Animal Farm

by George Orwell
Background information

FULL TITLE AUTHOR

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair)

TYPE OF WORK
GENRE

Novella

Dystopian animal fable; satire; allegory; political roman clef (French for novel with a key, meaning thinly veiled story of factual persons or events)
TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN
NARRATOR

19431944, in London

Animal Farm is the only work by Orwell in which the author does not appear conspicuously as a narrator or major character; it is the least overtly personal of all of his writings. The anonymous narrator of the story is almost a nonentity, notable for no individual idiosyncrasies or biases.

 The story is told from the point of view of the common animals of Animal Farm, though it refers to them in the third person plural as they.
POINT OF VIEW

For the most part, the tone of the novel is objective, stating external facts and rarely digressing into philosophical meditations. The mixture of this tone with the outrageous trajectory of the plot, however, steeps the story in an ever-mounting irony.
TONE

TENSE

Past

Characters: the personalities in a novel Developing character (Round): a character who changes in some way during the course of the story; usually a major character who has several sides or traits to his personality

Static character (Flat): a character (usually a minor character) who does not change during the story; this kind off character generally has only one or two personality traits.
Protagonist: a character who is trying to achieve some goal (usually the main character) Antagonist: a character who is trying to stop the protagonist

(1903-1950)

Real Name: Eric Blair British political novelist

Born: To English parents in India

After his father retired, Eric and his family moved back to England.

He was sent to boarding school at the age of eight to prepare for Eton, an exclusive public school.

Because he had a scholarship, he was teased and humiliated frequently.

At eighteen, he passed the Empires Civil Service Exam and became a police officer in Burma.

Returned to Europe

Socialist: someone who believes that the government should own businesses so that everyone will be equal

Most fables have two levels of meaning. On the surface, the fable is about animals. But on a second level, the animals stand for types of people or ideas. The way the animals interact and the way the plot unfolds says something about the nature of people or the value of ideas. Any type of fiction that has multiple levels of meaning in this way is called an allegory.

A composition making fun of something, usually political.

Animal Farm makes fun of political society after the Bolshevik Revolution.

Russian society in the early twentieth century had two social classes: a tiny minority (bourgeoisie) controlled the countrys wealth.

The working class was called the proletariat.

Communism arose in Russia when the nations workers and peasants rebelled against, and overwhelmed, the wealthy and powerful class of capitalists and aristocrats.