A Marxist Perspective: The Animal Farm

The literary world has long given birth to works that give their own commentaries on the way
society is built. They break down the superstructures of society and give it characters to play
along with, unconsciously teaching us of the ways of the world.
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blaire) is one genius to have crafted ‘The Animal farm’. Generously
lending itself to Marxist Criticism, it was created on the heels of World War II, England 1945. It
was written to warn the people of Stalinism and expose the dangers of Totalitarianism. Even its
characters reflect several important personalities at the time, an example being ‘Old Major’, a
Middle White Boar that the Joneses exhibited under the name “Willingdon Beauty”. He is 12
years of age, making him a senior among the animals, with an appearance of being “stout… but
still a majestic-looking pig”. He claims to “understand the nature of life on this earth as well as
any animal now living”.
Old Major actually represents Karl Marx, the Father of Communism. In the first part of the story,
Old Major calls the farm animals to a meeting and starts a long speech about rebellion and
revolution against humans, imparting his ideals about what he calls “Animalism”- which all
humans are enemies and all animals are equal. This is similar to Marx’s ideals and hypotheses
about collective effort and rejection of the class and capitalist systems.
Another character is Mr. Jones, the farm caretaker. He is described as ruthless, always drunken
and does not care much for the animals. He treats the animals harshly, rationing their food. This
treatment leads to a revolt by the animals later on in the novel, as encouraged by Old Major’s
successors: Snowball and Napoleon- two pigs who make the ideals of Animalism concrete in
‘The Seven Commandments of Animalism’ and later on vie for the top ruling position on the
farm.

Mr. Jones represents the higher ruling classes of society, mainly the owners of big companies
and industries (as well as the government) that employ the lower working classes, practice
exploitation and give low wages to their workers. Mr. Jones is often pictured as “drunken and
lousy at his job” and shows how the higher ruling classes squander their earnings with luxury
and barely do anything to compensate for their worker’s hard labor. This is evident in most
societies, especially in heavy industrialized countries. The employers do what they can to keep
their profit to themselves and releasing only a little to give wages to their employees, thus
making it hard for the workers to fend for themselves with the increasing prices of commodities.
With the death of Old Major days after the first meeting at the barn, two pigs- Napoleon and
Snowball- take it upon themselves to take over the governing of the animals. They concretize
Animalism under seven commandments:

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 with sheets.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol in excess.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.
7. All animals are equal.
Eventually, the pigs encourage the other animals to continue Old Major’s legacy and overthrow
Mr. Jones’ rule. This happens on “The Battle of Cowshed”. This is where they drive out Mr.
Jones, injuring him and running him out of the farm. Their only loss is a sheep that dies in battle.
They give it a hero’s burial. Boxer and Snowball each receive medallions engraved: “Animal
Hero: first class”. The animals eventually discover Mr. Jones’ gun of which he has dropped in
the mud. They place the gun by the flagpole and agree to fire it on the anniversary of the battle
and of the rebellion.
The gun represents a successful, but violent way of overthrowing Mr. Jones. This is again,
contradictory to Marx’s (Old Major) teachings that the revolution is to be accomplished with
integrity, virtue and reflexive resolve. Soon after this, Napoleon and Snowball rise to power in a
premature way, with the animals entrusting them with the power to ratify laws proposed during
the meetings on the barn.
Napoleon, according to several studies on this novel, represents Joseph Stalin. He is presented as
a corrupt character, never contributing anything to the revolution. He attends the meetings, but
keeps quiet. Although he is most directly modeled on the Soviet dictator, Napoleon represents, in
a more general sense, the political tyrants that have emerged throughout human history and with
particular frequency during the twentieth century. His image may also be due to George Orwell’s
political preference at the time. Though after his death Orwell was fought over by the side of
Trotsky’s followers and Stalin’s advocates, he makes it obvious through his works that he was a
Trotskyist by heart.
Orwell’s stint in a Trotskyist battalion in the Spanish Civil War—at the time he first started to
create plans for making a critique on totalitarianism—had a great impact on his creating
Snowball as a character in the novel. He creates Snowball as a symbol for Leon Trotsky, putting
him under an ideal light as a character dedicated to Animalism. This, though, leads to his
downfall because he is no match for Napoleon’s use of brute force. He may have used his
intelligence and logic to gain loyalty from the animals, but this is changed when he is driven out
of the farm as Squealer (another pig) starts to create all sorts of black propaganda against him.

A general theme of ‘Apathy and Acceptance’ actually surrounds the story, evident with the way
the animals simply accept their tasks and do what they are told.
Napoleon uses methods of propaganda with the help of Squealer to blind the other animals to the
truth of what he is doing: hoarding apples (symbolic for resources in an economy, i.e. money),
living inside the Joneses empty house (symbolic of engagement into luxury), and even changing
the seven commandments of Animalism, degrading to only five commandments. This is to suit
the pig’s comfort and desires and to justify their actions. The most striking change was for the
seventh commandment. From: “All animals are equal”, to: “All animals are equal but some
animals are more equal than others”.
“It is for your sake that we pigs drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would
happen if we pigs failed our duty? Jones would come back! Surely comrades… surely there is no
one among you who wants to see Jones come back?”
There is no scientific basis, that milk and apples enhance the pigs’ intelligence, or that they need
these to be able to think clearly for the greater good, but because the other animals lack
knowledge of these things, they accept it and do what they are told, scared that Mr. Jones might
come back to the farm and harm them.
There are also a good number of false ideals and consciousness present in the story. According to
Marx, these ideals and consciousness are one of the reasons why most lower classes do not fight
back against repressive and oppressive governments and establishments.
One major false ideal exemplified in the story is ‘Rugged Individualism’, shown very concretely
by the character of ‘Boxer’. Boxer is the most hardworking of the animals, even adopting the
maxim ‘I will work harder’ which is an alteration of Squealer’s suggested maxim: ‘I will work
hard’. Many of the animals praise Boxer for his hard work, but what he does not realize is that
because he has created that maxim for himself, he now does not pay attention to what is
happening outside of his work. He concentrates on his load, even taking on some other animals’
work and is absorbed in it.
Another false ideal in the story is ‘Classism’. It happens as the morals that used to maintain the
farm turn into controls, which then make the animals effectively split themselves into classes.
This happens through Hegemony, resulting in the acceptance of these classes with ease by the
animals. Hegemony, according to Raymond Williams, is “a form of social control that becomes
accepted as ‘normal’ after becoming the predominant influence”. Take for example the pigs: they
took it upon themselves to rule and follow the teachings of Old Major. This becomes socially
acceptable to the animals after some time and is even perceived as normal, even if there are no
scientific basis to the pigs’ claims that they are mentally superior compared to the other animals.

The work is actually very interesting and has a good number of points to ponder on. Despite the
positive start of the novel, we see how corruption seeps into the Animal Farm’s society.

With this, one has to ask: why did Animalism fail?

During the first reading, one would think that totalitarianism is inevitable and that social classes
are something too deeply rooted into society to eradicate, but if one were to look deeper, one
would realize that the animals actually do get what they want. Old Major, at the start of the story,
gathers the animals to speak of a revolution to free themselves from the humans, and this is
achieved with the ousting of Mr. Jones, along with his family from the farm. The animals are
freed from the humans, but because they are incompetent in ushering in a real sense of equality
among themselves, they are unable to prevent a new regime of oppression. This is reflective of
how there is no genuine classless society today, and that all attempts at communism has failed.
Eventually, Napoleon opens the farm to trade with the humans, with Squealer again making
excuses for Napoleon’s actions. Trade with the humans and the use of money was something that
Old Major had always contradicted and had emphasized in his speech. This is a clear deviation to
the ideals of Animalism that had originally brought the animals together. Again, the animals
respond lightly to the event, believing everything Napoleon, Squealer and the rest of the pigs say,
because they believe that they are too dumb to understand and that they should only work for the
benefit of the farm and the pigs.
The book ends with Napoleon and a human fighting over a poker game. The animals stare at
Napoleon in disbelief as the light reveals that his face has changed, and that he looks much like a
human and that there is no difference between Napoleon and the humans at all.