A very good book. Review on Animal Farm - George Orwell

There are few books, which can so beautifully capture how a few individuals can corrupt an ideal. George Orwell who has written the highly acclaimed ‘1984’ wrote this book in 1943 during the Second World War and this book is based in a farm in England. The story talks about a revolution that takes place among the animals of the farm and how they overthrow their cruel human master and how they govern themselves.

The main characters

Napoleon, Snowflake and Squealer the pigs

Boxer and Clover the horses

Benjamin the donkey

And Old Major the boar (though he dies in the first chapter)

The Story

Now the story begins in Manor Farm, when Old Major has a dream and he passes this dream on to the other animals of the farm, in his speech he talks about how all animals were meant to be free and all animals are equal, but MAN by his actions hurts all animals. So he declares in his last breath that there must be a revolution amongst all animals and they should revolt against the humans.

Now in this book, George Orwell states that the smartest animal on the farm is the pig and as the book proceeds we see that it is the pigs that slowly assert themselves as the leaders of the revolt namely Snowflake and Napoleon. They drive off the humans from the farm and then they formulate seven rules to capture the ideas that have been stated in the speech by Old Major. They are based on the fact that all on two legs are bad, all that walk on four legs (or use wings) are friends, no animal shall wear clothes, or sleep in a bed, or drink alcohol, or kill another animal and that all animals are equal.

For a while all things on the farm are good and the farm is renamed as the ‘Animal Farm’, the pigs learn how to read and write and take over the ruling of the farm, they slowly start taking advantage of the other animals in small ways like they use all the milk for themselves or they don’t work themselves but make all the other animals work. But there is a general atmosphere of content, for the animals are working for themselves and not feeding their cruel human masters, and even if the pigs take a little more then the others there was still plenty for the others.

But there soon is a problem in that Snowflake and Napoleon don’t get along, each would try to destroy the others plans, finally Napoleon in a vicious attack using some dogs drives of Snowflake from the farm. This is the advent of total domination of the animals by Napoleon who now starts commanding the others to do whatever he wishes. In short as the book proceeds we see the pigs starting to behave exactly as you would expect the humans to behave.

But all said and done it is the end of the book that really beautifully written where Orwell compares the pigs and the humans. Another very touching story in this book is that of Boxer the horse, he is the force on which the farm runs. He has only two motto’s in life the first is ‘I shall work harder’ and the other ‘Napoleon is always right’, it is very painful to see how he is used by Napoleon and then in the end how he is brutally slaughtered for the personal gain of the pigs.

Final take

When I asked my mother today whether she’d read the ‘Animal farm’ she in turn asked me whether I had just read it myself and ended up scolding me for missing a classic. So I’ll just repeat my mother’s words, anybody over the age of 22 who’s missed it, what are you people doing, those under 22 well just go read it.

Have a nice day