Ashleigh S.- Satire Project

 Animal Farm by George Orwell

1.    Animal Farm is a novella (small novel) written by George Orwell.

2.    The issue being ridiculed is both Communism and the Russian Revolution. It’s clear that Orwell find Communism to be entirely unrealistic concept, and he is satirizing how easily a communist country can easily become a nation plagued by overbearing leaders who have too much power. Communism is not an efficient way to rule society.

3.    One key scene is when the oldest boar, Major, calls all the animals to order, and proposes that they should be the ones to rule the farm, not the humans who have no idea how to organize it. They create a song called “the Beasts of England”, and call their theory “animalism”, and come up with a set of rules that they all must follow (the main one being that all beasts are equal to others). This is important because it’s clear that Major satirizes Lenin, the revered leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, Orwell makes fun of how they established a bloodless coup to get hold of the farm (and the Russian government) Another key scene is the ending scene, where the pigs are no longer distinguishable from what were the human, the name has been changed back to it’s old one, for reasons of “politically correctness” and most importantly the Seven Commandments have changed to reflect the now-dictator Napoleon’s will, “all animal are equal, but some are more equal than others”. It show the power that one animal can have, and how power is not shared  equally throughout the farm

4.    Satire is used throughout the novella:

Caricature- Every character in Animal Farm is a caricature of real, famous historical leaders of the Russian Revolution. Old Major represents Lenin, Snowball- Leon Trotsky, Napoleon-Stalin, and Boxer and overzealous Communist party worker. All are extremely exaggerated and only very slightly true to character.

Irony- There is many sources of irony in Animal Farm, perhaps the most famous and the most humorous is, indeed the quote, “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. The idea that the animals would actually buy that is outrageous, but Orwell fairly accurately conveys the corruption of communist society.

Juxtaposition- The two characters of Boxer and Napoleon were used to symbolize the opposites between the leaders and the common people, and what was expected of them. The reader can feel that Boxer truly believes in the cause, but can get the sense that Napoleon is only using animalism as a way to gain power. This is satirizing the real disparity in the USSR, and is juxtaposition between the two

Exaggeration- The entire idea of animals as communists, and most especially the leaders as being pigs, satirizes what kind of people the communists are. It’s not very flattering to be portrayed as an evil, dictatorial pig, the way that Stalin was.

5.    The target audience is members of a non-communist country, probably intellectuals, of over 18 years of age

6.    The novella is an effective way to get the information across because it is very short, the language is not overly complex, and the satire is relatively easy to understand. It sounds like a children’s story, but with a hidden message. And the humour in it, while slightly old-fashioned, is still quite funny,