Long long ago, so long ago, no body can say how long ago .....
Yes Animal Farm is a book that can be read as a child's bed time story, School syllabus to teenagers, College books those who want to read about politics, power and revolution!
See the book is just a hundred pages. But my god ! great writers are people who write exactly what it requires. So this book can be termed as both "Satire and Allegory" .
The story begins as all the animals overpower a farmer named Mr. Jones in an attempt to rule the farm themselves. The whole story is a satire fiction about the failure of Russian revolution and communism. As a personal opinion, this is how all the revolution ends. The biggest lessons to be learnt from them are :
1. The new boss will be the same as old boss.
2. Power corrupts
3. Communism doesn't work (well the ideas are great but the implementation is the concern )
4. If you don't know your past, you are doomed to repeat it.
5. Lessons will be repeated until you learn your lesson.
6. People are dicks.
Now don't get too bored with the words like "Revolution", "communism" , "Russia". It can be read as just like a fairy tale as we did "Gulliver's travels" and so on. But if you compare the Russian history to this book, magically it matches ! Abracadaabraa ! Even the character does !
Lets compare the characters mention in the book to the leaders in the history of Russian Revolution.
1. Mr. Jones , the farmer. He is the one owns the farm named "Manor Farm", in which the animals carry on their protest, create a revolution and captures the farm and rename it as "Animal Farm" (hence, Russia to USSR) . We slightly get the hint that he was a representation of "Tsar Nicholas II", the last Russian Empire.
2. Old Major, the wise and persuasive leader who was the major cause of the revolution, who couldn't live till the end to see the fruits of the revolution is generally compared with "Lenin" leader of the Bolshevik party , who was inspired by Karl Mark's theory of Communism. So , we can compare this character either with Lenin(who was inspired by the idea of Karl Marx) or directly to Karl Marx.
3. Snowball , who is rightly about to gain power and has wisdom and ideas about the wind mill in the story, who is finally portrayed as a betrayer to the animals, can be easily compared with "Leon Tortsky" , who is a Marxist , a thinker and who tried hard to transform Marx's principles into action. In the story, the character Snowball is abandoned from the Animal Farm by the head Napoleon and branded as a traitor. In real life, Tortsky was abandoned from U.S.S.R. by Stalin's men.
4. Napoleon , who is dismissed the debate session from the Sunday morning rituals , who loves power, who proclaims himself as the Superior , Leader etc. In real life Joseph Stalin did the same. He never bothered about questions , who used KGB to stop the questions like the dogs in the story ,
This novel is a pure bliss. No matter which country you are from, you will connect any part of this novel to your political history. There are characters in us who would stand up to the brutality of the government and be branded as traitor, there are few of us who would say "Yes boss" to whatever the leader has to say and lick his feet clean to survive with just a big fat belly , without any principle and backbone. There are few of us who would provide solution like "We should work harder " for any problem in the society.
So what is the solution ? To be getting out of this stupid provoking, unethical and unhealthy propaganda, Geroge Orwell says education and knowing your history is the solution. But this was published in 1945 , so few things are outdated.
But I guarantee you that , this will be one of the best satire novel you can come across . Don't worry if you don't know the Russian political history, you will enjoy the novel nonetheless .
With Love ,
Arvi
Yes Animal Farm is a book that can be read as a child's bed time story, School syllabus to teenagers, College books those who want to read about politics, power and revolution!
See the book is just a hundred pages. But my god ! great writers are people who write exactly what it requires. So this book can be termed as both "Satire and Allegory" .
The story begins as all the animals overpower a farmer named Mr. Jones in an attempt to rule the farm themselves. The whole story is a satire fiction about the failure of Russian revolution and communism. As a personal opinion, this is how all the revolution ends. The biggest lessons to be learnt from them are :
1. The new boss will be the same as old boss.
2. Power corrupts
3. Communism doesn't work (well the ideas are great but the implementation is the concern )
4. If you don't know your past, you are doomed to repeat it.
5. Lessons will be repeated until you learn your lesson.
6. People are dicks.
Now don't get too bored with the words like "Revolution", "communism" , "Russia". It can be read as just like a fairy tale as we did "Gulliver's travels" and so on. But if you compare the Russian history to this book, magically it matches ! Abracadaabraa ! Even the character does !
Lets compare the characters mention in the book to the leaders in the history of Russian Revolution.
1. Mr. Jones , the farmer. He is the one owns the farm named "Manor Farm", in which the animals carry on their protest, create a revolution and captures the farm and rename it as "Animal Farm" (hence, Russia to USSR) . We slightly get the hint that he was a representation of "Tsar Nicholas II", the last Russian Empire.
2. Old Major, the wise and persuasive leader who was the major cause of the revolution, who couldn't live till the end to see the fruits of the revolution is generally compared with "Lenin" leader of the Bolshevik party , who was inspired by Karl Mark's theory of Communism. So , we can compare this character either with Lenin(who was inspired by the idea of Karl Marx) or directly to Karl Marx.
3. Snowball , who is rightly about to gain power and has wisdom and ideas about the wind mill in the story, who is finally portrayed as a betrayer to the animals, can be easily compared with "Leon Tortsky" , who is a Marxist , a thinker and who tried hard to transform Marx's principles into action. In the story, the character Snowball is abandoned from the Animal Farm by the head Napoleon and branded as a traitor. In real life, Tortsky was abandoned from U.S.S.R. by Stalin's men.
4. Napoleon , who is dismissed the debate session from the Sunday morning rituals , who loves power, who proclaims himself as the Superior , Leader etc. In real life Joseph Stalin did the same. He never bothered about questions , who used KGB to stop the questions like the dogs in the story ,
This novel is a pure bliss. No matter which country you are from, you will connect any part of this novel to your political history. There are characters in us who would stand up to the brutality of the government and be branded as traitor, there are few of us who would say "Yes boss" to whatever the leader has to say and lick his feet clean to survive with just a big fat belly , without any principle and backbone. There are few of us who would provide solution like "We should work harder " for any problem in the society.
So what is the solution ? To be getting out of this stupid provoking, unethical and unhealthy propaganda, Geroge Orwell says education and knowing your history is the solution. But this was published in 1945 , so few things are outdated.
But I guarantee you that , this will be one of the best satire novel you can come across . Don't worry if you don't know the Russian political history, you will enjoy the novel nonetheless .
With Love ,
Arvi
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