What I Think about "Animal Farm" by George Orwell

I can't remember exactly when I first read "Animal Farm." It was probably 8th or 9th grade, depending on whom my English teacher was (did I get that use of whom correct?). The only things I could honestly recall clearly from the first read were: The pigs were the bad guys, and the farm represented Communist Russia. I'm such a child of the Cold War ...

In truth, that's a good thing. The book was released as a fairy tale (which the commentary before the book clearly explains is a correct use of the term) in August of 1945. Perhaps you can recall a few other things that happened in that month ... Regardless, Orwell was talking more towards totalitarianism than specifically Lenin/Stalin Russia. He still hit the nail directly on the head hammering it straight through the point. His allegory is clear and on the money.

Which for me, listening to the audiobook for the first time almost 20 years later, is what hits me most about the book: Its clear-cut allegory. Now, Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (also a novella) is as hidden an allegory as you could hope for. The decent into hell is as clear here as a humid night in the bayou. But Orwell doesn't waste the reader's time ... he spells things out plainly and simply from word 1. This is how easy it is to dominate and control a society. And it's hard to argue with him. If you look at such modern states as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cuba, North Korea ... it's hard to argue with Orwell's logic. Perhaps we could all look at Napoleon and Snowball and fit several 20th-century equivalents neatly into the package. It's quite sad that we can. Applying Orwell to past Empires would be an obvious waste of time; the lesson is just as true for Stalin as it was for Augustus Caesar.

Even still, Orwell doesn't waste a single word in this novella, going straight to the point and describing the events as they happened, letting the reader discern for himself the meaning and implications behind the story. Sure, English Teachers have all but programmed us to think of Orwell as a futurist and someone who could accurately dramatize the decline of democracy and mankind. Thus, my recollection of "Animal Farm = Communist Russia." In the end, it's a good story, told so simply that it may sound like a basic fairy tale to a child, but it opens a large world of implications to the more educated mind.

There's a great deal to learn from "Animal Farm" and I'm sure many modern-day Republicans would correlate the actions of the Obama Administrator to the wheeling-dealing ways of Squealer and Napoleon. But I think we miss the main point by applying it to modern society too quickly. Perhaps if the news media or other governmental members were to take a long, hard look at the policies of Napoleon's pigs, they might see some dangers ahead and choose to act on it before "Animal Farm" could ever come into existence. Regardless, the book "Animal Farm" contributes significantly to the body of published fictional/non-fictional works that should prevent tyrannical empires such as these from forming again ... unless, of course, we let them.