Themes In “Animal

Farm”
SUBMITTED BY: SAMITAH EJAZ
WINDOWS USER
Theme of Corruption and Totalitarianism.

Animal Farm is most famous in the West as a stinging critique of 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, Animal Farm
allegorizes the rise to power of the dictator Joseph Stalin. In the novella, the
overthrow of the human oppressor Mr. Jones by a democratic coalition of animals
quickly gives way to the consolidation of power among the pigs. Much like the
Soviet intelligentsia, the pigs establish themselves as the ruling class in the new
society.

The struggle for preeminence between Leon Trotsky and Stalin emerges in the
rivalry between the pigs Snowball and Napoleon. In both the historical and
fictional cases, the idealistic but politically less powerful figure (Trotsky and
Snowball) is expelled from the revolutionary state by the malicious and violent
usurper of power (Stalin and Napoleon). The purges and show trials with which
Stalin eliminated his enemies and solidified his political base find expression in
Animal Farm as the false confessions and executions of animals whom Napoleon
distrusts following the collapse of the windmill. Stalin’s tyrannical rule and
eventual abandonment of the founding principles of the Russian Revolution are
represented by the pigs’ turn to violent government and the adoption of human
traits and behaviors, the trappings of their original oppressors.

Although Orwell believed strongly in socialist ideals, he felt that the Soviet Union
realized these ideals in a terribly perverse form. His novella creates its most
powerful ironies in the moments in which Orwell depicts the corruption of
Animalist ideals by those in power. For Animal Farm serves not so much to
condemn tyranny or despotism as to indict the horrifying hypocrisy of tyrannies
that base themselves on, and owe their initial power to, ideologies of liberation and
equality. The gradual disintegration and perversion of the Seven Commandments
illustrates this hypocrisy with vivid force, as do Squealer’s elaborate philosophical
justifications for the pigs’ blatantly unprincipled actions. Thus, the novella
critiques the violence of the Stalinist regime against the human beings it ruled, and
also points to Soviet communism’s violence against human logic, language, and
ideals.
Abuse of Language.

One of Orwell’s central concerns, both in Animal Farm and in 1984, is the way in
which language can be manipulated as an instrument of control. In Animal Farm,
the pigs gradually twist and distort a rhetoric of socialist revolution to justify their
behavior and to keep the other animals in the dark. The animals heartily embrace
Major’s visionary ideal of socialism, but after Major dies, the pigs gradually twist
the meaning of his words. As a result, the other animals seem unable to oppose the
pigs without also opposing the ideals of the Rebellion.

By the end of the novella, after Squealer’s repeated reconfigurations of the Seven
Commandments in order to decriminalize the pigs’ treacheries, the main principle
of the farm can be openly stated as “all animals are equal, but some animals are
more equal than others.” This outrageous abuse of the word “equal” and of the
ideal of equality in general typifies the pigs’ method, which becomes increasingly
audacious as the novel progresses. Orwell’s sophisticated exposure of this abuse of
language remains one of the most compelling and enduring features of Animal
Farm, worthy of close study even after we have decoded its allegorical characters
and events.

Animal Farm is deeply skeptical about the value of intellectual activity. The pigs
are identified as the most intelligent animals, but their intelligence rarely produces
anything of value. Instead, the pigs use their intelligence to manipulate and abuse
the other animals. The novella identifies several other ways in which intelligence
fails to be useful or good. Benjamin is literate, but he refuses to read, suggesting
that intelligence is worthless without the moral sense to engage in politics and the
courage to act. The dogs are nearly as literate as the pigs, but they are “not
interested in reading anything except the Seven Commandments”. The dogs’ use of
their intelligence suggests that intellect is useless—even harmful—when it is
combined with a personality that prefers to obey orders rather than question them.
Class Stratification.

Animal Farm offers commentary on the development of class tyranny and the
human tendency to maintain and reestablish class structures even in societies that
allegedly stand for total equality. The novella illustrates how classes that are
initially unified in the face of a common enemy, as the animals are against the
humans, may become internally divided when that enemy is eliminated. The
expulsion of Mr. Jones creates a power vacuum, and it is only so long before the
next oppressor assumes totalitarian control.

The natural division between intellectual and physical labor quickly comes to
express itself as a new set of class divisions, with the “brainworkers” (as the pigs
claim to be) using their superior intelligence to manipulate society to their own
benefit. Orwell never clarifies in Animal Farm whether this negative state of affairs
constitutes an inherent aspect of society or merely an outcome contingent on the
integrity of a society’s intelligentsia. In either case, the novella points to the force
of this tendency toward class stratification in many communities and the threat that
it poses to democracy and freedom.

The story is told from the perspective of the common animals as a whole. Gullible,
loyal, and hardworking, these animals give Orwell a chance to sketch how
situations of oppression arise not only from the motives and tactics of the
oppressors but also from the naïveté of the oppressed, who are not necessarily in a
position to be better educated or informed. When presented with a dilemma, Boxer
prefers not to puzzle out the implications of various possible actions but instead to
repeat to himself, “Napoleon is always right.” Animal Farm demonstrates how the
inability or unwillingness to question authority condemns the working class to
suffer the full extent of the ruling class’s oppression.
Other Minor Themes.

1) The Exploitation of Animals by Humans

As well as being an allegory of the ways human exploit and oppress one another,
Animal Farm also makes a more literal argument: humans exploit and oppress
animals. While the animals’ rebellion is mostly comic in tone, it ends on a serious
and touching note, when the animals “wipe out the last traces of Jones’s hated
reign. The harness-room at the end of the stables was broken open; the bits, the
nose-rings, the dog-chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had been used to
castrate the pigs and lambs, were all flung down the well.”

2) Role of the Populace

Orwell, however, does not imply that Napoleon is the only cause for Animal
Farm's decline. He also satirizes the different kinds of people whose attitudes allow
rulers like Napoleon to succeed. Mollie, whose only concerns are materialistic, is
like people who are so self-centered that they lack any political sense or
understanding of what is happening around them. Apolitical people like Mollie —
who care nothing for justice or equality — offer no resistance to tyrants like
Napoleon. Boxer is likened to the kind of blindly devoted citizen whose reliance
on slogans ("Napoleon is always right") prevents him from examining in more
detail his own situation: Although Boxer is a sympathetic character, his ignorance
is almost infuriating, and Orwell suggests that this unquestioning ignorance allows
rulers like Napoleon to grow stronger. Even Benjamin, the donkey, contributes to
Napoleon's rise, because his only stand on what is occurring is a cynical dismissal
of the facts: Although he is correct in stating that "Life would go on as it had
always gone on — that is, badly," he, too, does nothing to stop the pigs' ascension
or even raise the other animals' awareness of what is happening. His only action is
to warn Boxer of his impending death at the knacker's — but this is futile as it
occurs too late to do Boxer any good.

3) Religion and Tyranny

Another theme of Orwell's novel that also strikes a satiric note is the idea of
religion being the "opium of the people" (as Karl Marx famously wrote). Moses the
raven's talk of Sugarcandy Mountain originally annoys many of the animals, since
Moses, known as a "teller of tales," seems an unreliable source. At this point, the
animals are still hopeful for a better future and therefore dismiss Moses' stories of a
paradise elsewhere. As their lives worsen, however, the animals begin to believe
him, because "Their lives now, they reasoned, were hungry and laborious; Was it
not right and just that a better world should exist somewhere else?" Here, Orwell
mocks the futile dreaming of a better place that clearly does not exist.

4) False Allegiance
A final noteworthy (and again, satiric) theme is the way in which people proclaim
their allegiance to each other, only to betray their true intentions at a later time.
Directly related to the idea that the rulers of the rebellion (the pigs) eventually
betray the ideals for which they presumably fought, this theme is dramatized in a
number of relationships involving the novel's human characters. Pilkington and
Jones; Frederick, for example, only listen to Jones in the Red Lion because they
secretly hope to gain something from their neighbor's misery. Similarly,
Frederick's buying the firewood from Napoleon seems to form an alliance that is
shattered when the pig learns of Frederick's forged banknotes.