Owen Jarvis
Mr. Hollister
English/ Language Arts
26 November 2016
Allegorical Connection of Animal Farm
Animal Farm and the russian revolution related in so many ways that I would venture to say that Animal Farm is a sheer copy and paste of the revolution and made into a child’s book. That being said, I found many events and people in the book that matched up to real figures and events of that era of Russia. Nevertheless, here are some of the more important people and events that were found by me while reading the book.
In both cases, the revolution was caused by a lack of food given to the real workers. Also, the outcome of each uprising lead to the start of a new leader. Another main point that I found was that in both cases, the workers wanted a change and a better life, but nothing really changed. Finally, in the aftermath of the revolution, different groups arose to try and take power. In Animal Farm, Napoleon and Snowball were the two main powers, and in the russian revolution, Trotsky and Lennon arise to attempt to take control of all of the mayhem of their country.
The Military in the Russian Revolution essentially helped secure Lennon’s spot in office. In Animal Farm, the dogs were well fed and very compliant slaves to Napoleon. They followed the pigs to make sure no harm came to them. They also were used as a sort of scare tactic to keep all of the animals’ in check and make sure they did not try rebelling.
I don’t have as much information to back up this theory, but the fact that he is the leader at the time of the revolution and is overthrown obviously shows me that he is supposed to mimic Nicholas in this story. Another point to make is the fact that Jones was a very dull and bad leader that doesn’t make the best decisions fits Nicholas’s description very well.
Napoleon represents Vlademir Lennon. I came to this conclusion because Lennon forced Trotsky to go into hiding just like Napoleon forced Snowball to leave the farm. Later in the book he basically becomes the leader of the farm. Also, later in the book Napoleon starts a republic just like Lennon did.
Trotsky played a big role in the Russian Revolution so it would’ve been practical that he would be in this story. The pig known as Snowball was the arch-nemesis to Napoleon; which is how it was in the days of the Russian Revolution. Orwell followed the events of what actually happened because Trotksy was forced to leave when things were getting too hot in Russia.
In conclusion, Animal Farm was a very good book written by a very impressive author on a very cool subject. The author portrayed each subject just as I would picture they would be back in the 1920’s. He also did a very good job at picking and choosing each individual animal for their role in this book. It also showed the main idea of the story pretty straight on. Arrogance, greed, wealth, and intelligence, can corrupt the best of people.
Orwell, George, Animal Farm, 1988