Novels provide us with a great insight into past historical events. Animal Farm by George Orwell is both an animal fable (which uses anthropomorphic characters to portray real people, places and events and usually contains a moral) and a political allegory (a narrative that contains two meanings, one literal one, and one concerning events outside of the narrative which are politically significant) of the Russian Revolution in 1917. In the beginning of the novel, a wise boar by the name of Major tells the animals of a dream he had, where all the animals on the farm were equal and there were no cruel human rulers. This was very appealing to the animals, as the farm’s owner, Mr. Jones was often drunk and neglected to feed the animals a lot. After Major's death, the animals try to continue the spirit of Major's dream by developing a system of thought which they called Animalism, which can be best summed up by the phrase "All animals are equal." (pg 15) However, this does not remain the case for very long at all. The pigs, lead by Napoleon and Snowball slowly come having power and domination over the other animals through the use of propaganda, rhetoric and fear tactics which move the reader to wonder if the farm is actually any better off under Animalism than it was under Jones.
In Major’s speech, he states that the life of an animal is one of “misery and slavery” (pg 3) due to their ongoing exploitation by the enemy, man, who “consumes without producing” (pg 4) and gives them no reward or thanks for what he takes from them. The speech is based on the beliefs outlined by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels in the Communist Manifesto, in which they highlight the way the proletariats (working class peasants) are exploited by the bourgeois (upper class land owners). The reader feels swayed to sympathize with the plight of the animals when Major states that “No animal in England is free” (pg 3). Major concludes that the only solution is to rebel against man, and create a...