Massey
Massey, Dylan
Hollister
Animal Farm
28 November, 2016
Comparing the Characters
Orwell in his book “Animal Farm,” had a tendency to relate the characters in the book to real life people in the world. Most of the characters relate to someone from the Russian Revolution, due to the fact that the book was mainly based on it. All of the characters had their roles in the book obviously. Napoleon the pig, was the leader of the farm and made the decisions. Snowball was a partial leader for a short period of time before betrayal set in. Boxer is the workhorse, literally, he works all day to keep the farm maintained. What was sad is that the animals actually believed that they were working for themselves, and they believed anything the pigs put into their heads.
Napoleon, like stated before, took the role of carrying out the dreams of Old Major and become the leader of Animal Farm. During the first weeks of the new-founded establishment, Napoleon seemed to be a logical, fair leader. Snowball and him would come up with ways to better the farm and the animals. However, after running Snowball out of the farm, the power of being leader got to Napoleon’s head. He would make unfair decisions that benefitted only a certain group of animals (primarily the pigs), and go against the rules his own rules that were set. You could possibly compare him to real life dictators such as Kim Jong Un and Fidel Castro because of his ideologies and decisions.
Snowball was granted with the unfortunate end of the bargain when Animal Farm became a thing. Napoleon would take Snowball’s ideas and use it as his own; he gained political support in result of this. After weeks of disagreeing, Napoleon urges his dogs to chase Snowball out of the farm. This also results in Napoleon being full leader of Animal Farm, or you could also say he was a dictator. Believe it or not, Snowball and Napoleon were fairly similar; they were both vastly intelligent, and they both wanted to carry out Old Major’s beliefs.
Boxer, unknowingly, was the slave of the farm in a way. He did most of the work that the pigs ordered the animals to do. Boxer was not the brightest one of the bunch, but he believed in Old Major’s dream and strived to work harder to see it happen. Strong as brandy he was, and there was never a job too big for him. After the last battle to fight off the humans, Boxer acquired an injury which ended up being a substantial injury. Clover put poultice on the wound in the hopes that it would heal, and luckily it healed pretty well. One day however, Boxer collapses while working on a job, and in the end, Napoleon sends Boxer to the “hospital” a.k.a the slaughter house.
After looking at all the characters from Animal Farm by George Orwell, you find that almost all of the main characters are different in their own ways. Although, almost all the characters shared the same belief and dreams as Old Major, which made them similar in that aspect. Orwell did a fantastic job at relating the Russian Revolution to his book, and if can not understand the Russian Revolution by studying the actual event, I suggest reading this book. The book describes it in a simpler and easier way so that anyone can understand the events happening during those times.
Work Cited
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1954. Print.