Animal Farm By George Orwell

Historical context Animal farm is an allegorical fable. Allegory -story with two levels of meaning. The surface-fable about animals on a farm. Deeper level- each animal symbolizes a type of person or idea. A fable is a narration to enforce a useful truth. means that the story has two levels of meaning. On the surface, you will see that this fable is about animals on a farm. But on a second level, each animal stands for, or symbolizes, types of people or ideas. The way the animals interact and the way the plot unfolds says something about the nature of people or their value of ideas.

Why choose animals to represent them? Orwell says he once saw a little boy whipping a horse and later 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.” Why did Orwell choose an Animal Farm?

Czar Nicolas II In early 1900s, leader Nicolas II of Russia had a very disgruntled population. The revolution of peasants began to overthrow him in 1917 because he was such an oppressive ruler.

Karl Marx Inventor of communism- “All people are equal” He believed that government owns everything; people own the government He died before the Russian Revolution began. Wanted to unite the working class to overthrow the government and to create a society in which everyone shares the work and equally benefits from the work. He believed the Revolution was a way to achieve this goal.

Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin Nicolas II was overthrown Trotsky vs Stalin Stalin won the battle—he became a dictator who loved power. He took land from many people and executed millions using the KGB secret police. They were totally loyal to Stalin. Nicolas had been overthrown. The hero of the revolution, Leon Trotsky, and the head of the communist party, Joseph Stalin both struggled for power. Stalin became power hungry and executed millions using the KGB. Our goal this week is to find the allegory to the research topics in Animal Farm the novel.

Animal Farm: why read it? Even though the main characters are animals, they are really instructional tales about human emotions and behavior. Because it is an Allegory with historical context Animal Farm -lessons about the abuse of power and manipulation of others.