Animal Farm

            The theme of Animal Farm is not difficult to understand. On a simple level of reading the book seems to be telling an animal story whereby a group of farmyard animals decide to overthrow their owner and consequently take charge of the farm. However, George Orwell used Animal Farm as a way of portraying a far more significant event - The Russian Revolution of 1917. He intended to use the story as a means of criticising the Communist regime that he saw sweeping through Russia and Eastern Europe during that period. Though Orwell agreed with many Marxist principles, he was unable to accept or even adhere to the Communist interpretation of Socialism. This was primarily due to the fact that he saw to many similarities between the communist governments and the former Tsarist regimes in Old Russia.
             Orwell uses the farm in an allegorical manner to symbolise the Communist system. Though the original intention of overthrowing Mr. Jones (the farmer) is not inherently evil in itself, Napoleon's subsequent adoption of nearly all of Mr. Jones" principles and harsh mistreatment of the animals proves to the reader that communism is not a form of equality but rather inequality. It is clear to see that the pigs and dogs take most of the power for themselves, seeing themselves as the best administrators of the "government". Eventually, however, the power corrupts them and having gained this sense of authority they turn on their fellow animals and as a result eliminate their competitors, one by one, either through propaganda or bloodshed. This of course resembles the actions of Stalin who murdered in order to maintain power of Russia. Indeed, it also refers to the way in which human nature works and how we go through phases of power. It is possible to see that in Animal Farm the central power was smashed and subsequently distributed to the farmyard animals. However, once this power was gained by the animals, the dominant species came together and began to centralise power under a small number.