George Orwell's most powerful and important works were Animal Farm and 1984, which described the corruption of the socialist ideal in the 20th Century at the hands of Lenin and Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. Instead of liberating the masses from the oppression of capitalism, they created a new kind of totalitarian tyranny that was more brutal than the old order it replaced, one that enslaved the common people to a new set of masters. Orwell had witnessed this firsthand during the Spanish Civil War, when he fought on the Republican side against Francisco Franco and the Nationalists. Barcelona in 1936 was the "first time I had ever seen the working class in the saddle," and he approved of it (Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 4). He regarded this "immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for," and the war as part of a common struggle against fascism by all the liberal and leftist parties in the Popular Front (Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 5). In Spain, however, he was fighting with a non-Communist militia, the POUM, the party of Marxist Unification, which was suppressed on Stalin's orders.
Orwell witnessed the events in Barcelona in which all the socialists and anarchists not under Stalin's control were rounded up and massacred by the Communist military and secret police. He had regarded their militias, cooperatives and collectives as "a sort of microcosm of a classless society" and an early stage of socialism (Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 105). Their destruction opened his eyes to the true nature of Stalinism, which he wrote about in Homage to Catalonia. He had also seen how the Communists distorted and covered up all these events in their propaganda, which made him wonder whether the concept of objective truth had disappeared from the world Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 223). This was another important aspect of his theme of the totalitarian nature of Stalinism: its constant suppression of facts and truth in favor of the current Party line, from which no deviation was tolerated.
Animal Farm is an allegory of the Soviet Union from the era of the Russian Revolution through the rise of Joseph Stalin and the German invasion in the Second World War. It reflects Orwell's most important theme that the early ideals and hopes of socialism had been destroyed by the totalitarian rule of the Communist Party, especially under Stalin, and that for the ordinary workers and peasants, the revolution had only ended up substituting one form of slavery for another. It begins with the Old major (Karl Marx) preaching at a revolutionary meeting that all animals are equal and have a right to the products of their labor, which are now being expropriated by the owner of Manor Farm, Mr. Jones -- who symbolizes the capitalists. He tells them to overthrow the humans and take over the farm, but always to treat all humans as the enemy: "all men are enemies. All animals are comrades" (Orwell, Animal Farm, 10). Only later is this constantly repeated slogan changed to "All animals are equal -- but some are more equal than others," symbolized the fact that the Communist Party had now become the new ruling class, at least as tyrannical and repressive as the one it overthrew (Orwell, Animal Farm, 89).
In Animal Farm, the pigs represent the Communist Party; dogs are the secret police, while the sheep are the mindless animals that go along with whatever the Party and Napoleon (Stalin) decree and the work horses like Boxer stupidly and blindly work themselves to death for their new overlords. In fact, Boxer is constantly repeating "I will work harder" until he finally falls over dead (Orwell, Animal Farm, 26). Snowball is the pig who represents Leon Trotsky, exiled from the Soviet Union by Stalin in the power struggle after Lenin's death and later assassinated in Mexico in 1940 by a Soviet agent. In the story, he is perceived as "quicker in speech and more inventive" than Napoleon, "but not considered to have the same depth of character" (Orwell, Animal Farm, 15). Orwell gives credit to the heroic sacrifices that all the animals made to defeat the invaders that attempted to take over the farm. These were the fascist and Nazi invaders in Operation Barbarossa in 1941, who Orwell realized were far more ruthless than the old ruling class. At the end of the story, however, he notes that the pigs who now rule the farm (Russia) are really no different from the men in the capitalist and imperialist powers like Britain,...
George Orwell's 1984: The Danger That Abuse Of Power Poses To Individual Liberty There are several themes in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four that are still relevant in our world today, which is evident if a process of analysis is used to draw parallels between the book and current day issues. One such theme is the danger that the abuse of power poses to individual liberty. Indeed, the preceding statement is as
In Animal Farm, Orwell more directly satirizes real world events, as the overthrow of a farmer by his animals and the progression of the new order established there to a totalitarian dictatorship closely mirrors that of Russia's sudden transition to Communism and Stalin's iron-fisted rule. Whereas 1984 drops the reader immediately into the world of a government gone wrong, Animal Farm shows the emergence of such a government. Things begin
So, the reader of this essay was set up by Orwell perfectly: blast away at the stinking rotting, drunken social scene in Paris, frequented in large part by Americans pretending to have talent, and mention that Miller thought this was cool to write about. Then bring in the terrible, frightening and bloody realities happening elsewhere in Europe, and you have shown what a rascal Miller was. But wait, Orwell admits
Animal Farm An Analysis of Orwell's Animal Farm George Orwell's Animal Farm is a highly symbolic "fantasy" in which modern day revolution, ideologues, working class members, media and human nature are represented by the animals of Jones' Farm, the setting for the staged rebellion and the institutionalization of Totalitarianism. This paper will analyze Animal Farm from the perspective of plot, character, setting, theme, point-of-view, style and symbolism and show how Orwell's novel
Clergyman's Daughter George Orwell wrote much of his work with the ills of society in mind. Among these is his disdain for the general bourgeois mentality that he observed in the England of his time. Thus two major issues that he addresses in A Clergyman's Daughter (1935) are religious hypocrisy and the education system. Both of these result in society churning out more of the bourgeois, dull and prejudiced people
It was certainly the hope for the socialists and for the Bolsheviks in Russia before the revolution was taken over by Stalin and turned into a different sort of stat than had been envisioned. It was the hope of those fighting the Nazis in Spain, making it also the hope Orwell had when he entered that battle. His disillusionment with the process derives from the fact that human nature
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now