Review: Animal Farm by George Orwell

Hello to all my lovely friends and readers! Today I bring to you a review on the classic "read-it-for-high-school-literature-class" novel, Animal Farm. This book came highly recommended to me and, I must reveal, I was not disappointed. It's not often that a reader as critical as myself can call a novel flawless, but today's the day, folks, because this book is excellent. I could hardly put it down. George Orwell is a literary genius, and Animal Farm is by far one of the best books I have ever read.

Summary:
Animal Farm, set in the early to mid-1900s, begins when the prize-winning boar Old Major rallies the animals of the Manor Farm and tells them of his dreams of freedom from human oppression. Old Major teaches them a rallying song called Beasts of England. Most importantly, he advises them to unite against the horrible drunken farmer in charge of them, Mr. Jones.

"'That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, it might be in a week or in a hundred years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner or later justice will be done. Fix your eyes on that, comrades, throughout the short remainder of your lives! And above all, pass on this message of mine to those who come after you, so that future generations shall carry on the struggle until it is victorious.'"

It was never victorious, and just three nights later, Old Major died.
Three of the pigs, Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer, compile Old Major's ideas into a philosophy called Animalism. They even come up with these Seven Commandments:

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.

Animalism, its commandments, and Beasts of England is spread throughout the Manor Farm itself and the surrounding farms. Soon after, the animals manage to rebel against Mr. Jones and defeat him. Manor Farm becomes Animal Farm, and all seems to be good.
As the days go on, Napoleon and Snowball begin educating the animals on reading and writing and, although some are more adept at it than others, they become well-educated. Napoleon takes aside a group of young puppies to teach them the principles of Animalism, something that comes back later to bite everyone in the butt.
Mr. Jones appears again to retake the farm, but the zealous, independent animals defeat him again and name the skirmish the Battle of the Cowshed.
Napoleon and Snowball begin to argue over the goings-on at the farm, especially about the construction of an electricity-producing windmill. Napoleon opposes Snowball's windmill plan, and during one meeting he brings out the nine puppies he was to "educate", except they have now become his attack dogs. The dogs chase Snowball from the farm, and Napoleon effectively becomes a dictator. He abolishes the meetings and decides that pigs will be the ruling class.
Now exercising his manipulative powers, Napoleon orders that the windmill is to be constructed. When the building is set back by destruction from a storm, Napoleon claims that Snowball returned to sabotage it and has numerous animals executed by the attack dogs for "participating" in Snowball's conspiracy.
As time passes, Napoleon and his cronies, especially Squealer, increase their powers and privileges. They largely convince the animals that Snowball was really a traitor who was on Mr. Jones' side all along. Napoleon and the pigs start acting like humans- sleeping in beds, trading with the human farmers, consuming alcohol, and killing other animals in the name of "justice".
It seems to the animals that they have forgotten some of the Seven Commandments, which have been modified to accommodate Napoleon's rule and lifestyle. "No animal shall sleep in a bed" becomes "No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets" and "No animal shall drink alcohol" becomes "No animal shall drink alcohol in excess". Most jarringly, "No animal shall kill another animal" becomes "No animal shall kill another animal without cause".
A nearby farmer, Frederick, pays Napoleon for some timber with counterfeit money. Frederick's men come to attack the farm and even blow up the windmill, which was rebuilt after Snowball's alleged destruction of it. A battle occurs and the old carthorse Boxer, a hard worker and supporter of Animalism, is greatly injured. The animals manage to again defeat the farmers with minimal losses and celebrate for two days.
Boxer's injuries and hard work catch up to him, and he takes a fall while working on rebuilding the windmill again. Napoleon claims that he has been sent to the hospital and died there with Squealer by his side. However, when Boxer was hauled off, Benjamin the mule read the side of the van and claimed that it was a knacker's van.

"'Fools! Fools!' shouted Benjamin...'Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of that van?'...'"Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon. Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal. Kennels Supplied." Do you not understand what this means? They are taking Boxer to the knacker's.'"

The pigs become more and more humanlike. They walk upright, drink regularly, wear clothes, and carry whips in their trotters. The Seven commandments are reduced to one principle.

"All animals are equal.
But some animals are more equal than others."

Another nearby human farmer, Pilkington is entertained by Napoleon for a dinner. They become allies, and Pilkington praises Napoleon for having the most hardworking animals with the least rations. Napoleon changes the title of the farm back to Manor Farm.
Finally, we are back where we started.

"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."

Sad times, my friends.

Plot and Pacing:
Unlike Orwell's other most famous work, 1984, the pacing of Animal Farm was consistent and quick. The plot was engaging and there were no real lulls to the story. All in all, there's not much to comment on here.

Characters:
My character assessment will of course begin with the most prevalent character, Napoleon. Despite the fact that he is cruel and manipulative, we cannot ignore the fact that Napoleon and his methods are sharp and well-thought-out. Even more terrifying is the knowledge that the Napoleons of our world today are equally smart and will stop at nothing to obtain power.
Although I would normally be inclined to regard him more sympathetically, Snowball wasn't really any more morally righteous than Napoleon. He likely would've ended up being just as hungry for power as Napoleon.
Despite that he was only alive for the beginning of the story, Old Major remains an important figure, even as his ideas become twisted and diluted by Napoleon. Old Major's dreams of equality and working for each other rather than any kind of master are the sentiments that any reader wishes would've been carried out properly on the Animal Farm.
Boxer's case is particularly sad. He wasn't very intelligent, and he believes everything Napoleon says. However, he isn't mean-spirited, cruel, or manipulative. Boxer deserved better.
Another sad case is Boxer's companion, Clover. Similarly to Boxer, she isn't particularly intelligent, and she's very gullible. As the situation progressed, I think Clover began to realize that things weren't really any better than they had been before.

"As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race."

Helplessness is perhaps the worst feeling of all.
Finally, there's Benjamin. He might seem gloomy and discouraging, but his outlook on life is, if nothing else, the most realistic.

"Life would go on as it had always gone on- that is, badly."

The worst part about Benjamin's story is that he knew all along what was going on, but with all the propaganda and promises of Napoleon, he knew his rebellion would only lead to his own demise.

Worldbuilding:
Although, in this novel, Orwell was not pressed with the task of creating an entirely new world for us to imagine, he managed to smoothly convince readers to give the benefit of the doubt to his animal characters. Despite that anyone who knows anything about how the world works would tell you that animals cannot talk to humans or run farms, the themes and worldbuilding in this book make it all too easy to be sucked into a reality where they can.

Themes:
It's hard to know where to begin here. Orwell's stark condemnation of totalitarianism seems all-too-easy to point out. Animal Farm also pretty obviously points out the flaws and evils of communism and dictatorship. But the most applicable, and hence more depressing, idea that power inevitably corrupts stands out as well. Humanity's power struggle is a vicious pattern that never reaches a standstill. The lower class longs to become the upper class, and then when it becomes so, they are just as bad as the upper class before them. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's a way to battle this either. Here we can echo the sentiment in the introduction by Woodhouse when he quoted Edna St. Vincent Millay:

"I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned."

Again, my friends, sad times.

All in all, George Orwell's Animal Farm is a prophetic, engaging, genius novel that deals with humanity's most pressing and yet most unsolvable problem. We concess because we cannot fix it, but at the very least we know why it is so.

Rating: 5 Stars