Animal Farm

Introduction

Satiric fable, published in 1945, generally considered to be Orwell's finest work of fiction. Animal Farm transformed Orwell from a respected English journalist and minor novelist into an international best-selling author. It had appeared in 18 foreign translations prior to Orwell's death in 1950 and has since been published in languages as diverse as Afrikaans, Icelandic, Yiddish, and Persian. The success of Animal Farm can be attributed primarily to Orwell's masterly combination of lucid prose and trenchant political allegory. Comprising roughly 30,000 words, this tale of an animal revolution betrayed by the avarice and corruption of a small minority within the farm resembles imaginative and moralistic fiction in the tradition of Aesop's Fables and the tales of Beatrix Potter, which Orwell read as a child (Kirschner, pp. 145-179).

Discussion

The story of Animal Farm begins as evening falls upon Manor Farm. After the proprietor, Mr. Jones, has locked up, the animals gather in the big barn to hear the dream of Old Major, a prize Middle White boar and a respected elder. He sits on a raised platform as the animals file in among them the two cart horses Boxer and Clover; Muriel the white goat; Mollie, the white mare; and Benjamin, the old donkey. When all have settled down to listen, save Moses the raven and Mr. Jones' pet Old Major reveals that he is close to dying, and then shares his life philosophy. "Let us face it," he says, "our lives are miserable, laborious, and short." He shares his theory that English animals are imprisoned by work and the inevitability of slaughter, and suggests emphatically that such imprisonment is not necessary. Man, Old Major insists, is the enemy of all animals; to remove Man from their predicament would result in the eradication of overwork. "What then must we do?" ...