ANIMAL FARM

'''Animal Farm''' (full title: '''Animal Farm: A Fairy Story''') is a novella by George Orwell, and is perhaps the most famous satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism. Published in 1945, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era. Orwell, a democratic socialist, and a member of the Independent Labour Party for many years, was a critic of Stalin, and was suspicious of Moscow-directed Stalinism after his experiences with the NKVD during the Spanish Civil War.
The novel was chosen by ''Time'' Magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to present)^[1] and was number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels.

Overview

The plot is an allegory in which the pigs in a farm play the role of the Bolshevik revolutionaries and overthrow and oust the human owners of the farm, setting it up as a commune in which, at first, all animals are equal. which the animals show socialism with themselves.

Plot summary

Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm (or "Willingdon Beauty" as he is called when he is exhibited) calls the other animals on the Farm for a meeting, where he compares the humans to parasites and teaches the animals a revolutionary song, "Beasts of England."
When Major dies three days later, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command, and turn his dream into a full-fledged philosophy. The animals revolt and drive Mr. Jones from the farm, renaming it "Animal Farm."
The Seven Commandments of Animalism are written on the wall of a barn for all to read. The most important is the seventh, "All animals are equal." All animals work, but the workhorse, Boxer, does more than others and adopts the maxim — "I will work harder."
Snowball the pig attempts to teach the other animals to read and write (though few besides the pigs learn to read well), food is plentiful, and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership, demonstrating their elitism by setting aside special food items for their personal health. Meanwhile, Napoleon takes the pups from the farm dogs and trains them privately. When Mr. Jones tries to retake the farm, the animals defeat him at what they call the "Battle of the Cowshed." Napoleon and Snowball begin a power struggle for leadership. When Snowball announces his idea for a windmill, Napoleon quickly opposes it. Snowball makes a passionate speech in favour of the windmill, then Napoleon summons his nine attack dogs, which chase Snowball away. In Snowball's absence, Napoleon declares himself leader and makes changes. Meetings will no longer be held because a committee of pigs alone will decide what happens with the farm.

Screenshot from Animal Farm (1954 film)

Napoleon, using a young pig named Squealer as a mouthpiece, announces that Snowball stole the idea for the windmill from him. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. After a violent storm, the animals find the fruit of their labor annihilated. Though neighboring farmers scoff at the thin walls, Napoleon and Squealer convince everyone that Snowball destroyed the windmill. Once Snowball becomes the scapegoat, Napoleon begins to purge the farm, killing many animals he accuses of consorting with Snowball. Meanwhile, Boxer takes up a second maxim, "Napoleon is always right."
Napoleon abuses his powers, and life becomes harder for the animals; the pigs impose more controls while reserving privileges for themselves. The pigs rewrite history to villainize Snowball and glorify Napoleon, for example stating that Snowball fought for the humans in the Battle of the Cowshed, and that Napoleon bit Snowball, when Snowball was actually hit by a pellet from Jones' gun. Squealer justifies everything, even the occasions when the pigs alter the Seven Commandments, for example, "No animal shall drink alcohol" becomes "No animal shall drink alcohol ''to excess''." The song "Beasts of England" is banned as inappropriate (as the dream of Animal Farm has been realized), and is replaced by an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who begins to live more like a human. The animals, though cold, starving, and overworked, remain convinced that they are still better off than when they were ruled by Mr. Jones, the human owner of Manor Farm. Squealer abuses the animals' poor memories and invents numbers to show their improvement.
Mr. Frederick, one of the two neighboring farmers, swindles Napoleon by buying lumber with forged money, and then attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the recently restored windmill. Though the animals of Animal Farm eventually win the battle, they do so at a great cost, as many of the animals, including Boxer, are wounded. Squealer was mysteriously absent from the fight. Boxer continues to work harder and harder, until he finally collapses while working on the windmill. Napoleon sends for a van to take Boxer to the veterinarian, explaining to the worried animals that better care can be given there. However, Benjamin notices as Boxer is loaded up that the van really belongs to "Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler", but the animals' last desperate attempts are futile. Squealer quickly reports that the van had been purchased by the hospital and that the writing from the previous owner had not been repainted yet. He recounts a dramatic and tear-felt tale of Boxer's death in the hands of the best medical care. In reality, the pigs sent Boxer to his death in exchange for money to buy more whiskey. they soon get drunk from all the whiskey.
Many years pass, and the pigs learn to walk upright, carry whips, and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a single phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and the humans of the area (in the adjacent Foxwood Farm, run by Mr. Pilkington), who congratulate Napoleon on having the hardest-working animals in the country on the least feed. Napoleon announces his alliance with the humans, against the labouring classes of both "worlds". He then abolishes practices and traditions related to the Revolution, and reverts the name of the farm to "Manor Farm".
The animals, overhearing the conversation, notice that the faces of the ruling pigs have begun changing. During a poker match, an argument breaks out between Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington when they both play the Ace of Spades, and the animals realize that the faces of the pigs now look almost exactly like the faces of humans and they can no longer tell the difference between them.

Characters and their possible real life counterparts

The events and characters in ''Animal Farm'' parallel the early history of the Soviet Union; Orwell makes this explicit in the case of Napoleon, whom he directly connects to Stalin in a letter of 17 March 1945 to the publisher.
:...when the windmill is blown up, I wrote "all the animals including Napoleon flung themselves on their faces." I would like to alter it to 'all the animals except Napoleon." If that has been printed it's not worth bothering about, but I just thought the alteration would be fair to JS [ Joseph Stalin ], as he did stay in Moscow during the German advance.
The other characters have their parallels in the real world, but care should be taken with these comparisons as Orwell's intent was not always explicit and they often simply represent generalised concepts.

Pigs

'Old Major' is the inspiration which fuels the Revolution and the book. According to one interpretation, he could be based upon both Marx and Lenin. (As a socialist, Orwell may have agreed with much of Marx, and even respected aspects of Lenin. According to this interpretation, the satire in ''Animal Farm'' is not of Marxism, or of Lenin's revolution, but of the corruption that occurred later.) However, according to Orwell authority Christopher Hitchens:
:As an allegory, the story has one enormous failure: the persons of Lenin and Trotsky are combined into one [i.e., Snowball], or, it might even be truer to say, there is no Lenin-pig at all. Such a stupendous omission cannot have been accidental.... Orwell in his essays was fond of saying that both Lenin and Trotsky bore some responsibility for Stalinism; by eliding this thought... he may have been subconsciously catering to the needs of tragedy.^[2]
Hitchens goes on to agree, however, that in the book "the aims and principles of the Russian Revolution are given face-value credit throughout; this is a revolution betrayed, not a revolution that is monstrous from its inception". Though Old Major is presented positively, Orwell does slip in some flaws, such as his admission that he has largely been free of the abuse the rest of the animals have suffered. Old Major not only represents Marx in the allegory, but also the power of speech and how it can and was used to evoke and inspire people. Old Major also represents the generation who were not content with the old regime and therefore inspired the younger generations to rebel against the regime under which they were living.
'Napoleon', a Berkshire boar, is the main villain of ''Animal Farm''. After Napoleon begins to gradually build up his power, using puppies he raised to be vicious dogs as his de facto secret police. After driving Snowball off the farm, Napoleon usurps full power, using false propaganda from Squealer and threats and intimidation from the dogs to keep the other animals in line. Among other things he gradually changes the Commandments to allow himself privileges and justify his dictatorial rule. By the end of the book Napoleon and his fellow pigs have learned to walk upright and started to behave similar to humans. Orwell modeled him after Joseph Stalin, who set up a dictatorship whose repression and despotism was far worse than that of the Imperial Russian government he supplanted. In the French version of Animal Farm, Napoleon is called 'César' (the French spelling of Caesar).
'Snowball', a white boar, is Napoleon's rival. He is inspired by Leon Trotsky. He wins over most animals. He gets driven out of the farm in the end by Napoleon's dogs (like Trotsky). He is blamed for everything after he is exiled, and though he fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed, Napoleon convinces everyone he was a coward and a double agent for the humans.
'Squealer', a small fat porker, serves as Napoleon's public speaker. Inspired by Vyacheslav Molotov and the Russian paper Pravda, Squealer twists and abuses the language to excuse, justify, and extol all of Napoleon's actions. He represents all the propaganda Stalin used to justify his actions. In all of his work, George Orwell made it a point to show how politicians used language. Squealer limits debate by complicating it, and he confuses and disorients, making claims that the pigs need the extra luxury they are taking in order to function properly, for example. However, when questions persist, he usually uses the threat of Mr. Jones's return as justification for the pigs' privileges. "If this doesn't happen Jones will come back etc. etc.". Squealer uses statistics to convince the animals that life is getting better and better. Most of the animals have only dim memories of life before the revolution so they are convinced.
'Minimus' is a poetical pig who writes the second and third national anthems of ''Animal Farm'' after the singing of "Beasts of England" is banned, representing admirers of Stalin both inside and outside the USSR such as Maxim Gorky. As Minimus composed the replacement of "Beasts of England", he may equate to the three main composers of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union which replaced ''The Internationale'' -- Gabriel El-Registan, Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov, and Sergey Mikhalkov.
'Pinkeye' is a small piglet who tastes Napoleon's food for poisoning.
The 'Piglets' are hinted to be the children of Napoleon (albeit not truly noted in the novel), and are the first generation of animals to actually be subjugated to his idea of animal inequality.
The 'Rebel Pigs' are pigs who complain about Napoleon's takeover of the farm but are quickly silenced and later executed. This is based on the Great Purge during Stalin's regime. The closest parallels to the Rebel Pigs may be Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev.

Humans

'Mr. Jones' represents Nicholas II of Russia, the deposed Tsar, with a nod towards Louis XVI, who had been facing severe financial difficulties in the days leading up to the 1789 Revolution. There are also several implications that he represents an autocratic but ineffective capitalist, incapable of running the farm and looking after the animals properly.
'Mr. Frederick' is the tough owner of Pinchfield, a well-kept neighbouring farm. He represents Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in general.^[3]
'Mr. Pilkington' is the easy-going but crafty owner of Foxwood, a neighboring farm overgrown with weeds, as described in the book. He represents the western powers, such as Britain and the U.S. The card game at the very end of the novel is a metaphor for the Tehran Conference, where the parties flatter each other, all the while cheating at the game. The irony in this last scene is present because of all of the Pigs being civil and kind to the humans, defying all for which they had fought. This was present in the Tehran Conference with the Alliance that the Soviet Union formed with the United States and Britain, capitalist countries that the Soviet Union had fought so hard against in the early years of the revolution.^[3] At the end of the novel, both Napoleon and Pilkington draw the Ace of Spades (which in most games, is the highest-ranking card) at the same time and begin fighting loudly, symbolizing the beginning of tension between the U.S and Soviet superpowers.
'Mr. Whymper' is a man hired by Napoleon to represent ''Animal Farm'' in human society. He is loosely based on Western intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw and, especially, Lincoln Steffens, who visited the U.S.S.R. in 1919 and praised what he saw.

Horses

The three horses Clover, Mollie and Boxer represent the three social classes. Boxer represents the lower class, Clover the middle and Mollie the upper. In the end, Boxer, or the lower class, is the one that gets the most exploited by the pigs, a criticism of how the proletariat was most exploited by the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.
'Boxer', a Shire horse, is one of the main characters. He is the tragic avatar of the working class, or proletariat: loyal, kind, dedicated, and the most physically-strong animal on the farm, but naive and slow, never progressing beyond the fourth letter of the alphabet. His ignorance and blind trust towards his leaders led to his death and their profit. In particular, his heroic physical work represents the Stakhanovite movement. His maxim of "I will work harder" is reminiscent of Jurgis from the Upton Sinclair novel ''The Jungle''.
'Clover' is Boxer's mate and a fellow draft horse. She helps and cares for Boxer when he splits his hoof. She blames herself for forgetting the original Seven Commandments when Squealer revises them. She represents the academic class who were sympathetic toward the workers. Clover is kind and good as is shown when she protects the baby ducklings during Major's speech. She is also upset when animals are executed by the dogs, and is held in great respect by three younger horses who ultimately replace Boxer.
'Mollie' is a self-centered and vain white mare who likes wearing ribbons and eating sugar cubes (which represent luxury) and being pampered by humans. She represents upper-class people, the bourgeoisie and nobility who fled to the West after the Russian Revolution and effectively dominated the Russian diaspora. Accordingly, she quickly leaves for another farm and is only once mentioned again.

Other animals

'Benjamin' is a donkey who is cynical about the Revolution — and just about everything else. Though he is as wise or wiser than the pigs and is the only animal who sees the pigs for the tyrants they are, he doesn't make an attempt to change anything, replying to questions only with the cryptic response of "Donkeys live a long time. None of you have ever seen a dead donkey".
'Moses' is a tame raven who spreads stories of Sugarcandy Mountain, the "Animal Heaven." These beliefs are denounced by the pigs. Moses represents religion (specifically the Russian Orthodox Church), which was brutally persecuted under Communism. It is interesting to note that, while Moses initially leaves the farm after the rebellion, he later returns and is supported by the pigs. This represents the cynical manipulation of the Moscow Patriarchate by the State to control and observe the population. Moses also shows some characteristics of Grigori Rasputin. The acceptance of Moses by the pigs could be seen to represent Stalin's relaxed attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church during WWII, as the Church was a way to raise funds for the Russian war effort.
'Muriel' is a goat who reads the edited commandments. She may represent intelligent labour. It is also possible she serves as a ''deus ex machina'', because she is the only non-pig (excluding Benjamin) that will read. The fact that she dies near the end of the book may imply that her generation of intelligent labour was ultimately extinct.
'Jessie' and 'Bluebell' are two dogs who give birth in Chapter III. Their puppies are nurtured by Napoleon to inspire fear, representing the formation of the NKVD.
The 'Hens' represent the Kulaks, peasants who did well under the NEP in the 1920s but later were persecuted by Stalin during the collectivisation drive that followed. They had refused to give up their eggs, the way the Kulaks had indignantly resisted surrendering their farms to State control during the 1930s. Napoleon promptly starved the hens to death — the exact same punishment Stalin inflicted upon the Kulaks (see Holodomor).
The 'Dogs' are Napoleon's secret police and bodyguards (inspired by Cheka, NKVD, KGB, OGPU, MVD).
The 'Pigeons' symbolise Soviet propaganda to European countries and the U.S. Communist newspapers and diplomats raved about technological advances and bountiful harvests, but never allowed outsiders to check the validity.
The 'Sheep' show the blind loyalty of the proletariat in the midst of the Russian Civil War, and the masses during Stalin's reign. (“Four legs good, two legs bad!” eventually becomes "Four legs good, two legs better!" after Squealer privately teaches them this saying).
The 'Cat' shows the unethical, silent rejections of the new order — unwilling to work, yet encouraging others to do so, and acting bravely in the face of threats, but disappearing when there is actual danger. Some say the cat represents the flaws in Animalism or Communism. The fact that she attends Old Major's meeting at the beginning "without listening to a word he is saying" also implies that she is unwilling, or ignorant, of how else to live. She may refer to the Thieves in Law and the Russian Mafia, and may aslo be a caricature of a typical Zampolit.

Significance

The allegory that the book employs allows it to be read on a variety of different levels.
Orwell wrote the book following his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, which are described in another of his books, ''Homage to Catalonia''. He intended it to be a strong condemnation of what he saw as the Stalinist corruption of the original socialist ideals. For the preface of a Ukrainian edition he prepared in 1947, Orwell described what gave him the idea of setting the book on a farm.^[5]
:..I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat.
This Ukrainian edition was an early propaganda use of the book. It was printed to be distributed among the Soviet citizens of Ukraine who were just some of the many millions of displaced persons throughout Europe at the end of the Second World War. The American occupation forces considered the edition to be propaganda printed on illegal presses, and handed 1,500 confiscated copies of ''Animal Farm'' over to the Soviet authorities. The politics in the book also affected Britain, with Orwell reporting that Ernest Bevin was "terrified"^[6] that it may cause embarrassment if published before the 1945 general election.
In recent years the book has been used to compare new movements that overthrow heads of a corrupt and undemocratic government or organization, only to eventually become corrupt and oppressive themselves as they succumb to the trappings of power and begin using violent and dictatorial methods to keep it. Such analogies have been used for many former African colonies such as Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose succeeding African-born rulers were accused of being as corrupt as, or worse than, the European colonists they supplanted.
The book also clearly ponders whether a focus of power in one person is healthy for a society. The book leaves the ending slightly ambiguous in this regard.

Allusions to history, geography and current science

★ Manor Farm is based on Chalk Farm [1] in Willingdon, Eastbourne.

★ The ousting of the humans after the farmers forget to feed the animals is an allusion to the Russian Revolution of 1917 that led to the removal of Tsar Nicholas II and his family after a series of social upheavals and wars and ultimately resulted in famine and poverty.

★ The refusal of the Humans to refer to Animal Farm by its new name (still calling it Manor Farm) may be indicative of the diplomatic limbo in which the Soviets existed following their early history.

★ Mr. Jones' last ditch effort to re-take the farm (The Battle of the Cowshed) is analogous to the Russian Civil War in which the western capitalist governments sent soldiers to try to remove the Bolsheviks from power.

★ Napoleon's removal of Snowball is like Stalin’s removal of Leon Trotsky from power in 1927 and his subsequent expulsion and murder.

★ Squealer constantly changing the commandments on Napoleon's orders may refer to the constant line of adjustments to the Communist theory by the people in power. Also, his lies to animals of past events they cannot remember refers to the revision of history texts to glorify Stalin during his regime.

★ After Old Major dies, his skull is placed on display on a tree stump. Similarly, Lenin's embalmed body was put on display in Lenin's Tomb in Red Square post-mortem, where it still remains. It should also be noted that the tomb of Karl Marx is adorned by an extremely large bust of his likeness which lends more credibility to Old Major being a closer reference to Karl Marx than to Lenin. Marx's tomb is located in Highgate Cemetery, London.

Version of Horn and Hoof Flag, based on hammer and Sickle.

★ The flag of Animal Farm consists of a green field with a hoof and a horn. According to the book, the green represents the fields of England, with the hoof and horn being an analog to the hammer and sickle.

★ When Napoleon steals Snowball’s idea for a windmill, the windmill can be considered a symbol of the Soviet Five-Year Plans, a concept developed by Trotsky and adopted by Stalin, who, after banning Trotsky from the Soviet Union, claimed them to be his idea. The failure of the windmill to generate the expected creature comforts and subsequent search for saboteurs is probably a reference to accusations and a show trial against British engineers who were working on electrification projects in the USSR.

★ Moses the raven leaving the farm for a while and then returning is similar to the Russian Orthodox Church going underground and then being brought back to give the workers hope.

★ Boxer's motto, "Napoleon is always right" is synonymous with «Il Duce ha sempre ragione» ("Mussolini is always right"), a chant used to hail Benito Mussolini during his rule of Italy from 1922 to 1943.

★ During the rise of Napoleon, he ordered the collection of all the hens' eggs. In an act of defiance, the hens destroyed their eggs rather than give them to Napoleon. During Stalin's collectivization period in the early 1930s, many Ukrainian peasants burned their crops and farms rather than handing them over to the government.

★ Napoleon's mass executions, of which many were unfair for the alleged crimes, is similar to Stalin executing his political enemies for various crimes after they were tortured and forced to falsify confessions.

★ The four pigs that defy Napoleon's will are comparable with the purged party members during the Great Purge — Bukharin, Rykov, Zinoviev, Kamenev and many others.

★ Napoleon replaces the farm anthem "Beasts of England" with an inane composition by the pig poet Minimus ("Animal Farm, Animal Farm / Never through me / Shall thou come to harm"). In 1943, Stalin replaced the old national anthem "the Internationale" with "the Hymn of the Soviet Union." The old Internationale glorified the revolution and "the people." The original version of the Hymn of the Soviet Union glorified Stalin so heavily that after his death in 1953, entire sections of the anthem had to be replaced or removed. Orwell could have also been referring to Napoleon Bonaparte's banning of the French national hymn, La Marseillaise in 1799.

★ Napoleon works with Mr. Frederick, who eventually betrays Animal Farm and destroys the windmill. Though Animal Farm repels the human attack, many animals are wounded and killed. This is similar to Stalin’s Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany in 1939, which was later betrayed in 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Though the Soviet Union won the war, it came at a tremendous price of roughly 8.5-15 million Soviet soldiers (unconfirmed) and many civilians, resulting in an incredible estimated 20 million dead, as well as the utter destruction of the Western Soviet Union and its prized collective farms that Stalin had created in the 1930s. The detonation of the windmill and the battle that ensued there could also be a reference to the Battle of Stalingrad. The selling of the farm's excess timber supply could represent the offering of raw materials to the United States in exchange for weapons of war under the Lend-Lease.

★ Napoleon changing Animal Farm back to Manor echoes the Red Army’s name change from the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" to the "Soviet Army" to appear as a more appealing and professional organization rather than an army of the common people.

★ Squealer may be an allegory of the Soviet Newspaper in which Stalin often wrote many of the articles anonymously to give the impression the country was far better off than it was.

★ The dogs may be an allegory to the NKVD (KGB), the elite police force who ruled by terror under Stalin's hand.

★ Boxer, in the allegory of the novel, directly relates to the working class who labored under strenuous and exceedingly difficult conditions throughout the Communist regime with the hope that their work would result in a more prosperous life. Boxer represents this clearly at points when he utters such quotes as "I will work harder" in response to any sort of difficulty. In the context of the story, this also allows Boxer to become a tool of propaganda to be used by Napoleon and his regime later on once Boxer has been murdered to pay for a crate of whiskey for the pigs.

★ When Napoleon and Snowball argue about how Animal Farm should be ruled, Napoleon favors acquiring weapons to defend the farm while Snowball favored getting other farms (countries) to rebel. This is similar to Stalin wanting "Socialism in one country" and Trotsky's theory of "Permanent Revolution."

★ The term "four legs good, two legs bad" could be symbolic for the simplification of the April Theses, for workers to understand it better.

★ Napoleon once creates and awards himself with the Order of the Green Banner, a reference to the Soviet Union's Order of the Red Banner.

★ The character of Boxer could be an allusion to the financial state of Russia at the time of publication.

British censorship and suppressed preface

During World War II it became apparent to Orwell that anti-Russian literature was not something which most major publishing houses would touch — including his regular publisher Gollancz. One publisher he sought to sell his book but rejected it on the grounds of government advice — although the assumed civil servant who gave the order was later found to be a Soviet spy. Orwell: The Life, , D.J., Taylor, , 2003, ISBN 0-8050-7473-2 p. 337 Writing to Leonard Moore, a partner in the literary agency of Christy & Moore, publisher "Jonathan Cape explained that the decision had been taken on the advice of a senior official in the Ministry of Information. Such flagrant anti-Soviet bias was unacceptable: and the choice of pigs as the dominant class was thought to be especially offensive. The `important official' was, or so it may reasonably be assumed, a man named Peter Smollett, later unmasked as a Soviet agent."
Orwell originally prepared a preface which complains about British government suppression of his book, self-imposed British self-censorship and how the British people were suppressing criticism of the USSR, their World War II ally. "The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. ... [Things are] 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." Somewhat ironically, the preface itself was censored and is not published with most copies of the book. Triumph of the Herd Instinct; Animal Farm, the savage satire against Stalin, became a worldwide best-seller but publication was delayed by sensitivity to Britain's Russian ally, , George, Orwell, The Guardian, 1995 The freedom of the press, rediscovered preface to 'Animal Farm', , George, Orwell, New Statesman & Society, 1995 George Orwell: The Freedom of the Press

Controversies

★ The estate of Orwell declared itself "hostile" to the publication of ''Snowball's Chance'', a 2002 parody of ''Animal Farm'' by U.S. author John Reed. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Cultural references

Main articles: Animal Farm in popular culture

References to the novella are frequent in other works of popular culture, particularly in popular music and television series.

Adaptations

Poster of ''Animal Farm'' (1954)

Poster of ''Animal Farm'' (1999)

★ '1954 animated film' — The book was the basis of an animated feature film in 1954 (Britain's first full-length animated movie), directed by John Halas and Joy Batchelor and quietly commissioned by the American CIA.^[7] This version softened the theme of the story slightly by reducing the role of Moses, the character representing religion. It also added an epilogue where the other animals successfully revolt against the pigs immediately after the novel's iconic concluding imagery is depicted.

★ '1996 stage adaptation' — Popular stage adaptation by renowned British theatre director and playwright Ian Wooldridge. "Ian Wooldridge's adaptation makes the text as engagingly relevant as ever", London Evening Standard.^[8] Originally performed in 1996 by Newcastle Playhouse and first published in 2003 by Nick Hern Books, London.^[9] The production has seen recent performances in 2003 by The Wild Rice Theatre Company at The Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel, Singapore,^[10] in 2004 by Northern Stage at the Courtyard Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse^[11] and in 2006 by Eglesfield Players at Queen's College, Oxford.^[12]

★ '1999 live-action film' — A live action film directed by John Stephenson, with voices by Kelsey Grammer as Snowball, Patrick Stewart as Napoleon, and Ian Holm as Squealer. Despite a few differences (such as completely different songs), the plot generally resembles that of the book. The film diverges from the book with an additional epilogue in which Jesse the dog and several animals escape and return years later to a post-Napoleon era Animal Farm. This is an update which could be seen as an analogy to the fall of the Soviet Union. In the film, Jesse, one of the female dogs, is now the main character, protagonist, and narrator.

Editions

★ ISBN 0-582-02173-1 (paper text, 1989)

★ ISBN 0-15-107255-8 (hardcover, 1990)

★ ISBN 0-582-06010-9 (paper text, 1991)

★ ISBN 0-679-42039-8 (hardcover, 1993)

★ ISBN 0-606-00102-6 (prebound, 1996)

★ ISBN 0-15-100217-7 (hardcover, 1996, Anniversary Edition)

★ ISBN 0-452-27750-7 (paperback, 1996, Anniversary Edition)

★ ISBN 0-451-52634-1 (mass market paperback, 1996, Anniversary Edition)

★ ISBN 0-582-53008-3 (1996)

★ ISBN 1-56000-520-3 (cloth text, 1998, Large Type Edition)

★ ISBN 0-7910-4774-1 (hardcover, 1999)

★ ISBN 0-451-52536-1 (paperback, 1999)

★ ISBN 0-7641-0819-0 (paperback, 1999)

★ ISBN 0-8220-7009-X (e-book, 1999)

★ ISBN 0-7587-7843-0 (hardcover, 2002)

★ ISBN 0-15-101026-9 (hardcover, 2003, with ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'')

★ ISBN 0-452-28424-4 (paperback, 2003, Centennial Edition)

★ ISBN 0-8488-0120-2 (hardcover)

★ ISBN 0-03-055434-9 (hardcover) Animal Farm with Connections

★ ISBN 0-395-79677-6 (hardcover) Animal Farm & Related Readings, 1997

References

1. Time Critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present
2. Hitchens, Christopher (2002), ''Why Orwell Matters'', Basic Books, pp 186-187.
3. Cliff's notes, , , , , ,
4. Cliff's notes, , , , , ,
5. Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm
6. Letter to Herbert Read, 18 August, 1945.
7. CIA, Movie Producer
8. Official website of Ian Wooldridge
9. www.ian-wooldridge.com/animalfarm.php
10. www.wildrice.com.sg/animal03.html
11. www.wyplayhouse.com/events/event_details.asp?event_ID=130
12. www.four-legs-good.co.uk

External links

★

★ Extensive summary of Animal Farm and list of important quotes (author biography included)

★ Excerpts from Orwell's letters to his agent concerning Animal Farm

★ Chalk Farm, the setting for Manor Farm in Willingdon, Eastbourne.

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