'Animal Farm' af George Orwell, analyse

Animal Farm is one of George Orwell’s finest works and it’s a political fable based on the events of Russia's Bolshevik revolution and the betrayal of the cause by Joseph Stalin. Orwell wrote Animal Farm toward the end of World War II when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was being hailed by the Allied forces for its decisive victories over Nazi Germany at Stalingrad and Kursk. The novel got published the 17th august 1945 and more than 11 million copies has been sold over the past seven decades.

The message in Animal Farm is according to George Orwell himself that power corrupts even when idealism is at play, in other words, power is always superior. We see that in animal farm when in the beginning they all agree that all animals are equal, but when Napoleon got his power, everything started to change. Napoleon changed the society on the farm by transforming it into a military and industrial power by using his force consisting of the dogs.

The novel symbolizes Russia and the Soviet Union under the Communistic Party role in 1917 therefore a lot of the characters in Animal Farm symbolize different political persons from the Soviet Union. For instance, are Napoleon a symbol of Josef Stalin who were the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. During Stalin’s reign the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign, similarly to Napoleon’s reign. Snowball however is a symbol of Leon Trotsky who were a Russian revolutionary and politics. He was one of the leaders of the October revolution and were the second in command after Lenin. After Lenin’s death in 1924 were he one of the opponents against Stalin’s political ideas. Leon Trotsky got killed the 21st august 1940 just like snowball got forced by Napoleon to leave Animal Farm before so Napoleon himself could take over the farm. The hard-working horse Boxer on the other hand didn’t symbolize some politics but he symbolized the workers that slogged hard every day to please the leader.