ANIMAL FARM:

A LITERARY ANALYSIS

Felix, Maria Antoinette P.

BSIT 3-4
I. An introduction to the author, including the author's title and place of work,
and some indication of who the author is (e.g., the renowned authority on
political writing; a bold, young campus scholar; a frequent critic of political
totalitarianism).
Animal Farm is written by an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic -
George Orwell. George Orwell is his pseudonym, but his real name was Eric
Arthur Blair. He was born on the 5th day of June year 1903 in Motihari, Bengal,
India. It was the time of the British Colonial Rule. By 1939, Orwell had returned
to England. In 1941, he took a position with the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) as the person in charge of broadcasting to India and Southeast Asia.
Orwell disliked this job immensely, being, as he was, in charge of disseminating
propaganda to these British colonies — an act that went against both his nature
and his political philosophy. In 1943, Orwell took a job more to his liking, as the
literary editor of The Tribune. Orwell's writing career spanned nearly seventeen
years. Ironically, although Orwell didn't consider himself a novelist, he wrote
two of the most important literary masterpieces of the 20th century: Animal
Farm and 1984.
Orwell’s works depict social injustice, outspoken support for democratic
socialism and opposition to totalitarianism – a political system in which the state
recognizes no limits to its authority.
Orwell’s Animal Farm is intended for the general public of the Soviet Union. He
adapted his own experiences during the Spanish Civil War in to a setting of a
farm, where there were animals representing the powerful ones, and the
unconscious abused people.
In the beginning of the novel, the animals are holding a secret meeting due to a
dream of Old Major. He sees his end, so he called all the animals inspired them
about the idea of rebellion against the abusive Manor Farm owner Mr. Jones. Old
Major explained that the truthful life of the animals is misery and slavery and
questioned if is it really the order of nature. Old Major soon died, and they cried
out for equality. The animals got so angry and turned down Mr. Jones and his
men. They were able to live as one, following what so called Animalism
Commandments which mainly expresses equality among animals – “four legs
good, two legs bad”. However, problems arose as not all of them follows the
same principles anymore. It was because of snowballs fellow pig, Napoleon. He
was not much of a talker, but wants things on his own way. He captures and
raises the nine puppies of Jessica and Bluebell to be his guards, for he plans on
kicking Snowball out as the leader and taking himself in place of him. His
governance to the Animal Farm was different, taking credit for Snowball’s idea
 and creating a committee of pigs which were slowly becoming like humans. They
were the only ones gaining from the eggs and other products produced, and not
giving credits to all animals who worked hard.
Orwell satirically wrote the novel, in its simplest form of language. His reason
for using simplest language in writing Animal Farm was to interest readers from
all levels, as well as to convey its true message much easier and with no
confusion in the commoner’s minds. It was allegorical, every situation in the
farm has its hidden meaning which refers to communism. Starting from the
Animalism which was the system adapted to Old Major’s idea by the pigs
Snowball and Napoleon – containing commandments about animal equality.
Abuses are also discussed in the story, where they are not able to have a taste of
their products because it intended in exchange for money that they’re not
benefited. In the story also can be seen two classifications of leaders, as seen in
Snowball and Napoleon. Snowball is a very intelligent pig whose primary
purpose was to make the farm free from inequality, while Napoleon wants
what’s the best for the benefit of himself and his fellow pigs. When Snowball was
kicked out of the farm, Napoleon revised the Commandments of the Animal
Farm. They allowed sleeping in bed but without sheets, drinking alcohol but not
in excess, and killing of fellow animal but with a cause – clearly stating
inequality within all animals in the farm. The meaning of Animalism that was
first expressed as “All animals are equal” were changed into “All animals are
equal, but some are more equal than others.”

II. A summary of the intended purpose of the book and how it contributes to
improving academic life and operations and to the discipline of college
planning generally.
The main message of Orwell’s book is that we citizens, must be aware of the
governance in our country. No one is to decide for the majority, so we must take
a stand in questioning the government’s decisions because it is our right as a
person. Not responding to every action they take means a chance of doing
something favorable on their side, disregarding the welfare of the citizens –
corruption and human rights.
Another message is to explain the history and rhetoric of the Russian Revolution,
retelling the story of the emergence and development of Soviet communism in
the form of an animal fable to new generations. He wants the youth (i.e. college
students) to be conscious of what has happened in the past, the abusive and
manipulative leaders which brought misery and slavery to people. History they
say repeats itself, so it is to educate us students of what we should do of ever
 another situation similar to the past would happen. We students must
understand every message in the book and absorb it for by the time we can be a
part of people who contributes for a well governed community.
In the story, their situation became terrible more that the days when Mr. Jones
still in the farm. So terrible, that they cannot even remember the past that’s why
they come to accept it without doing anything against it. It is because of those
words that at the end of the novel our eyes are opened to understand the whole
plot when Orwell states, “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.”

III. A description of the way the author approaches his topic, the rigor of the
work/scholarship, the logic of the argument, and the readability of the prose.
Orwell wrote the manuscript of Animal Farm subsequent to his experiences
during the Spanish Civil War. He explained in its preface how escaping the
communist purges in Spain taught him how easily totalitarian propaganda can
control the opinion of the enlightened people in democratic countries. This
inspires him to uncover and strongly condemn what he saw as the Stalinist
corruption of the original socialist ideals.
Orwell uses animal characters in order to draw the reader away from the world
of current events into a fantasy space where the reader can grasp ideas and
principles more crisply. At the same time, Orwell personifies the animals in the
tradition of allegory so that they symbolize real historical figures. Orwell makes
the thought of people can become desensitized even to terrible things such as
deception, mistreatment and violence more clearly understood in the real world.
In the story for example, he lays bare the matter of execution by having the dogs
rip out the supposed traitor’s throats. In this scene, the reader is led to focus not
as much on the means of execution as on the animalistic, brutal reality of
execution itself.

IV. A comparison with earlier or similar books in the field to place the book in the
existing literature.
Compared to similar books which are politically relating to issues in governance
of some officials, I can say Animal Farm has a different flavor. Orwell as
explained in the previous answers used fantasy to depict the current events in his
time and uses the simplest language to catch the readers of different levels. Even
people who’s not into reading can be interested in the story. It was effective that
 he adapted the setting of a farm which clearly symbolizes some personalities like
Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, etc.
Animal Farm is also a powerful satire. Orwell uses irony to weaken tenets of
totalitarianism, specifically that of Stalinism. Here are two other examples of
ironic humor in the novel. In Chapter I, the narrator describes “Beasts of
England” as “a stirring tune, something between ‘Clementine’ and ‘La
Cucaracha’”. Anyone familiar with those two songs knows that they are childish
ditties. In Chapter IX, the narrator reports that the pigs find “a large bottle of
pink medicine” in the farmhouse’s medicine cabinet. They send it out to Boxer,
who is deathly ill. We can assume that the medicine, being pink, is the antacid
Pepto-Bismol, hardly useful to someone on his deathbed. By lightening his
allegory with ironic humor, Orwell makes the story more palatable without
taking away from his message.

V. An evaluation of the book's merits, usefulness, and special contributions,

along with shortcomings you think are necessary to point out.
Although Animal Farm came out a highly successful one, Orwell had
encountered a problem in getting the novel published. First, he was promoting a
book against Stalin during the time when Western support for the Soviet Union
was still high due to its support in allied victories in contradiction to Germany.
Second, Orwell was no yet well known as a literary writer. For those reasons, the
novel only became known only at the war’s end.
Animal farm became the first hit novel of George Orwell, and it contributed him
to be a literary star. Despite the fact that some publishers hesitated in printing
the book, the public in both Britain and United States accepted it with
enthusiasm. Many copies were sold in the United States alone in four years. It
was even translated into different languages, proving its universal reach.

VI. Prospects of Understanding: Viewing thru the lenses of literary critical

approaches.
1. How can characters’ behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in
terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for example unconscious,
regression, crisis, projection, fear of or fascination with death, sexuality---
which includes love and romance as well as sexual behavior---as a primary
indicator of psychological identity, or the operations of ego-id-superego)?
In psychological aspect, Animal Farm is an interesting and challenging literature
to analyze. It is for the reason that the main characters in the novel are animals.
In the novel, Orwell revealed Napoleon’s desires that he unconsciously
expressed in his actions throughout his rise of power. Napoleon craved for relief
and pleasure, for he, just like the other animals in the manor farm have
experienced torture in Mr. Jones’ hands. That torture became a trauma to
Napoleon that changed his ego. Introduced by Freud in 1923, the term ego is
believed to be the balance between id and superego. Id referred to as a source of
passion, desire, greed, and natural instinct. On the other hand, superego is seen
as what uphold order, rules, and moral standards (Segrist, 2009, p.51). Therefore,
human behavior is an outcome of combining one’s desire and moral standards.
What happened to Napoleon was that his traumatic experience destroyed what
they call the balance between his id and superego. As a consequence, Napoleon
only favored his own comfort. He began to expose his self-centered thinking
after Mr. Jones got kicked out of the farm. When the superego still had some
influence over Napoleon, his actions of making himself more at ease was in
secret. It started when the milk gained from the cows have vanished (Orwell,
1996, p.26). Times passes and the power of the id increased and his intentions are
more vivid than ever. It got to the point where the amendments he had made
and the animal’s well-being are already none of his worries. Slowly he became to
look like Mr. Jones, giving misery and torture to animals to get what he wants.
He forced the chickens to produce eggs in exchange for his luxuries, and other
animals are forced to work overtime underfed while the pigs are in a feast. Mr.
Jones’ torture lowered the superego in Napoleon. Still, the rise of power did not
only come from this reason alone.
The other character, Boxer, has a different case compared to Napoleon. All
animals were in trouble because of their nature. Rather than choosing his
pleasure and comfort just like what Napoleon has done, Boxer gave all his trust
on the Animalism policy. He gave all his efforts and followed all of the pig’s
policies, not making any single criticism and even not questioning the obviously
unfair ruling of the pigs. Believing the pigs are the only ones who can rule them
because of their intelligence, all the other animals who were given a privilege to
study did not take it seriously. The opportunity to learn and understand things
easily went to waste. If Boxer resisted the struggle of learning, he wouldn’t be
ever as dumb and unconscious of what were the pigs’ real intentions are after
kicking Snowball out of the Animal Farm. This led the imbalance of Boxer’s ego,
letting his superego rule over his id. Regardless of the exhausting labor, he still
manages to work overtime. He, who was the strongest among all animals in the
farm, would win over the pigs if given the intellect and confidence to fight over
 what he believe is right. But him being the most puppet among all of them, no
animal can even defend themselves against the power of Napoleon.

2. How might the work be seen as a critique of capitalism, imperialism or

classism? That is in what ways does the text reveal, and invite us to condemn
oppressive socio-economic forces (including repressive ideologies)? If a work
criticizes or invites us to criticize oppressive socioeconomic forces, then it may
be said to have a Marxist agenda.
Let us first define the three terms before we look at the context of Animal Farm
regarding criticisms of capitalism, imperialism and classism. Capitalism based on
the website Wikipedia is defined as “an economic system and an ideology based
on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.”
Orwell criticizes capitalism by first focusing on Mr. Jones’ greed. He uses the
animals for his own profit. The animals are mere tools in his hands, as explained
by Old Major during his sudden meeting in the big barn. “Man is the only
creature that consumes without producing.” The animals do not benefit from
their own labor at all.
After the rebellion, animals weren’t supposed to adopt the evils habits of
humans. The idea of equality however, had been crushed, for the pigs looked for
their own comfort and pleasure just like humans do. Whatever they do are only
for their own interests, not concerning about the other animals well-being.
The epitome of the pig’s evilness is best conveyed by Boxer’s death. The pigs
have become ruthlessly greedy that his body was sold to the knacker, in
exchange of a case of whisky.
Orwell makes his criticism of capitalism obvious that these systems fail not
because they are inherently flawed, but because of Man’s innate selfishness and
greed. It is in fact which eventually ensures that those in authority become
corrupt and exploit, threaten, and manipulate those they deem inferior for their
own profit and privilege.
Imperialism refers to “a policy of extending a country’s power and influence
through diplomacy or military force.”
There isn’t clear criticism of Orwell on the book regarding imperialism.
However, it seems like to him that this kind of governance doesn’t work well.
Orwell acknowledges its flaws, primarily the fact that the people aren’t too
happy.
 This can be explained at the beginning of the novel, Mr. Jones was described to a
successful farmer. We can’t say he was mistreating the animals because that’s
what should be done in a farm - you raise pigs to slaughter them for meat, raise
chickens for their eggs, etc. Animals can never be equal to humans. At first they
are mostly content because they believe it’s their nature as animals. It was only
reversed by the idea of Old Major of having a democratic group of animals.
The implication of this situation explains Orwell finds imperialism somehow a
productive one, but not the best system.
Another scenario in the book showing imperialism, is when Napoleon adopted
the dogs and raised them with in his own without the other animals knowing.
He taught them his own principles, making them horrible and wild. The dogs
were his bodyguards, and used to scare the other animals if ever they make any
objections to Napoleon governing the Animal Farm. Imperialism is also shown
by the way Napoleon administer the farm. He took over the farm and owned it
himself – changing every rules that favors on his side only.
Classism is described as “prejudice against or in favor of people belonging to a
particular social class.” With regards to the novel, there are classes formed
during the time of Napoleon’s leadership. The animals in the farm are divided
into two classes, Napoleon’s circle of committee and the working class. There
seems to be a favor in the pig’s class because they took advantage of the working
class who’s not complaining about being unfed despite of their massive efforts in
the farm. Thus I can also see that aside from the greed and pleasure of the pigs,
the lower classes who did not stood up for themselves despite the misery they
were experiencing in Animal Farm was the major reason why Animalism never
worked.
With all these situations shown in the novel, it clearly has a Marxist agenda.

3. How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning? How exactly does
the text’s indeterminacy function as a stimulus to interpretation? (For example,
what events are omitted or unexplained? What descriptions are omitted or
incomplete? What images might have multiple associations?) And how exactly
does the text lead us to correct our interpretation as we read?
Orwell wrote the Animal Farm in such as friendly style, in a manner that the
message is clearly expressed although using a fable as disguise or indirect
criticism to unfavorable governance system. He showed situations in the novel
that gets the sympathy of the readers. An example of this would be the
description of Boxer’s removal:
“Boxer's face did not reappear at the window. Too late, someone thought of
racing ahead and shutting the five-barred gate; but in another moment the van
was through it and rapidly disappearing down the road. Boxer was never seen
again. (9.24) “

Reading this scene seems to be a burst of heart-wrenching feeling, like watching

an animal being thrown away. But Orwell doesn’t bother with sentiment of
flowery language. There’s no description of what the animals felt or how they
panicked or moralizing about the situation. The readers just learned that they
thought to close the farm gate “too late.” It was simple, but simply powerful.

The ending of the story left the readers hanging. As a reader, the last part of the
book hit me to back into the sad reality, when the animals already cannot
distinguish who’s the pig and who’s human, as if they are the same. Although
Orwell used fable to show an indirect criticisms on such governance systems, the
plot was somehow realistic up to the point that justice was not provided to the
animals in the end, after Boxer disappeared. In real life not all citizens in the
world are able to fight for their right and some of them are dominated with fear
because of some reasons – lack of knowledge and power to stand against the
ones governing their area.
REFERENCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell

https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Orwell

https://www.biography.com/people/george-orwell-9429833
https://www.shmoop.com/animal-farm/writing-style.html

http://www.gradesaver.com/animal-farm

https://www.scribd.com/document/333475799/a-psychoanalytic-reading-on-
animal-farm