kathryn meader

december 3 2007
mrs. black
block h
ignorance is bliss, or is it?

george orwell’s animal farm is an extended allegory for the russian revolution. he

clearly shows the switch from one tyrant to another, and even the characters have direct

parallels to real people in history. he plays up the fact that many of the animals are less than

brilliant, hoping to impress a certain value, public education. the animals other than the pigs

and the dogs are not very smart, this contributes to how easily napoleon, one of the pigs,

gains power so quickly. orwell presents a negative view of many of the animals, including

the rest of the animals, boxer and benjamin, and the mindless sheep.

orwell represents the animals in a negative light because he shows how none of them

can learn more then five letters of the alphabet. this portrays them as dull and unable to truly

understand what was happening on their farm. the animals are content to work on the farm

while the pigs completely take over the governing aspects of the farm. the pigs start breaking

and changing the seven commandments, at first only minimally, but the infractions became

worse. the pigs were dealing with humans, using money, and consorting with enemy

farmers. the animals knew nothing because the pigs didn’t tell them and the animals didn’t

ask. when napoleon has snowball thrown off the farm none of the animals contest because of

the “solid evidence” that was presented by squealer, the most persuasive of all the pigs. the

way the common animal is not able to stand up to napoleon cause the unbalance in power,

causing another tyrant to come into control.

 in animal farm there are two main characters who play a main role in the story line.

one is benjamin the donkey. whenever he is asked his opinion of what is going on in the

farm, his only response is “donkeys live a long time, i bet you’ve never seen a dead donkey.”

this is his way of saying that the rebellion won’t last, and whatever happens he will still be

there. this shows the attitude that if you keep your mouth shut and don’t do anything

radical, everything will be fine. orwell shows that this attitude towards life can be

detrimental because as benjamin keeps his mouth shut, things slowly worsen on the farm.

benjamin keeps to himself and watches the pigs slowly turn to men, the commandments

changed in the night. boxer is another important character. he is the workhorse of the farm

community. he ruthlessly drives himself at all hours of the day to complete the farms

windmill project. his favorite expressions were “i will work harder” and “napoleon is always

right” seemed to sum up his beliefs. he was smart, because he understood what was

happening, but not smart enough or assertive enough to stand up to napoleon or any of the

other pigs.

the truest and most dominant example of orwell’s negative view toward the animals

on the farm is the sheep and the dogs. the dogs are a different story, they were taken from

their mothers once able to live without her milk and trained as napoleon’s guards. the dogs

grew to be fearsome beasts that would obey no one but napoleon. they even wagged their

tails when meeting with him. they were brought up from childhood to listen to whatever he

said, and could know nothing else. the sheep are a different story, they are devout followers

of napoleon, and will never contradict anything that he had said. they often took to bleating
a slogan whenever there was a dispute, and this often calmed the atmosphere. their favorite

cry was “four legs good, two legs bad.” one day the pigs are so besotted by their power that

they begin to become more like humans. they walk out of the house on their hind legs, and

behind them all is napoleon carrying a whip in his trotter. the sheep immediately broke into

a cry of “four legs good, two legs better.” they had been so blindly following napoleon that

they did not even notice the fact that he was becoming more like the human tyrant that had

been ruling them before the revolution.

throughout the book, orwell’s negative view of the animals living underneath the pigs
is shown more clearly with every passing chapter. it appears that he believed that the
animals could have changed the outcome of the revolution if they had been educated or had
the willpower to stand up to the smarter pigs. the sheep and dogs are the strongest
representation of this, though you can find evidence in every action that every animal takes.
the book animal farm is an amazing book, and even better when paired with it’s russian
revolution counterparts.