『Animal Farm』-George Orwell

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.

This was the point that all animals were meant to be treated the same. These were the commandments that all comrades meant to obey. This was the start of the 'Animal Farm' but no one knew that it would turn out to be like that.  

           The story of Animal Farm is just like its title. Well, not really. It is about animals but the animals in the book don’t seem like the normal animals that we could think of. To be straightforward, this book is satirical novel. It is meant to satire the Soviet Union. How they were cruel to innocent people and how much people had an effect by Stalin with his background supporters.

           I will first briefly summarize the story. The animals in Manor Farm were treated carelessly by the mean farmer Jones. One night, old male pig Major leaves his dying wish. Not exactly wish but a look to the future. He says that there will be a revolution in Manor Farm so all animals should be prepared. After Major’s death, animals including the leaders snowball, Napoleon, and squealer, get ready to fight. Finally animals banish Jones and change the name to Animal Farm. This was the beginning.  Snowball then throws an idea that animals should build windmill in order to get electricity for the winter but trapper Napoleon steals this idea and banishes Snowball.  From then Napoleon becomes a dictator. The first windmill collapses by strong wind, the next one collapses by Jones but animals don’t give up on completing the windmill. Finally when the windmill was finished, no animals' lives have gotten better except for the pigs. That night, pigs invite over other farmers and have a party but by looking from the outside, the animals couldn’t tell which was which.

           In the story, every character symbolizes each different things. Firstly, The old Major satires Marx and Napoleon symbolizes Stalin the dictator. Other animals like horses, and chickens represent the innocent people who do not know what’s really going up there. Not only is this about the Soviet Union, this is also representing the Nazi and Hitler. Like this, George Orwell wished to teach the nowadays’ people by simply replacing the most important characters to animals.

Before reading this book, I didn’t really think about Soviet Union or its dictatorship but now it stir my mind and made me think about it more deeply. Nowadays, countries in the Middle East are causing or maybe still preparing for revolution. Some countries just had a revolution and some are having revolution. Some has won their revolution and changed their country just like the Animals in Animal Farm. The World is changing in Middle East but there is always a chance of becoming dictatorship again as to Animal Farm. So I think the citizens in those countries should look after their revolution in order steer them in the right direction or else, there will be another dictator.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”