Animal Farm
1945
- british and irish fiction (fictional works by one author)
- political satire
- classic
- animal drama
- fiction, political
- english literature: literary criticism
- for national curriculum key stage 4 & gcse
- fiction, satire
- english literature
- fiction
The story
Animal Farm is a brilliant political satire and a powerful and affecting story of revolutions and idealism, power and corruption. 'All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.' Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organised to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges..
What it’s like
Plain, unadorned prose carries this one: a fable told in short declarative sentences, the voice of a wry, almost folksy narrator watching a barnyard from the fence rail. The world is rendered in earthy, practical detail, with the smell of straw and dung, the grey of the farmhouse, the warmth of the stables and the hard frost of winter fields, all sketched briskly rather than lingered over. Its mood is a cool, unsentimental irony that slides steadily toward dread, the kind of quiet unease that comes from watching a hopeful thing turn sour one small reasonable compromise at a time. Pacing is brisk and chapter-driven, built for a single sitting or a long afternoon, and the emotional arc follows a community of working animals whose faith in their revolution gradually curdles. Violence is restrained and mostly off the page: a few sharp, brief moments of killing and cruelty, including dogs and slaughter, but no gore and no graphic cruelty. It suits a reflective, clear-eyed reader, a student or a seasoned re-reader, who enjoys allegory and political satire and doesn't mind a bleak final turn.
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