Journal of Fisheries & Livestock Production
Open Access

Animal Farm may be a satirical allegorical novella by Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book tells the story of a gaggle of livestock who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to make a society where the animals are often equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, and therefore the farm finishes up during a state as bad because it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. According to Orwell, the fable reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the May Days conflicts between the POUM and Stalinist forces during the Spanish war.

The Soviet Union had become a totalitarian autocracy built upon a cult of personality while engaging within the practice of mass incarcerations and secret summary trials and executions. during a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin (“un conte satirique contre Staline”), and in his essay “Why I Write” (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the primary book during which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, “to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole”. The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but U.S. publishers dropped the subtitle when it had been published in 1946, and just one of the translations during Orwell’s lifetime kept it. Other titular variations include subtitles like “A Satire” and “A Contemporary Satire”. Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for “bear”, a logo of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an example of a political satire that was intended to possess a “wider application,” consistent with Orwell himself, in terms of its relevance. Stylistically, the work shares many similarities with a number of Orwell’s other works, most notably 1984, as both are considered works of Swiftian Satire. Furthermore, these two prominent works seem to suggest Orwell’s bleak view of the longer term for humanity; he seems to worry the potential/current threat of dystopias almost like those in Animal Farm and 1984. In these sorts of works, Orwell distinctly references the disarray and traumatic conditions of Europe following the Second war. Orwell’s style and writing philosophy as an entire were very concerned with the pursuit of truth in writing. Orwell was committed to communicating during a way that was straightforward, given the way that he felt words were commonly utilized in politics to deceive and confuse. For this reason, he’s careful, in Animal Farm, to form sure the narrator speaks in an unbiased and uncomplicated fashion. The difference is seen within the way that the animals speak and interact, because the generally moral animals seem to talk their minds clearly, while the wicked animals on the farm, like Napoleon, twist language in such how that it meets their own insidious desires. This style reflects Orwell’s close proximation to the problems facing Europe at the time and his determination to comment critically on Stalin’s Soviet Russia.