George Orwell’s Animal Farm: Power Abused & Utopia Deconstructed

Written by: Zvonimir Prtenjača (FFOS)

Issue 3 (May 2018)

As opposed to the ‘‘long 19th century’’, the ‘‘short 20th century’’ may not have encompassed such profound quantity of events bound to shape the world, yet those events it has embraced to its bosoms have been nothing but direct, ardent and era-redefining. The period of progression and regression, wars and their aftermaths, political regimes and subsequent ideologies and their eventual deconstructions, this is the century which produced hard-boiled criticism, and one such example this paper aims to explore is a modernist allegorical novella authored by George Orwell, titled Animal Farm: A Fairy Story and published in the momentous year of 1945. Attaining an interdisciplinary approach, the paper aims to explicate the deconstruction of utopian society and the abuse of power, while also raising issues such as the power of ideology and offering historical background based on the metaphorically portrayed accounts the novella chooses to call upon.

Prior to constructing the thesis, one must first endeavor to define the very event which influenced Orwell’s criticism and, if following opinions of several historians who emphasize its gravity, changed the 20th century at its very beginning. Embodied within the Bolshevik Revolution of the 1917, the event referenced was described by Eric Hobsbawm as ‘‘a signal needed for the people to rise, to replace capitalism by socialism, and thus to transform meaningless sufferings of the world war into something more positive: the bloody birth-pains and convulsions of a new world’’ (Hobsbawm 51). Orwell furthers this signal by allegorically portraying it as a fundamental constituent of a light, witty beast-fable which holds a rather pertinent purpose. The reader is first introduced to the Tsarist regime and Tsar Nicholas II represented by Mr Jones who holds control over Russia, here painted as Manor Farm. Orwell then, rather straightforwardly, introduces all the animals endowed with the ability to speak and symbolically calls upon the character of Old Major, a ‘‘majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact that his tushes had never been cut’’ (Orwell, Animal 25). Introducing with him the theorist and the realist behind the socialist ideology, Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, Old Major embodies much more as he also serves as a powerful ideologist prone to instigate the novella’s action, thus tying into the question of ideology which may be even more complex to define than the revolution. In the context of the topics discussed, the dual definition offered by Terry Eagleton, who sees ideologies as ‘‘passionate, rhetorical, impelled by some benighted pseudo-religious faith which the sober technocratic world of modem capitalism has thankfully outgrown’’ (Eagleton 4), but also as ‘‘arid conceptual systems which seek to reconstruct society from the ground up in accordance with some bloodless blueprint’’ (Eagleton 4) proves to be most adept. To contextualize the stated, one only needs to focus on Old Major’s words which echo The Communist Manifesto and convict man as the animals’ true enemy, and it is the eradication of man that will grant animals their freedom and justice, be it sooner or later: ‘‘That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion!’’ (Orwell, Animal 28).

Moreover, with the premature death of Old Major (the death of the movement’s leading figures, but definitely not the ideology itself) and the rebellion (an allegory of an armed insurrection and the capture of The Winter Palace in Petrograd on the 25th of October, 1917) carried out and Mr Jones (the Tsar and his regime) purged from the Farm (Russia), a vacancy occurred, a vacancy urged to be filled by those deemed most capable to lead the animals into, as Old Major termed it, a better tomorrow. With the pigs seen as the most intellectual among the group for their capability to read, write and organize, and basically symbolizing ‘‘the Bolshevik intellectuals who came to dominate the vast Soviet bureaucracy’’ (Meyers 26), two of them arose to a prominent rank and separated themselves from the majority with charisma and approachability as the basis of their ascent. ‘‘Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar with a reputation for getting his own way’’ (Orwell, Animal 35) who essentially represents Joseph Stalin, challenged by Snowball, ‘‘a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character’’ (Orwell, Animal 35) who stands as an allegorical portrayal of Leon Trotsky. Herein the conflict ensues, the conflict between extremism and progression, the sheer physicality and control opposed to inventiveness and advancement. The question of power thus arises and the struggle between these boars concocts the issue of a power abused. Napoleon’s radical nature concords to the concept of a ‘‘dominant power that may legitimate itself by denigrating ideas which might challenge it; excluding rival forms of thought, perhaps by some unspoken but systematic logic’’ (Eagleton 5), largely breathed into life by him excommunicating Snowball from the Animal Farm: ‘‘[…] nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws’’ (Orwell, Animal 64). For Orwell to use such violent motifs to allude to Trotsky’s real-life assassination seems most natural, for it is exactly here that the genesis of dictatorship is criticized. Exerting power over the masses and subduing them into offering their allegiances by making them witness the brutal slaughter of the opposing force is what made Stalin historically notorious and what, by default, breeds totalitarianism. Furthered by a state-obedient executive force here embodied within the nine brass-collared dogs, but historically alluding to the secret police, the Stalinist cheka, and their chief institution, the Politburo, Orwell plainly condenses these motifs to portray the resolution of a power abused. But his criticism is not yet finalized as he uses animals to represent the working class and their strenuous life on the Animal Farm to show how they are oppressed: ‘‘All that year the animals worked like slaves. Additional work was announced by Napoleon, strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half’’ (Orwell, Animal 69).

A prime example of giving animals (the workers, the commoners) their liberties by making them devoid of the same perfectly ties into another abuse Orwell chose to call upon and openly attack – the abuse of ideology – purposefully introduced within the character of Squealer, who not only represents the propagandists of the regime, but also Stalin’s puppet, Vyacheslav Molotov. As the propagandists’ embodiment, he serves as a passionate orator prone to twist the words to conform to the ruler and the ruling: ‘‘Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig’’ (Orwell, Animal 51). Furthermore, he indoctrinates the animals: ‘‘It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back!’’ (Orwell, Animal 51). He appeals to their ignorance and exploits it to further his and Napoleon’s cause, which is to enjoy numerous privileges the commoners are deprived of. Hence, the pigs’ pre-eminence appears, a pre-eminence instituted and framed by the usage of symbolism as a ‘‘media often felt to be potent means by which a dominant ideology is disseminated’’ (Eagleton 34). Therefore, Orwell uses music, hymns, slogans, amendments and rules which aided Napoleon’s ascension to call upon real-life events: the emblem of the Animal Farm with its hoof and horns eerily resembles the Communist hammer and sickle, the hymn of the First International is substituted and parodied by animals chanting their own hymn, Beasts of England. Even Stalin’s personality cult is challenged by creating sycophantic verses and paintings which were to further Napoleon as a hero among the masses (animals), yet turned out to be something completely different. But where Orwell’s ingenuity undoubtedly awakes is within the construction of Animalism’s primal rules, below disclosed in their entirety:

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal. (Orwell, Animal 42)

However, where his ingenuity is furthered and used pragmatically to challenge and demean the abuse of ideology constituted is when Napoleon revises some of the amendments to aid himself and clear himself of any initial law corruption. What Orwell had planned to achieve with such actions was not only to present Napoleon’s dominion over other animals, but also the light-hearted way in which an initially dogmatic approach to maintain order among the animals is mutilated by becoming a malevolent propaganda. To further exemplify the stated and for the sake of comparison, some of the revised ‘‘amendments’’ are listed below:

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed WITH SHEETS. (Orwell, Animal 75)

5. No animal shall drink alcohol TO EXCESS. (Orwell, Animal 106)

6. No animal shall kill any other animal WITHOUT CAUSE. (Orwell, Animal 92)

7. All animals are equal, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS. (Orwell, Animal 126)

With the seventh and the fundamental rule initially pronouncing that four legs are good while two are bad later distilled into a maxim chanting that four legs are good, whereas two are better, the transformation of the pigs into humans is finalized. Quite expectedly when power and ideologies are abused, the deconstruction of the Old Major’s classless ideals occurs, as well as the decadence of the utopian society in which all people are deemed to be created equal.

Furthermore, with the original ideology irrevocably changed and all the animals forcefully indoctrinated to venerate Napoleon and his regime, the deconstruction of utopia is also imminent. The symbolism of Moses as an opportunistic Church best describes how totalitarianism and state control can smother any ideology not consequent to theirs. When he speaks of a promised land “up there, just on the other side of that dark cloud that you can see—there it lies, Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall rest for ever from our labours!’’ (Orwell, Animal 112), the pigs aggressively react by denigrating him and pronouncing him a liar. Orwell himself never believed in utopias and has always been sharply critical of them, best substantiated by his statement that ‘‘heaven is as great a flop as Utopia though Hell occupies a respectable place in literature, and has often been described most minutely and convincingly’’ (Orwell, ‘‘Why Socialists Don’t Believe in Fun’’). As such, the utopian society is presented as Heaven, but it is deconstructed by the very end of the novella, and the remainder seems to be diffused into a dystopia as an epithet of Hell. With Boxer (a possible symbol of the Chinese Boxer uprising of 1900) and Clover (the big-hearted mother, even Mother Russia herself) gone, the hard-working and obedient animals (people) also seem to have vanquished. All that remains in a society abolished by dictatorship is slavery referenced throughout the novel a plethora of times: ‘‘They (the animals, the commoners, the workers) were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they labored in the fields; in winter they were troubled by the cold, and in summer by the flies’’ (Orwell, Animal 122). Slavery to capitalist society is referenced in the novella by Napoleon’s alliance with Mr Whymper who procures opiates for him and the other pigs determined to abuse their privileges, privileges plainly put in front of the animals but never in their reach. Slavery to a brief alliance with the abusive Mr Frederick, the owner of Pinchfield and a plausible symbol for Adolf Hitler (and national-socialist regime) or the Prussian dictator Frederick the Great may allude to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (the division of Poland between Russia and Germany). Whatever the case, slavery in Manor Farm (renamed from Animal Farm by Napoleon) is apparent and furthered by the obliterated Windmill as an allegorical portrayal of ‘‘the first Five-Year Plan of 1928, which called for rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture’’ (Meyers 28). With its destruction, the workers’ egalitarian ideals and progressive tendencies seem to have been smothered and as such, the utopian society ceases to exist. The dystopian Stalinist regime thus remains as the only reality, and the animals are left in void and enslaved, looking ‘‘from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which’’ (Orwell, Animal 131).

Hobsbawm remarks of the Bolshevik revolution which largely inspired Orwell to write the novella: ‘‘It therefore became an event as central to the history of this century as the French revolution of 1789 was to the nineteenth’’ (Hobsbawm 55). However, he emphasizes the idealistic repercussions of the latter and the practical nature of the former, thus offering an interesting blend in discourse which can, in its entirety, be adhered to Orwell’s work. Of the work itself and how it came to be realized, Orwell stated in one of his essays: ‘‘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’’ (Orwell, ‘‘Why I Write’’), but what he offered in one of his private letters casts a ray of light on his true purpose when writing, as well as his hard-boiled criticism: ‘‘Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution. But I did mean it to have a wider application in so much that I meant that that kind of revolution (violent conspiratorial revolution, led by unconsciously power-hungry people) can only lead to a change of masters’’ (Orwell and Davison 334).

To synthesize and conclude, the author dares to allude to the last quote provided within the argumentation of the thesis for it perfectly arguments the timelessness and popularity with which Orwell’s Animal Farm is endowed. It is, in its entirety, a rather straightforward portrayal of how a political regime is constituted, negatively furthered and eventually deconstructed. Not only does it portray the abusers of power and the mutilation of ideology to further the abuser, as well as the exploitation and subdual of the masses, it also paints the world of the abused and uses their voices to critique and rightfully, yet fiercely, judge the aforementioned. Forged within the heart of the ‘‘short 20th century’’, Animal Farm stands within the reigns of contemporariness as a representative warning of what would happen if the history repeats. Ultimately, the profound effect it produces and the echoes it transmits concord with the fact that it is, in its quintessential form, a novella about the people, not about certain people, and a novella about one’s revolution, not just the Bolshevik revolution as a secluded historical event.

Works Cited

Eagleton, Terry. Ideology: An Introduction. Verso, 1991, pp. 4-8, 33-36.

Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991. Abacus, 1995, pp. 54-55.

Meyers, Valerie. ''Animal Farm: An Allegory of Revolution.'' Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Animal Farm—New Edition. Infobase Publishing, 2009, pp. 26-28.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. Project Gutenberg Australia, 2001.

Orwell, George and Peter Davison. George Orwell: A Life in Letters. Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013, pp. 333-336.

Orwell, George. ‘‘Why I Write.’’ orwell.ru, http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw. Accessed 24 May 2017.

Orwell, George. ‘‘Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun.’’ orwell.ru, http://orwell.ru/library/articles/socialists/english/e_fun. Accessed 23 May 2017.