The book review of animal farm

The book review of “Animal Farm”

When I saw the title for the first time, I thought this passage must be a fairy tale, but out of the blue, it’s a serious politics prediction novel. The author George Orwell use the revolution of animal farm to criticize those politicians who play tricks and deceive people, as well as be the ruling class to stand up for themselves power. Absolutely, it’s a transition from democracy to totalitarianism.

Why the author wrote an ironic novel like this? I am afraid that it has a lot to do with the author’s personal experience. We know that George Orwell was born in 1903 and his birthplace is India, which was the colony of Britain in that times. During his childhood, he saw many extreme conflicts between colonists and aboriginals. What he thought was different with other British children, he gave his sympathy to miserable Indian. Unfortunately, he died in 1950 because of repeating lung disease, only 47-year –old. Although his lifetime is short, he observe and record his times with his penetrating insight and incisive words. Likewise, he made dozens of advancing predictions, for which he was known as “The Austere Conscience of a Generation”. So in this novel, the author always describe the ugly face of the ruler Napoleon from the perspective of workers and famers.

At the beginning of the story, the venerable old pig, William delivered an exciting speech, in which he preached revolution and said:“ The life of animal is a enslaved and exploited one. If we want freedom, revolution is needed.” Later, Snowball and Napoleon leaded a rebellion, overturned the famer Jones and expatriated him. Animals established their own “Animal Farm” and formulated

seven things that couldn’t do. At the Saturday meeting, they came up with a series of measures, such as honoring the old Squadron Leader every week, getting along with each other peacefully, increasing food, working three days weekly, even retiring on schedule. It seemed that everything was good and future was promising, but in fact everything is changed. Because of the intelligent difference between pigs and other animals, Snowball and Napoleon became the power center of ruling class, controlling the farm’s topic and the right of voting. Snowball was always opposed to Napoleon’s policies, so Napoleon expelled Snowball using his nine fierce dogs. From then on, the farm was filled with terror atmosphere. Napoleon owed all the bad consequences to Snowball, which came from his own wrong decision. And he also claimed that Snowball has combined with human beings to destroy the farm, tamper the truth and defame those who told the truth. A lot of animals had to say that they are the jackals of Snowball under the threat of Napoleon, so the fates of them were bitten by the nine fierce dogs. Violating the initial formulation again and again, Napoleon was thought that he had plenty of traits in common with human beings.

The novel is abundant in meaning and analyze the impact of violent revolution. Orwell hopes that future generations can grab the essence, find a way out of the political gloom, get rid of the fate of “Sisyphus style”. Meanwhile, even if due to the defects of human nature itself, or due to the limited political wisdom of mankind, this horrible political setback and cycle are still arising now and then. Orwell also hopes that people should be able to understand how individuals respond to, because any single political mistake or historic change may lead to devastation of many lives’ value.

As the novel title page said: “One more person to read Orwell, one more guarantee of freedom.”