Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Animal Farm
- Themes
- Power Corrupts
- As the pigs gain
power, it becomes
harder for them to
resist the
temptation of an
easier life.
- Education and learning
- The pigs can
dominate the other
animals because they
can read. As the other
animals are illiterate
or unwilling to read,
they are dependent
on the pigs.
- Propaganda
- Squealer uses several
methods to control
the animals and
convince them of
Napoleon’s wisdom
and justice.
- Language and Power
- Orwell shows us
Clover’s inability to
express her thoughts
and how this prevents
the animals from
protesting after the
executions.
- How do Dictators keep power?
- Squealer rewrites several
events on the farm to justify the
pigs’ actions and Napoleon’s
rule over them.
- Characters
- Napoleon
- The pig who seizes
control of the farm
after the revolution
and becomes its
dictator.
- Snowball
- The cleverest pig on the
farm and Napoleon’s rival
for leadership of Animal
Farm.
- Boxer
- The hard-working horse who is the
most devoted supporter of the
revolution and who makes huge
sacrifices for the farm’s success.
- Old Major
- The oldest pig on the farm
whose speech sets out the
principles of Animalism and the
high ideals by which the pigs’
actions are later judged.
- Squealer
- Napoleon’s spin doctor and
the pig who alters the Seven
Commandments.
- Language and structure
- The seven commandments
- Orwell uses this echo of Christianity’s
Ten Commandments as a structural
device to let the reader chart the farm’s
decline into tyranny.
- Irony
- When words suggest the opposite
of what they normally mean. For
example, we are told that the
animals have ‘a greater dignity’ in
their lives after the revolution.
- Allegory
- A story that mirrors historical
events or wider ideas. The Battle
of the Cowshed is an allegory of
the Russian Revolution, led by
Lenin
- Satire
- A written attack that makes
something look foolish or
unpleasant. For example,
Napoleon’s reinvention of
Snowball’s actions during the
Battle of the Cowshed mocks
Stalin’s reinvention of himself as
Lenin’s favourite