"Orwell's Animal Farm is more than a fairy story. It is a political fable in which idealism is betrayed by power, corruption and lies. Discuss.".
George Orwell's powerful allegory, Animal Farm, highlights the inequitable conditions that are found in corrupt totalitarian regimes such as in 20th Century Russia. It is a political story that displays the concepts of social justice and idealism that have gone wrong. Animal Farm extends beyond the outward appearance of a fairy tale, and exposes the treachery, corruption and dishonesties that exist in dictatorial societies.
Although Orwell's originally titled novel, "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story", combined with the use of animals as characters in the novel, may appeal to children, the content of Animal Farm goes beyond any magical or make-believe story. Orwell paints a vivid picture of a violent political revolution of farm animals against the farmer who owns all, works the animal population hard, feeds them little and sends their offspring to slaughter. Being an allegory, most of the characters and events have a parallel in Stalinist Russia: Mr Jones, the evil farmer, represents the Russian Czar; Napolean, the power hungry boar, portrays the corrupt Joesph Stalin and Snowball, the idealistic pig, personifies Leon Trotsky, the clever partner of Stalin. However, Animal Farm is not simply a satire on the Russian Revolution. The novel is replete with messages and lessons regarding blind conformity and the misuse of power, that are not to be found in typical fairy stories. .
The perfect world envisioned by Old Major the pig, where all animals are equal and man is no more, is corrupted from the very beginning of the novel. Right after the animals rid the farm of humans, they turn around and learn the ways of man, with the pigs" teachings of reading and writing to the other animals. From then on, the pigs, namely Napoleon, a "large, rather fierce looking Berkshire boar," and Snowball, a "more vivacious pig quicker in speech and more inventive" continue to corrupt the rest of the animals" vision for a better future.
