, though it is true that the agitation against Mosley’s release was partly factitious and partly a rationalisation of other discontents. But how much of the present slide towards Fascist ways of thought is traceable to the ‘anti-Fascism’ of the past ten years and the unscrupulousness it has entailed?

It is important to realise that the current Russomania is only a symptom of the general weakening of the western liberal tradition. Had the MOI chipped in and definitely vetoed the publication of this book, the bulk of the English intelligentsia would have seen nothing disquieting in this. Uncritical loyalty to the USSR happens to be the current orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests of the USSR are involved they are willing to tolerate not only censorship but the deliberate falsification of history. To name one instance. At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World — first-hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution — the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin. If a radical intelligentsia had still existed in Britain, this act of forgery would have been exposed and denounced in every literary paper in the country. As it was there was little or no protest. To many English intellectuals it seemed quite a natural thing to do. And this tolerance or plain dishonesty means much more than that admiration for Russia happens to be fashionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particular fashion will not last. For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the Soviet régime may be the generally-accepted one. But what use would that be in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don’t convince me and that our civilisation over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:

By the known rules of ancient liberty.

The word ancient emphasises the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example of this is the failure of the numerous and vocal English pacifists to raise their voices against the prevalent worship of Russian militarism. According to those pacifists, all violence is evil, and they have urged us at every stage of the war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace. But how many of them have ever suggested that war is also evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparently the Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereas for us to do [so] is a deadly sin. One can only explain this contradiction in one way: that is, by a cowardly desire to keep in with the bulk of the intelligentsia, whose patriotism is directed towards the USSR rather than towards Britain. I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. In our country — it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in republican France, and it is not so in the USA today — it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface.

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The Dangers of Tyranny in George Orwell's "Animal Farm"

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