1. Key Terms Before we begin
Animal Farm

2. Dystopia
Dystopia is a world in which everything is imperfect and everything goes terribly wrong. Dystopian literature shows us a nightmarish image about what might happen in the near future. Usually the main themes of dystopian works are rebellion, oppression, revolutions, wars, overpopulation and disasters. On the other hand, utopia is a perfect world exactly opposite to dystopia.

3. Fable
The word fable is derived from a Latin word “fibula” which means a story that is a derivative of a word “fari” which means to speak. Fable is a literary device which can be defined as a concise and brief story intended to provide a moral lesson at the end.

4. Irony
a situation that may end up in quite a different way than what is generally anticipated. In simple words, it is a difference between the appearance and the reality.

5. Satire
Satire is a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule. It intends to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles. A writer in a satire uses fictional characters, which stand for real people, to expose and condemn their corruption.

6. **Allegory
Allegory—a story in which characters, setting, and actions stand for something beyond themselves, such as
abstract ideas
moral qualities
historical figures or events

7. **Allegory Allegories can be read on two levels: literal and symbolic
are often intended to teach a moral lesson or make a comment about goodness and vice

8. Allegory
Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and events. It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story with a purpose of teaching an idea and a principle or explaining an idea or a principle. The objective of its use is to preach some kind of a moral lesson.

9. **What Is a Symbol?
A symbol is an ordinary object, event, person, or animal to which we have attached a special meaning.
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10. Where Do We Get Symbols?
What does each of these symbols stand for? Why do you think they have taken on the meanings they have?
justice
love
luck

11. Where Do We Get Symbols? Invented symbols
come about when writers make a character, object, or event stand for some human concern
sometimes become well known and gain the status of public symbol
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12. Symbol
Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense.
Difference between Allegory and Symbolism
Although an allegory uses symbols, it is different from symbolism. An allegory is a complete narrativewhich involves characters, and events that stand for an abstract idea or an event. A symbol, on the other hand, is an object that stands for another object giving it a particular meaning. Unlike allegory,symbolism does not tell a story. For example, Plato in his “Allegory of Cave” tells a story of how some people are ignorant and at the same time, some people “see the light” – stands for an idea and does not tell a story.

13. Communism
a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of  all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
2. a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.

14. Propaganda
1.information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help 
Or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
2.the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
3.the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organizati on or movement.

15. Animal Farm By George Orwell Allegory - Satire - Fable
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

16. George Orwell British Author & Journalist
Noted as a novelist and critic, as well as a political and cultural commentator
One of the most widely admired English-language essayists of the 20th century
Best known for two novels critical of totalitarianism in general, and Stalinism in particular:
Animal Farm
Nineteen Eighty-Four
“Liberty is telling people what they do not want to hear.”

17. George Orwell and His Beliefs
Orwell was a person who had a reputation for standing apart and even making a virtue of his detachment.
This “outsider” position often led him to oppose the crowd.
Orwell’s beliefs about politics were affected by his experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War.
He viewed socialists, communists, and fascists as repressive and self- serving.
He was skeptical of governments and their willingness to forsake ideas in favor of power.
Interesting Fact:
George Orwell’s real name was Eric Blair.

18. Why Animals?
In explaining how he came to write Animal Farm, Orwell says he once saw a little boy whipping a horse and later he wrote,
“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 [worker].”

19. What is Animal Farm?
A masterpiece of political satire, Animal Farm is a tale of oppressed individuals who long for freedom but ultimately are corrupted by assuming the very power that had originally oppressed them.
The story traces the deplorable conditions of mistreated animals who can speak and who exhibit many human characteristics. After extreme negligence by their owner, the animals revolt and expel Mr. Jones and his wife from the farm.
The tale of the society the animals form into a totalitarian regime is generally viewed as Orwell's critique of the communist system in the former Soviet Union.
Interesting Fact: Orwell initially struggled to find a publisher for Animal Farm.

20. Significance Today
But why – now that Soviet Communism has fallen and the Cold War is over –does Animal Farm deserve our attention? The answer lies in the power of allegory. Allegorical fables, because they require us to make comparisons and connections, can be meaningful to any reader in any historical period. The story of Animal Farm will always have lessons to teach us about the ways that people abuse power and manipulate others.
Orwell's chilling story of the betrayal of idealism through tyranny and corruption is as fresh and relevant today as when it was first published in 1945.

21. The Fable
The fable is one of the oldest literary forms - much, much older than the novel or the short story. A fable is usually short, written in either verse or prose, and conveys a clear moral or message. The earliest fables still preserved date back to 6th Century Greece B.C.E. The author of these fables, Aesop, used animal characters to stand for human "types." For example, a fox character might embody the human characteristics of cunning and cleverness. Though Aesop's animal fables were ostensibly about animals, they were really instructional tales about human emotions and human behavior.

22. Animal Fables
The most popular animal fables of the 20th Century are the Just So Stories (1902) written by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling's fables were adapted by Disney in the movie The Jungle Book. Orwell admired Kipling and the Just So Stories would seem to have influenced the form of Animal Farm. Orwell took the short animal fable and expanded it to the length of a short novel in the form of an allegory.

23. Allegory
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.

24. Allegory (cont’d)
Animal Farm is strongly allegorical, but it presents a very nice balance between levels of meaning. On the first level, the story about the animals is very moving. You can be upset when Boxer is taken away by the horse slaughterer without being too aware of what he stands for. But at the same time, each of the animals does serve as a symbol. The story's second level involves the careful critique Orwell constructed to comment on Soviet Russia.
Boxer

25. Squealer, Snowball, & Napoleon
Allegory (cont’d)
Yet there is no reason that allegory must be limited to two levels. It is possible to argue that Animal Farm also has a third and more general level of meaning. For instance, the pigs need not only represent specific tyrannical soviet leaders. They could also be symbols for tyranny more broadly: their qualities are therefore not simply the historical characteristics of a set of actual men but are the qualities of all leaders who rely on repression and manipulation.
Squealer, Snowball, & Napoleon

26. Satire
In a satire, the writer attacks a serious issue by presenting it in a ridiculous light or otherwise poking fun at it. Orwell uses satire to expose what he saw as the myth of Soviet socialism. Thus, the novel tells a story that people of all ages can understand, but it also tells us a second story— that of the real- life revolution.
Soviet Coat of Arms

27. When History and Literature Merge
Critics often consider Animal Farm to be an allegory of the Russian Revolution. In the early 1900s, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II faced an increasingly discontented populace. Freed from feudal serfdom in 1861, many Russian peasants were struggling to survive under an oppressive government. By 1917, amidst the tremendous suffering of World War I, a revolution began. In two major battles, the Czar’s government was overthrown and replaced by the Bolshevik leadership of Vladimir Lenin. When Lenin died in 1924, his former colleagues Leon Trotsky, hero of the early Revolution, and Joseph Stalin, head of the Communist Party, struggled for power. Stalin won the battle, and he deported Trotsky into permanent exile.
Czar Nicholas II
Vladimir Lenin
Leon Trotsky
Joseph Stalin