Introduction to Animal Farm

Introduction to Animal Farm

In 1947 George Orwell said, “Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.” He also stated, “The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude. ... Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it ... it is invariably where I lack a political purpose that I wrote lifeless book...”

These statements from his essay “Why I Write” give us a clear picture of Orwell's motivations. His preoccupation with politics and the state of the world is the key to understanding his intent. He claimed there was no such thing as a neutral book, that every writer displayed a “tendency,” and in his own work, he tried frankly to make an art form of political writing with intent to persuade. He wrote propaganda in its true sense (that is, taking sides but not necessarily lies, as the modern uses of propaganda might lead us to believe). For Orwell, the “art for art telling's sake” credo of many writers seemed a sterile and useless proposition.

Thus, Animal Farm, the first book to bring him widespread fame, proclaims its political message unashamedly. Animal Farm is a little book, but a full one; it is short of volume, long on mass, to borrow some terminology from physics. It is astonishing how clearly Orwell has distilled the essence of his life's thought and work into this superficially simple little story. Its source lies in the chapters of political analysis of the Spanish War in his earlier (and much lesser) realistic novel, Homage to Catalonia, and the grim and cheerless world of 1984 is implicit in the pig-bossed conclusion of Animal Farm.

The book was written in 1943 and 1944, toward the end of World War II, at a time when criticism of Russia was not an overly popular practice in England, when the Western Allies still had hopes of living in peace with Russia. But Orwell had learned things earlier about communism that we take for granted today. He knew that a Stalin in power offered little more hope for the ideal of the classless society than any other overlord; he believed firmly with Lord Acton that "absolute power corrupts abso- lutely."

In 1945, the unpopularity of the theme was such that four publishers rejected Animal Farm. It might never have seen print at all had it not been such a good-humored jibe on the surface, a whimsical animal story in itself. The necessity of coloring an attack on Russia in this way turned out to be a fortunate thing after all. According to the noted critic, Laurence Brander, Animal Farm is Orwell's “most effective sermon; many preachers are most successful with adults during the children's sermon.” And by sheer good chance publication came in the summer of 1945. It arrived in the bookstores at the moment when Russia's true methods of establishing control were disillusioning the hopeful world. Animal Farm took the reading public by storm; it was soon translated into all the major languages and sold well in them all. Even communists enjoy it, apparently appreciating some of the levels it can be read on while ignoring the one that applies to them.

Animal Farm is a multilevel book. First, and most obviously, it is a wryly humorous animal story. Next, it is a pointed attack on Stalinism satirizing the events of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Russia Communism. More deeply still, it is a wistful lament for the fate of revolutions in general and a diagram of the ways in which power corrupts.

Orwell believed in revolutions – or wanted to - if they were meant to achieve the classless society and the decency which he idealized. His own experience of revolution in Spain, however, plus what was happening in Russia and his observations of life, forced pessimism upon him. He came to feel that unless men were very, very careful, all revolutions were doomed to meet the fate of the animals' revolt, that far from achieving more than a fleeting equality ("all animals are equal . . ."), the mass of humanity would actually find that they had only changed tyrants, and there would be little to choose between the old and new (“... but some animals are more equal than others"). Revolutionary fervor is doomed to be overwhelmed by the lust for power of those sufficiently smart and sufficiently unscrupulous to seize it. This pessimism had engulfed Orwell by the time he wrote 1984; in Animal Farm the humor of the story makes it more palatable – and, therefore, quite possibly more effective.

A classic is a book that survives the test of time. Will Animal Farm become a classic? It seems to be well on its way to doing so. A good animal story has nine lives, and the book may become a perennial for young people, as good satires often do after their significance on other levels has become too dated or forgotten by all but scholars. (We have only to think of Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, many of H.G. Wells' books, even certain nursery rhymes.)

But Animal Farm seems likely to survive as a serious work, too. The parable is a time-honored form, and in the hands of a master storyteller, its teaching potential and memorability are great. It probably will not matter if the anti-communist satire of Animal Farm remains intelligible. Already the specifics of its protest against Stalinism require considerable explanation for the younger generation, but its satire on corrupted revolution and the misuse of power remains completely clear. Given human nature, it will unfortunately remain clear as long as society resembles anything in the world today.