Previous
Literary Devices
Definition of Allegory
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and events. The story of "The Tortoise and The Hare" is... read full definition
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and events. The story of "The... read full definition
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and... read full definition
Allegory
Explanation and Analysis—Animal Farm:
Using the umbrella allegory of a farmyard coup, George Orwell lampoons and critiques the events leading up to and following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the rise of Soviet Communist power. This story specifically targets the rise of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and explores how corruption and manipulation by the powerful can destroy even the purest of ideals. Although he’s writing about farm animals overthrowing their human oppressors and establishing their own form of government, Orwell’s also drawing direct parallels to the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II and the establishment of a communist state in early-20th-century Europe.
All of the characters and events in Animal Farm align with key figures and occurrences in Soviet history. The leader of the “Animalist” movement (an allegory for the Communist movement) is the pig Napoleon. This character is an allegory for the dictator Joseph Stalin, who consolidated and kept his power over the Soviets through coercion and brutality. Snowball, Napoleon’s early rival, represents Leon Trotsky, another potential leader whom Stalin eventually exiled and used as a scapegoat. The animals begin their rebellion after the ancient pig Old Major—a stand-in for the philosopher and economist Karl Marx—speaks movingly to them about the possibility of equality and freedom if they rebel. Old Major’s intellectual successors, the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, take his words and distill them into the “Seven Commandments” of Animalism. These rules reflect the optimistic principles upon which the Communist movement was founded—namely, the promotion of solidarity and freedom from oppression.
However, when the rebellion succeeds and the pigs assume leadership, they begin to mirror the behaviors and excesses of the humans they replaced. Power quickly corrupts them into behaving exactly like their human oppressors. Like Stalin, Napoleon uses propaganda and manipulation to force the animals to follow his orders. Events on the farm, like the construction and repeated destruction of the windmill, parallel the brutal forced labor initiatives and immense suffering Stalin imposed through his Five-Year Plans. The pigs set unrealistic production targets that the other animals must try and meet. In addition to this, the violent purges of “traitors” and the forced “confessions” the pigs orchestrate reflect the horrors of Stalin's Great Purges. These were campaigns of terror in which enemies of Stalin’s regime—both real and imagined—were executed or sent to labor camps.
The eventual takeover of the farm by the pigs, which returns the other animals to a state of subjugation, demonstrates how revolutionary ideals can be co-opted and corrupted. Orwell is cynically suggesting that although the ideas of “Animalism” and Communism are noble, in execution they ultimately lead to a system as tyrannical as the one they replace.
Related Themes:
