Animal Farm

1
Animal Farm

• Satirical Traits in Animal Farm

2
Key Terms for Animal Farm

• Terms
• Utopia the perfect society
• Communism was supposed to be Utopia
• The United States was considered at one point to
  be an experiment in the perfect society, of
  course this didnt include minorities, women, and
  people who did not have their own land.
• Distopia the opposite of a perfect society (Dis
  is an ancient name for hell or Hades)
• Satire art that ridicules people and society
• Allegory a story that has more than one level
• Communism/Totalitarianism Communism is rule by
  everyone while totalitarianism is rule by one so
  they are by definition opposites

3
Satire

• Animal Farm is a satire in many ways
• It ridicules society and those who try to make
  society better through the implementation of
  ideas
• Old Majors ideas are too naïve and create
  suffering even though they are meant to help
  (irony)
• Snowballs attempts to improve life are also
  brought to ruin, even though he is more clever
  than Napoleon and clearly a better leader
• Napoleon only succeeds at making life better for
  the pigs, at the expense of the other animals

4
Satire

• Animal Farm is a satire because
• It exaggerates and ridicules Joseph Stalins
  reign of power
• It portrays Stalin and his government as evil
  pigs (literally and figuratively)
• It shows that people can be animals in the way
  that they treat, exploit, and manipulate each
  other for their own gain

5
Satire

• Animal Farm is a satire because
• It shows how a lack of literacy, reading, and
  education makes people easy targets for tyrants,
  dictators, and those who would use propaganda to
  manipulate the masses
• It shows how rhetoric, the art of persuasive
  writing and speaking, and propaganda are more
  important to maintaining power than goodness,
  competence, fairness, and other virtues

6
Propaganda

• Examples of propaganda in the novel include
• Old Major's speech.
• "Vote for Snowball and the three-day work week!"
• "Vote for Napoleon and the full manger!"
• Squealer is full of propaganda!  He runs around
  explaining Napoleon's actions, and praising him. 
  He can justify anything Napoleon does, and
  usually places all blame and hardships on
  Snowball.
• Boxer's maxims Napoleon is always right! and
  I must work harder
• The hens' "duty."
• There are several examples of propaganda when the
  pigs are trying to convince the farm that
  everything is fine, when they are really running
  out of food, making announcements about
  productivity and such when the animals are
  starving

7
Character

• Animalism is a satirical twist on Communism as
  practiced by the Soviets, for example
• Napoleon is clearly a satirical portrayal of
  Joseph Stalin.
• Old Major is satirical portrayal of Karl Marx,
  whose work, the Communist Manifesto, was the
  basis for Vladimir Lenins ideas.
• Snowball represents Leon Trotsky and those
  members of the Soviet Communist party that really
  wanted Communism to work for the people. There
  can be no mistaking why Snowball is chased off
  the farm. For Communism to work and all to be
  equal, there can be no evil and greed (hence,
  nobody like Napoleon or Squealer)
• Boxer represents the masses of Soviet workers and
  peasants who were betrayed by Joseph Stalin and
  whose dreams were turned into nightmares.

8
Irony

• There are some important ironies in the story
  such as
• The animals on Animal Farm trade one kind of
  tyrant for another, despite their best effort to
  get rid of tyrants forever.
• In working for the good of all, the animals have
  only succeeded in making things worse for
  themselves.
• In trying to prove that the animals can rule
  themselves, they have proven that they really
  cannot govern themselves, mostly because most of
  them are too stupid or slow or cowardly to stand
  up to those who are trying to exploit everyone
  else.

9
Themes

• While the subject of the story is Animalism, and
  the underlying, allegorical subject is Communism
  in Russia, the theme of the story can be stated
  as.
• A perfect society is only as perfect as the
  members that make it up.
• No society will ever have real equality as long
  as some people take advantage of others.
• Come up with some themes of your own.