Book Review: Animal Farm

A few days ago, in passing through the occasional boredom of this year's relaxing winter break, I picked up a thin book with a white cover and decided to read it.  Little did I know that George Orwell's Animal Farm would be both an enriching piece of classic literature and the perfect book for me to share with you in this first post of 2011.

George Orwell (actually the pen name of Eric Blair), a British political author, wrote Animal Farm in England in 1943 and '44, and it was published in August 1945.  Click here for a summary of the book.  Animal Farm is at its core a political commentary, a scathing critique of Soviet Russia delivered through the allegorical story of farm animals.  The parallels are clear.  Major, the sagacious, idealistic and revolutionary boar represents V.I. Lenin; Napoleon and Snowball, the two pigs vying for power after his death, represent Stalin and Trotsky, respectively.  The transformation from an egalitarian community of farm animals to the tyrannical rule of Napoleon under the new mantra, "All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others," takes place right under the noses of the very animals that revolted against their human owner's tyranny.  The striking parallels established in the characters are impossible to miss, especially for an educated audience in the mid-20th century, and the tragic outcome thus makes the reader view more critically the Soviet regime that was so revered during WWII. 

But for readers today, what is most frightening about this story is not the cruelty of Soviet communism, but rather the way in which it came about.  Although the revolutionary animals inscribe Seven Commandments on the barn house enumerating the values of old Major, only some of the animals can read them.  For those who can't read and aren't clever enough to memorize them, the Commandments are simplified into one phrase: "Four legs good, two legs bad."  This simplification is first in a string of alienations done by Napoleon and the other pigs to twist the original doctrine of Animalism to their own self-serving interests.  Indeed, Napoleon and the other pigs use their ability to read, write, and negotiate with humans to assert intellectual superiority over the other animals, thereby justifying any inequality and blinding the animals to this injustice.  The disempowerment of the "lower animals", as they become called, through the manipulation of political ideologies and what amounts to brainwashing by their rulers shows the dangerous power of inflated ideologies to destroy even our most deeply held values.  Ultimately, the distinction between the pigs and humans disappears, and the animal revolution ends before the very animals who fought for the revolution know it.

So, as we enter this New Year, one in which our government will likely be even more divided than before, our legislators, and all Americans, must make the choice between holding steadfast to ideology and compromising some positions in order to address our numerous challenges.  Just as Orwell saw the distinction between the socialism in which he believed and the Soviet perversion of that ideology, we Americans mustn't blind ourselves to the intricacies of political thought.  And as the Seven Commandments of Animalism became reduced to a simplistic phrase, we must be wary of politicians and ideologues who transform complex issues into simple slogans and sound bites.  Indeed, that is what makes American democracy different from Animal, or Soviet, tyranny.  

This, I believe, is Orwell's message to his readers, and is the reason Animal Farm is as relevant today as it was 65 years ago.