very basic introduction

2. » Real name: Eric Arthur Blair
» Lived in India as a young boy and began writing at a
young age
» His beliefs about politics were affected by his
experiences fighting in the Spanish civil War.
» Viewed socialists, communists, and fascists as
repressive and self-serving.
» Always felt he was an outsider and questioned any
group’s ideology.

3. » Published in 1945
» Orwell criticized the Soviet Union
» Orwell said it was the first book in which he
consciously tried to blend artistic and political
goals.

4. » In explaining how he came to write Animal Farm,
Orwell says he once saw a little boy whipping a
horse:
It struck me that if only such animals became aware of
their strength, we should have no power over them,
and that men exploit animals in much the same way
as the rich exploit the worker.
He was interested in HUMAN NATURE and in how
revolutionary leaders can sometimes turn out to be
worse than the people they overthrow.

5. » Animal Farm is more than a fairy story. It is a
commentary on the relevance of independent
thought, truth, and justice.

6. » Allegory – symbolic story structured with at least 2
levels of meaning.
» Critics often consider Animal Farm to be an allegory
of the Russian Revolution.
» The characters in the novel have been directly
compared to players in the Russian Revolution.

7. » Fable – Short tale with a moral, which often
includes unusual or even supernatural
incidents.
» They give human qualities to animal characters.
These beast fables are usually satiric.
» Fables have two levels:
» 1st level=about animals
» 2nd level=animals stand for types of people
or ideas

9. » Russia was ruled by Czar Nicholas (king) until
1917 when the communists under Lenin took
over the government.
» Lenin and his assistant, Trotsky, followed the
ideas of the communist thinker Marx.
» When Lenin died in 1924, Trotsky became the
leader of the Soviet Union.

10. » Trotsky was a good leader, but he only ruled for
a short time because he was overthrown and
killed by Stalin.
» Stalin was only interested in power. He was a
ruthless dictator who killed or imprisoned
anyone who stood against him. Stalin killed
almost twice as many people as German
dictator Adolf Hitler.