INTRODUCTION
George Orwell started this project in the winter of 1943 and it
was designed to be a parody on the Russian Revolution of 1917 and subsequent history. His satire on 20th Century Russia is one of the reasons why the book has been so successful in the west, and in particular in the United States.
The history of Animal Farm has many parallels with that of
Russia.
When you consider that Old Major is based on Karl Marx and Farmer Jones is Tsar Nicolas II, you can soon make similar comparisons with the other characters in the book. More details of this will be given in the Questions section at the end.
However, to merely limit the comparison of Animal Farm to
Russian history is to do an injustice to the subject matter of this book. Orwell makes deeper suggestions concerning human nature within the storyline and the reader should be aware of this.
Animal Farm is one of the milestones of Utopian fiction and
stands alongside such works as Plato’s ‘Republic’, Sir Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’, and Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.
Orwell’s main thrust in this novel is an attempt to protect true
socialism from communism and his anti-Utopian theme is directed at this aim.
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