Animal farm

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I had already heard about the book, before I read it, and it sounded like a good book. I had heard that the book was a parallel to what was happening in Russia during the Russian revolution, but I could not see how a farm with animals could have anything to do with it. I wanted to see how Orwell had managed to make this parallel and I wanted to see if it was obvious.

The author of the book is George Orwell, his real name was Eric Arthur Blair, and he was born in 1903 in India. Even though he was born in India he lived most of his life in England. He was an open-minded person who looked for new things and he did not want to belong to the class he lived in, which is partly why he renamed himself George Orwell, his way of becoming the new person he wanted to be. He died of tuberculosis in 1950 on January the 21st at the age of 47.

Plot

The story starts off with the speech of the oldest and wisest pig on the farm that we get to know as Old Major. All the animals have gathered for this meeting and they listen to the words of the Major. Old Major tells them that all animals are equal and that anything that goes on four legs is a friend. He speaks about a rebellion against the humans and about freedom for the animals. The farmer and his shotgun then interrupt the meeting and everyone goes back to the reality after having been filled with dreams. Three days later Old Major dies and the preparation for a rebellion begins. The pigs take the control now, as they are the most intelligent animals on the farm and we get to know the three most important ones, Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer. The big change comes when the farmer, Jones, forgets to milk the cows and feed the animals because he’s too drunk. The hungry animals now have enough and start serving themselves from the store-shed. When Jones sees this he tries to get them out of the shed but angry and furious animals meet him and he is attacked. The farm now belongs to the animals. It is the beginning of freedom but hard work is waiting ahead and the pigs start to take a bit too much power. Between Snowball and Napoleon, things are not so great as they cannot agree on anything for example Snowball wants to teach the animals to read and he wants their best while Napoleon only think of his own best. The animals start to ask questions after a while when the pigs take extra food for themselves and put themselves on a higher position than everyone else. What are they to do? The pigs are the most intelligent of them all and can easily persuade them to do what they say. Even though the farm belong to the animals and stays “free”, most animals do not feel any different from when the farmer was there. It is clear that the pigs and especially Napoleon do not fight for the freedom of the animals but only for their own good.

My opinion

I thought this book was great because it is full of suspense. There is no boring part in the book and the description of the characters is so well done that you can clearly see how it fits the animal. For example the image of a pig is often the fat and comfort-seeking character and the image of a dog is the aggressive but obeying character. I did see the parallel with the Russian revolution but I think this book clearly shows how power can be and have been misused for the evil. I believe that the story could represent what happened during the Second World War as well as the Russian revolution and I think that the characters in the book each can be related to a person in reality.

This book is not hard to read so in...