George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire on a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.
"Animal Farm" is the story of a group of animals living in a farm under human authority. Once manipulated into believing Mr. Jones is evil, as well as all the human race, the animals decide to rebel. They come up with seven commandments that they are expected to live by:
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;
7. All animals are equal.
The rules were set and they were final. They drive out the farmer and start to feel as if all authority is gone. Just as fast, the pigs decide they are the ones most fit to be in charge. Sure enough, authority begins to be abused and misused. The pigs treated the animals as if they were above and better than them. They started living in the farmers home, sleeping in the beds and there were even rumors of murder! The other animals were forced to work harder while the pigs sat around and did absolutely nothing. Everything was all too familiar but if you decided to speak up or go against the pigs, you were gone.
I could definitely recommend this book to others because it's very interesting and easy to comprehend. It illustrates manipulation at its worst. Before reading this book, I didn't care much for politics but after I realized everything that could go wrong, it motivated me to be aware of any leader's words and actions. It brought me to the realization that just because it sounds good doesn't always mean go with it because it's easy to be manipulated when the words they're speaking sound right. Change isn't always for the better, even if that's what they're telling you.
The Animal Farm has a big goal they were trying to reach. As they were trying to get towards that goal, they hit a few bumps. They really learned what kind of unfair leader they had. They finally found out what happened with Snowball, their old leader. They wondered why they were treated so horribly and what they did to deserve it. Which in reality, they did nothing. It was all because they had a selfish leader and they trusted him. The way George Orwell described everything, I could picture everything that was going on in the book. I understood a little bit more of what was going on and how serious these animals were. They were exhausted. Overworked, they weren¿t fed well, didn¿t have any say so in anything. All they had were these commandments to live by:
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;
7. All animals are equal
These rules weren¿t always fair but the animals took them seriously as well as the leaders. They had a song they sang that was in memory of their old leader. They sang it all the time and thought about their deceased member. Eventually, that was also banned from the farm and so were many other things. If you think that the world is not fair, why don¿t you just read this book and then you will really understand what is unfair and what rules that we need are. All you have to do is look at these animals. They had a desire for change burning in their hearts and would do anything to get there. Change can be for the good, which is what the animals wanted. But the downfall of that is, that change can also be for the bad, which is what happened in the story.