Гимназија „Лаза Костић“

Лазе Лазаревића 1, Нови Сад

МАТУРСКИ РАД

Предмет: Енглески језик

Тема: George Orwell and ’Animal Farm’
Ментор: Ученик:
Тамара Кузмановић, професор Дејан Пушкаш, IV-6

Нови Сад, мај 2010. године

CHAPTER I.............................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................1
CHAPTER II............................................................................................................................................2
2.1 LIFE..................................................................................................................................................2
2.1.1 Early Life.................................................................................................................................2
2.1.2 Education................................................................................................................................2
2.1.3 Burma......................................................................................................................................2
2.1.4 Spanish Civil War...................................................................................................................3
2.1.5 World War II...........................................................................................................................4
2.1.6 Final Years..............................................................................................................................4
2.2 WORK...............................................................................................................................................6
2.2.1 Why I write..............................................................................................................................6
CHAPTER III..........................................................................................................................................9
3.1 THE IDEA OF ANIMAL FARM.................................................................................................................9
3.2 ANIMALISM.......................................................................................................................................10
3.3 CHARACTERS....................................................................................................................................11
3.3.1 Old Major..............................................................................................................................11
3.3.2 Snowball................................................................................................................................12
3.3.3 Napoleon...............................................................................................................................12
3.3.4 Squealer................................................................................................................................12
3.3.5 Boxer.....................................................................................................................................13
3.3.6 Benjamin...............................................................................................................................14
3.3.7 Muriel and Clover.................................................................................................................14
3.3.8 Mr. Jones...............................................................................................................................14
3.3.9 Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick........................................................................................14
CHAPTER IV.........................................................................................................................................16
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................16
CHAPTER V..........................................................................................................................................17
LIST OF PLATES.......................................................................................................................................17
CHAPTER VI.........................................................................................................................................18
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................................18
Chapter I
Introduction

1. George Orwell (1903-1950)

The reason why I chose to write about George Orwell, his life and work, and
his novel, ‘Animal Farm’ is purely coincidental. The Serbian translation of this great
book came across my hands by a mere accident. For all I know, it could have been
destined. For a reason I forgot to this day, I was searching a book to read. I found this
thin little book and thought: ‘Ha! This book is so short! And its title is funny! It
cannot be anything serious…’
I was twelve at the time. When I finished reading it only thought: ‘What a
funny book!’
Years later, last autumn to be precise, I found myself listing graduation essay
topics in English, and, suddenly, I stumbled upon ‘George Orwell and Animal Farm!’
In disbelief, I asked the teacher if any other masterpiece of literature might have the
same title, yet I was convinced the opposite. So this essay is my thanks to Eric Arthur
Blair, also known as George Orwell, and his genuine writings.

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Chapter II
2.1 Life
2.1.1 Early Life
Eric Arthur Blair, whose pen name is George Orwell was born on the 25th of
June, in 1903, in Montihari, Bihar, in India. He was noted as an English author,
journalist, as well as a novelist, critic and a cultural commentator. He was best known
for his two novels critical of totalitarianism in general, and Stalinism in particular:
Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both of the novels were published in his
final years. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked for the Opium Department
of the Civil Service. His mother, Ida Mabel Blair, brought him to England at the age
of one. He had an older and a younger sister. In his own opinion, he said that his
family belonged to a „Lower-upper-middle class“.1

2.1.2 Education
At the age of six, Blair was sent to a small Anglican parish school in Henley-
on-Thames, which his older sister had attended before him. He never wrote of his
recollections of it, but he must have impressed the teachers very favorably, for two
years later, he was recommended to the headmaster of one of the most successful
preparatory schools in England at the time: St. Cyprian’s School, in Eastbourne,
Sussex. Blair attended St. Cyprian’s with a help of a private financial arrangement
that allowed his parents to pay only half of the usual fees. At the school, he formed a
lifelong friendship with Cyril Connolly, the future editor of the magazine Horizon, in
which many of his most famous essays were originally published. However, in this
time at St. Cyprian’s, the young Blair successfully earned scholarships to both
Wellington and Eton.
After one term at Wellington, Blair moved to Eton, where he was a King’s
Scholar from 1917 to 1921. Later in life he wrote that he had been “relatively happy”
2
at Eton, which allowed its students considerable independence, but also that he
ceased doing serious work after arriving there. Reports of his academic performance
at Eton vary; some assert that he was a poor student, while others claim the contrary.
He was clearly disliked by some of his teachers, who resented what they perceived as
disrespect for their authority.

2.1.3 Burma
After Blair finished his studies at Eton, his family could not pay for university
and his father felt that he had no prospect of winning a scholarship, so in 1922 George
Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police, serving at Katha and Moulmein in Burma.
He came to hate imperialism, and when he returned to England on leave in 1927, he
decided to resign and become a writer. He later used his Burmese experiences for the
novel Burmese Days(1934) and in such essays as “A Hanging” (1931) and “Shooting
an Elephant”(1936). Back in England he wrote to Ruth Pitter, a family acquaintance,
and she and a friend of hers found a room in London, on the Portobello Road, where
1
http://www.george-orwell.org/l_biography.html.
2
http://www.george-orwell.org/l_biography.html .

2
he started to write. It was from here that he sallied out one evening to Limehouse
Causeway – following the footsteps of Jack London – and spent his first night in a
common lodging house. For a while he “went native” in his own country, dressing
like other tramps and making no concessions, and recording his experiences of low
life in his first published essay.
In the spring of 1928, he moved to Paris, where his Aunt Nellie lived and died,
hoping to make a living as a freelance writer. In the autumn of 1929, his lack of
success reduced Blair to take manual jobs as a dishwasher for a few weeks,
principally in a fashionable hotel (the Hotel X) on the rue de Rivoli.
Ill and penniless, he moved back to England in 1929, using his parent’s house
in Southwold, Suffolk, as a base for writing. Meanwhile, he became a regular
contributor to John Middleton Murray’s New Adelphi magazine.
One of his works was published early the next year while he was working
briefly as a school teacher at a private school called Frays College near Hayes,
Middlesex. He took the job as an escape from dire poverty and it was during this
period that he managed to obtain a literary agent called Leonard Moore. He left the
choice of a pseudonym to Moore and Victor Gollancz, the publisher. Four days later,
Blair wrote Moore and suggested P.O. Burton, a name he used “when tramping”,
adding three other possibilities: Kenneth Miles, George Orwell, and H. Lewis always.
Orwell continued his work as a teacher. However, because of his ill-health and
the urgings of his parents, he was forced to leave and to give up teaching. From late
1934 to early 1936 he worked as a part-time assistant in a second-hand bookshop,
Booklover’s Corner, in Hampstead. Having led a lonely and very solitary existence,
he wanted to enjoy the company of other young writers, and Hampstead was a place
for intellectuals.

2.1.4 Spanish Civil War

In December 1936, Orwell traveled to Spain primarily to fight, not to write,
for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War against Francisco Franco’s Fascist
uprising. To Orwell, liberty and democracy went together and, among other things,
guaranteed the freedom of the artist; the present capitalist civilization was corrupt, but
fascism would be morally calamitous. He joined the Independent Labour Party
contingent, whose member he was, a group of some twenty-five Britons who joined
the militia of the Worker’s Party of Marxist Unification, a revolutionary Spanish
communist political party with which the ILP was allied. He believed that Franco
could be defeated only if the working class in the Republic overthrew capitalism.
During his military service, Orwell was shot through the neck and nearly killed. At
first it was feared that his voice would be permanently reduced to nothing more than a
painful whisper. This was not so, although the injury did affect his voice, giving it
what was described as, “a strange, compelling quietness”3.
The Orwell’s then spent six months in Morocco in order to recover from his
wound, and during this period, he wrote his last pre World War II novel, Coming up
For Air. As the most English of all his novels, the alarms of war mingle with idyllic
images of a Thames-side Edwardian childhood. Much of the novel is pessimistic
because the idea that industrialism and capitalism have killed the best of old England
permeates the whole text.

3
http://www.history.com/topics/george-orwell .

3
2.1.5 World War II
After the ordeals of Spain, most of Orwell’s formative experiences were over.
His finest writing, his best essays and his great fame lay ahead. In 1940, Orwell
closed up his house in Wallington and he and Eileen moved into 18 Dorset Chambers,
Chagford Street, in the genteel neighborhood of Marylebone, very close to Regent’s
Park in central London. He supported himself by writing freelance reviews, mainly
for the New English Weekly but also for “Time and Tide” and the New Statesman. He
joined the Home Guard soon after the war began.
In 1941 Orwell took a job at the BBC Eastern Service, supervising broadcasts
to India aimed at stimulating Indian interest in the war effort, at a time when the
Japanese army was at India’s doorstep. He was well aware that he was engaged in
propaganda. Orwell devoted a good deal of effort to his BBC work.
Orwell’s decision to resign from the BBC followed a report confirming his
fears about the broadcasts: very few Indians were listening. He wanted to become a
war correspondent.
Despite the good salary, he resigned in September 1943 and in November
became the literary editor of Tribune, the left-wing weekly then edited by Aneurin
Bevan and Jon Kimche. With the end of the War in sight, Orwell felt his old desire
growing to be somehow in the trick of the action. David Astor asked him to act as a
war correspondent for the Observer to cover the liberation of France and the early
occupation of Germany, and therefore Orwell left Tribune to do so. He was a close
friend of Astor, and his ideas had a strong influence on Astor’s editorial policies.
Astor, who died in 2001, is buried in the grave next to Orwell.

2.1.6 Final Years

Orwell and his wife adopted a baby boy, as they could not have a child of their
own, Richard Horatio Blair, born in May 1944. Orwell was taken ill again in Cologne
in spring 1945. While he was sick there, his wife died in Newcastle during an
operation to remove a tumor. She had not told him about this operation due to
concerns about the cost and the fact that she thought she would make a speedy
recovery. Filled with pain and sadness by the loss of his wife, he continued to look
after his adopted son by himself.
For the next four years Orwell mixed journalistic work – mainly for Tribune,
the Observer and the Manchester Evening News, though he also contributed to many
small-circulation political and literary magazines. He wrote much while living at
Barnhill, a remote farmhouse on the island of Jura, which lies in the Gulf stream off
the west coast of Scotland. It was an abandoned farmhouse where the paved road, the
only road on the island, came to an end.
In 1948, he co-edited a collection entitled British Pamphleteers with Reginald
Reynolds.
In 1949, Orwell was approached by a friend, Celia Kirwan, who had just
started working for a Foreign Office unit, the Information Research Department,
which the Labour government had set up to publish anti-communist propaganda. He
gave her a list of thirty-seven writers and artists he considered to be unsuitable as
IRD authors because of their pro-communist leanings. Orwell’s explanation is the
simplest: that he was helping a friend in a cause – anti-Stalinism – that they both
supported. There is no indication that Orwell abandoned the democratic socialism that

4
he consistently promoted in his later writings – or that he believed the writers he
named should be suppressed. Orwell’s list was also accurate: the people on it had all
made pro-Soviet or pro-communist public pronouncements. In October 1949, shortly
before his death, he married Sonia Brownell.
Orwell died in London, at the age of forty six of tuberculosis. He was in and
out of hospitals for the last three years of his life. Having requested burial in
accordance with the Anglican rite, he was interred in All Saints’ Churchyard, Sutton
Courtenay, Oxfordshire with the simple epitaph: “Here lies Eric Arthur Blair, born
June 25, 1903, died January 21, 1950“4; no mention was made of his more famous
pen-name. He had wanted to be buried in the graveyard of the closest church to
wherever he happened to die, but the graveyards in central London had no space. For
fear that he could have been cremated, against his wishes, his widow appealed to his
friends to see if any of them heard of a church with space in its graveyard.
Orwell’s friend David Astor lived in Sutton Courtenay and negotiated with the
vicar for Orwell to be buried there, although he had no connection with the village.
Orwell’s son, Richard Blair, was raised by an aunt after his father’s death.
Nowadays he maintains a low public profile, though he has occasionally given
interviews about the few memories he has of his father. He worked for many years as
an agricultural agent for the British government.

2. Shooting an Elephant (1936) 3. Down and Out In Paris and London (1933)

4
http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/george-orwell-biography.htm.

5
4. Nineteen-eighty four (1949)

2.2 Work

During the greatest part of his career, Orwell was best known for his
journalism, in essays, review, columns in newspapers and magazines and in his books
of reportage: Down and out in Paris and London (describing a period of poverty in
these cities), The Road to Wigan Pier (describing the living conditions of the poor in
northern England, and the class division generally) and Homage to Catalonia.
Modern readers are more often introduced to Orwell as a novelist, particularly
through his enormously successful titles Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty – Four.
Both of them are primarily allegories of the Soviet Union, the former of developments
in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution, and the latter of life under Stalinist
totalitarianism.

2.2.1 Why I write

In his essay “Why I write”, George Orwell explains, how, when, and
why he started writing.
“I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a
writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject
matter will be determined by the age he lives in – at least this is true in tumultuous,
revolutionary ages like our own – but before he ever begins to write, he will have
acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his
job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature
stage, in some perverse mood; but if he escapes from his early influences altogether,
he will have killed his impulse to write. Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think
there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in
different degrees in every writer, and in any writer the proportions will vary from time
to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:

6
 1. Sheer egoism.
A desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to
get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood. It is humbug to
pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with
scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen – in short,
with the whole top crust of humanity. The great masses of human beings are not
acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being
individuals at all – and live chiefly for others, or are simple smothered under
drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined
to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I
should say, are on the whole more vain and self –centered than journalists, though less
interested in money.

2. Aesthetic enthusiasm.
Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and
their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the
firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience
which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very
feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet
words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel
strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide,
no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.

3. Historical impulse.
Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the
use of posterity.

4. Political purpose.
Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the
world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they
should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. “The
opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”5

5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Write .

7
5. Animal Farm (1999)

8
Chapter III
3.1 The idea of Animal Farm

Animal Farm, a novella, and written by a man of anti – Stalinism views, is what
critics see, a direct assault on the Communist Russia, the way the Revolution went
through, and how well are things ordered there afterwards.
Animal Farm is a story about a bunch of animals on a farm in England, taking over
control, chasing off the farmer, his wife and workers and establishing what they
thought would be the Piedmont for creating an Animal Republic. In this novel, pigs
represent the “brains” of operation, and all other animals trust the pig council on most
matters…This is also the stepping stone for corruption, and misuse of power, which is
exactly what had overcome the pigs. Dogs and guardians, are used by the pigs as
bodyguards, and annoying sheep whose minds can easily be manipulated with, are
there to make anyone wish away from saying anything against the pigs council by
their irritating bleating
The reason this novel was translated into all major languages of the world, and almost
all the languages there are, is that that even a child can read this book, and still find
some sort of message in it. Every time you read this book, no matter your age, you
will look at it as a completely different experience.
This is a story how the ideal of Utopia slowly and painlessly degenerated, taking
animals to a far worse state than they ever had been under the rule of their old
farmer…

9
 6. Animal Farm (1945)

3.2 Animalism

Animalism is an allegorical mirror to the Soviet Union, particularly between the

1910s and the 1940s, as well as the evolution of the view of the Russian
revolutionaries and government of how to practice it, but not only limited to the
Soviet Union in that period, but many other countries after the Great War and
especially after the Second World War, that had accepted the socialist system.
In this dystopian allegorical novella, it is invented by the highly respected pig Old
Major. The leaders among the pigs, Snowball, and Napoleon, adapt Old Major’s ideas
and create an actual philosophy from it, naming it Animalism. Since not all animals
could comprehend the Animalism from the intellectual point of view, the idea was
broken down into seven commandments. Those commandments were as follows:
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

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 7. All animals are equal

Even though this was quite understandable for the masses, not everyone could
comprehend all this information easily, so even these commandments were broken
even more into one single motto:

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Napoleon and the other pigs, not long after having banished Snowball off the farm,
slowly fell under the same vices they had prohibited to all animals in the seven
commandments.
Firstly, they broke the sixth commandment, Napoleon himself issued the order to
execute anyone who was suspected to or committed of helping Snowball the traitor.
Secondly, pigs moved to the farmhouse, and started sleeping in beds. Not long from
that, they started drinking alcohol, and wearing clothes. Finally, the irony of the
whole novella is pretty clearly shown when Orwell described how pigs were walking
on their back trotters, wearing farmers’ clothes, whips in hand.
In the very end, the table with the seven commandments was removed, and instead
there was a sign that stated:

“All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”

This is, in short, the beginning, development, degradation, and end of the utopian idea
named Animalism.

3.3 Characters

3.3.1 Old Major

He is the oldest pig on the farm. He survived through better and/or worse. He
had friends and foes, and he had seen many animal generations as they grew up, lived,
bred, grew old, died…Those who have read the novel suggest this character is an
analogy to Karl Marx, or Lenin, which Orwell never confirmed nor denied. Major is
the one who inspired the animals to rebel against Mr. Jones… He led the animals
believe they were under torture, in inhumane conditions…Perhaps that was true, but
like humans, whenever an event becomes massive, due to corrupt and evil, selfish and
self-centered individuals, the main purpose is easily forgotten, and its highest
principle becomes immoral. Animal Farm and the famous Rebellion was no better.
After the night when he set off the rebellion spark, Major died, leaving the animals to

11
themselves, to manage and prepare everything for younger generations, as they were
supposed to carry out the Rebellion.

3.3.2 Snowball

In short, he is “the brightest bulb on the tree”. He is a small white boar that
resembles all intellectuals in this fable. Snowball was perhaps more innovative then
people wanted him to be and he was also ahead of his time. Firstly, he showed the
animals that they could actually live as gods if humans were to be expelled. He
promised electricity, hot and cold water for every corner of the farm. They could have
all that from a windmill that could be created if animals worked for only three days a
week over one year. This was the analogy to a possible outcome of the Bolshevik
revolution in 1917, given that they would focus on their work, and they worked, under
supervision that would result efficiency. Animals did not argue about it, yet one pig, a
Berkshire boar, resented Snowball and all he stood up for, Napoleon. In French
translation of the novella, the name was changed to Caesar.

3.3.3 Napoleon

He is a larger, rather fierce – looking Berkshire boar, the only one on the
whole farm. Not as talkative and inventive as his counterpart Snowball, with a
reputation for getting his own way. There is a high possibility this character represents
Joseph Stalin, but it can hold true to any dictator and self – proclaimed “Leader of the
people”. His wickedness from within, and his slow fall to corruption over time, is
what makes him the darkest character in the novel. Not only did he overthrow
Snowball and take the entire rule in his own greasy, muddy trotters, but after chasing
Snowball off the farm he also led the animals on the Farm to a lot worse situation than
it was during Mr. Jones’ rule. All these events took place under the cover that it was
good for the Rebellion, that it did not cross ideas and principles of so-called
Animalism. Even while “democracy” had reigned, he took the first born puppies of
the Rebellion, the pups of Bluebell, Jessie and Pincher and raised them on his own.
Later on, he used the nine scary grown-up dogs as his personal Black Guard, and no
one could ever approach him, since the dogs growled with such ferocity it instated
fear into everyone’s bones, if anyone dared approach Napoleon. This effect also
occurred when someone stood up to talk against Napoleon.

3.3.4 Squealer
Squealer is a pig with no identity, a pig without an attitude. He uses verbal
confusion to persuade animals to believe without questioning. “Squealer always spoke
of it as a “readjustment”, never as a reduction”6. His best argument was when he let

6
George Orwell, Animal Farm, Penguin Books, London, England, the UK, p. 75.

12
animals believe they were far better off than before Rebellion. “Surely there is no one
among you who want to see Jones come back?”7
He was using some cheap, fake graphs to convince the animals that everything was
getting better, as they were working harder and harder. In truth, nothing changed as
much as the pigs themselves. The altruistic, selfless pigs from the beginning of the
Rebellion became the very things animals despised and had chased off from the farm
during the Rebellion. Squealer’s only crime was that he let Napoleon turn him into an
instrument of his ill will. However, on the other hand, he only could have done that to
save himself from a fate far worse than Snowball’s. “The others said of Squealer that
he could turn black into white”8.

3.3.5 Boxer

Boxer’s a rather young brown horse that really put his back into everything on
the farm. He never faltered to work to the best of his ability. Even when animals
failed to accomplish something, Boxer was only saying: “I will work harder”9. That
soon became his well-known maxim. He never asked how much
would it take neither how long it would take; he only asked what
needed be done. He was functionally illiterate, for he only learned
the first few letters of the alphabet, and when he tried to memorize
more than first four, he learned the second four, but forgot the first
four. After some time, after Snowball’s expulsion, he added another
maxim in addition to “I will work harder!” That other maxim was
“Napoleon is always right!”10 From a certain point of view, his
detachment from politics and disinterest in it was the best decision
he ever made. At any point of time, at any place on Earth, going to
such extremes never ended well. In the end, he did not escape his
tragic destiny… Under Jones’ rule, when he would become old, Jones
would send him to the knackers. Pigs that took over leadership on
the farm, promised all animals that are past their working age a
small paddock near the orchard as their resting place. What pigs
promised at first, and what they really did when the time was right
for Boxer to retire, is no different whatsoever to what would become
of Boxer under Mr. Jones. This is a good example to see all the
corruption the pigs fell under over time. Finally, I believe that
Boxer’s strongest point was in the end his weakest point, for he was
all muscles and no brains.

7
Ibid., p. 23.
8
Ibid., p. 9.
9
Ibid., p. 18.
10
Ibid., p. 37.

13
3.3.6 Benjamin

Benjamin is the most intelligent animal on the farm, but with hardly any
emotion for others. When animals wanted to know something more about him and his
views, he only said that donkeys live long. In truth, he could have led the farm far
better than any pig or any other animal, but he did not care. It cannot be said that it
was his evil will and wish to see animals suffer from the very Rebellion they carried
out, but he realized the amount of corruption power brings, and could not be bothered
to reason with the animals. Apathy for anything or anyone is what saved him the cruel
fate, like Boxer’s. He did not work very much, neither had he talked, and pigs just
silently put up with him. The only one he kept somewhat close to was Boxer.
Benjamin respected him highly, mostly for his strength and iron-willed character.
Benjamin and Clover were the only animals that really cared for Boxer, though
everyone was saying they respected Boxer highly.

3.3.7 Muriel and Clover

Muriel is always complaining, but contends. She is literate, but also a little
dumb and slow to understand certain things. She was best friends with Clover, and
has been by her side when she needed her.
Clover on the other hand, is a young white mare, a carthorse, same as Boxer.
She is a rather stupid animal, but kind, and noble. She has, what others call it, an ear
for people’s trouble and above everyone, she cared for Boxer most, though she
resented his stubbornness.

3.3.8 Mr. Jones

Since most critics suggest this novel represents the Soviet Revolution in 1917,
this character, accordingly, resembles Russian emperor, Nicholas II Romanov. Mr.
Jones, in particular, is just a farmer like any other, with only one exception. He was
too addicted to liquor and one day, that addiction was his undoing, in a matter of
speaking. The crucial event before he was banished off the farm was that he had not
fed the animals for two nights and two days straight. Animals, in their hunger rush,
fell under their wild instincts and therefore, became highly aggressive, so they
charged at Mr. Jones, who could only run for his life, away from the farm.

3.3.9 Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick

Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick are both Mr. Jones’ neighbors.
Mr. Pilkington owns a farm overgrown by fruits and crops, and is not using the
maximum of the farm’s potential. Hе is a hypocrite, the same as Mr. Frederick. On

14
Foxwood, which is Mr. Pilkington’s farm, things are done with ease and without
much tension.
Mr. Frederick is a rather strict, but proud owner of Pinchfield. Animals there
are extorted to their limits, only to reach the same level as Foxwood.
Both Mr. Frederick and Mr. Pilkington at first denied that animals could ever
run a farm, but later on as the plot developed they just “forgot” what they were
previously saying and tried to make amends and be friends with the animals. This
would be considered a highly moral act if not for their hypocrisy. They were actually
more interested in the log of timber the animals were going to sell.
At the very end of the novel, there were twelve living beings in the farmhouse,
Napoleon and his pigs, Mr. Frederick and Mr. Pilkington and their men, playing
poker. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from
pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which is which.”11

11
Ibid., p. 95

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Chapter IV
Conclusion

In my opinion, this book is a book about today, a book about yesterday, a book about
a hundred and five thousand years ago, and a book about the future; of the power of
corruption power brings, about slavery under someone, in any possible meaning. It is
a book about the system to which many critics suggest is a good system, but it dies
out when the initial carrier of the idea dies, or is banished from the society. In this
novel, that was Snowball…In history, that person was Lenin and perhaps Leon
Trotsky…Napoleon is not guilty for doing all the things he did, nor is Stalin, nor any
other dictator…Bad dictatorship is caused by time and place that affect a person, since
no one is born evil.
This book is genuine since even a child who knows nothing of politics, of life’s
hypocrisy, of any other things they learn through a course of time, can read this book,
and still find it interesting, and rather funny. Well, who would not laugh, reading a
book about animals running a farm? This is the heyday of Orwell’s writing, in my
opinion, since you can read this book million times over, and find a new meaning
every time you read it.
If you have not read the book already, I hope this short essay of such a thin, yet
complex and unique book will persuade you to do so.

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Chapter V
List of Plates
1. George Orwell (1903-1950),
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/GeorgeOrwell.jpg .

2. Shooting an Elephant (1936),

http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/libs/hay/collections/orwell/shoot
ing2.jpg .

3. Down and Out In Paris and London (1933),

http://shelflove.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/downout_paris_london.jpg .

4. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949),

http://translation-blog.trustedtranslations.com/wp-content/uploads/Orwell.jpg .

5. Animal Farm (1999),

A poster for the movie based on the novel published in 1945,
http://www.weeklyreader.com/readandwriting/content/binary/animal%20farm.jpg .

6. Animal Farm (1945),

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3211/3145162135_9a9492b1b5.jpg .

17
Chapter VI
Bibliography
1. Oрвел, Џорџ, Животињска Фарма, Новости АД, Београд, 2004.
2. Summers, Della, Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture,
Longman, England, GB, 1982.
3. Morton Benson's Standard English-SerboCroatian, SerboCroatian-English
Dictionary, Cambridge, 1998.
4. Hollis, Christopher. A Study of George Orwell: The Man and His Works.
Chicago: Henry Regnery Co. 1956.
5. Rodden, John, ed (2007). The Cambridge companion to George Orwell.
Cambridge University Press. p. 10.
6. Orwell, George, Animal Farm, Penguin Books, GB, 1989.
7. The Internet
a. www.wikipedia.com
b. http://www.readprint.com/chapter-7647/Animal-Farm-George-Orwell
c. www.online-literature.com

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