Evilness and cruelness can be very hard to define and so too are goodness and kindness. Orwell takes great pains to show us just this in his book, Animal Farm. As a young man he learned this lesson well. The son of a colonial official, he was born in India but went to Eton in England on a scholarship. There, he learned the cruelty of the moneyed classes. Since his family was not wealthy, he was treated with disdain by many of his fellow classmates solely because of his social standing. He became to believe firmly in democratic socialism. After he finished school, he went back to India to work for the betterment of mankind but ran into a brick wall when he was treated with hate and distrust by the very people he was trying to help. They only saw him as a representative of British Imperialism and not for what he was under the exterior. .
Therefore, he wrote Animal Farm to try to reach people and to make a point about what power does to even the best-meaning "people". Mr. Jones runs Manor Farm with a carelessness bread from years of too much indulgence in food and drink, all the while treating his animals who work so hard to keep Jones and his wife in the manner to which they have become accustomed. The book opens with a drunken Mr. Jones locking up the barns for the night but neglecting to shut the popholes thus possibly subjecting his animals to harm. Later that night, the animals get together to discuss a dream that one of the animals, Old Major, had the previous night. In his dream, he discovered that man was the root of all of their woes. The animals were underfed and overworked and man was the reason for this. Therefore, eliminate man and eliminate the problems for the animals. .
Thus begins the odyssey of this book. Old Major dies three days after the meeting so two of the younger pigs (Napoleon and Snowball) take up his dream. The animals rise up together to evict Jones and his wife from the farm so they can begin to build their utopia.