George Orwell 1903 - 1950 - Animal Farm

Animal Farm

George Orwell        1903 - 1950

George Orwell, whose real name was Erich Blair, was born in India in 1903, and was educated at Eton. From 1922 to 1928 he served in Bruma as a member of the Indian Imperial Police. For the next two years he lived in Paris, then went to England as a schoolteacher. later on he worked in a Bookshop. In 1937 he went to Spain to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War ( same as Hemingway ), and was wounded.

During the Second World War , orwell was a member of the Home Guard and worked for the B.B.C. In 1943 he joined the staff of the TRIBUNE, contributing a regular page of political and literary commentary , entiteld ´ AS I PLEASE ´. Some time later he became a regular contributer to the OBSERVER. For this newspaper he travelled to Franche and Germany as a special correspondent. he die in London in 1950.

His works include:              Down and Out in Paris and London

Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Animal Farm

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Animal Farm:

This novell, puplished in 1945, made Orwell famous and sold more than a million copies within just a few years. 

In this novell Orwell describes  a revollution that went wrong. Cruellty treated and exploited by their masters, Men, the animals are justifide in rinsing in rebellion, but are finally just as cruelly treated by the pigs , their new masters, whose character does not reach their intelligence. Because the pigs are the cleverest of the animals they find it only too easy to use the other animals for their interests. They are corrupted by their power and become just as cruel as their old masters.One by one the original commandements, developed from Old Major´s dream, are changed but the animals are too stupid or too frightened to protest.

Characters:

As in Literatur often is found , this novell has many parallels with the Russian Revolution and the following years.

Old major - identivies with Lenin

Napoleon  - Stalin

Snowball  - Trotsky

Frederick  - Hitler

The animals have typical characters of certain groups:

Mollie                   - pleasure - loving materialist

Boxer and Clover - the honest worker

Benjamin              - realistic and critical person

Moses the raven    - the church, he promises better times

Dogs                      - Napoleon´s secret police

Sheep                     - mass of stupid people

The Seven Commandements

- Whatever goes on two legs is an enemy ( but the pigs do, Frederick does )

- Whatever goes on four legs is a friend ( but animals are exploited )

- No animal shall wear clothes ( but pigs do )

- No animal shall sleep in a bed ( but pigs do )

- No animal shall drink alcohol ( but pigs do )

- No animal shall kill any other animal ( but their are executions, Boxer´s death )

- All animals are equal, " but some animals are more equal than others "