Animal Farm — Pre-Reading Guide
Read this before you start the book
📖 What Is This Book?
Animal Farm is an allegorical novella that uses a group of farm animals to satirize the events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. It starts as a hopeful revolution for equality and ends as a chilling totalitarian nightmare.
Basic Facts:
- Author: George Orwell (1903–1950)
- Published: 1945
- Length: ~100 pages
- Reading Time: ~2-3 hours
- Genre: Satire, Allegory, Fable, Political Fiction
- Setting: Manor Farm (later Animal Farm), England.
🏆 Why Is This Book Important?
Literary Significance
-
Mastery of Allegory
- Orwell managed to map the extremely complex history of the USSR onto a simple farm setting. Every character represents a specific historical figure or social class (e.g., Napoleon is Stalin, Snowball is Trotsky).
-
The Corruption of Language
- It marks Orwell’s first major exploration of how ideology can be twisted by changing words—exemplified by the famous shifting of the “Seven Commandments.”
-
Accessible Political Education
- Because it is written as a “fable,” it is accessible to all ages, yet its themes of power, greed, and betrayal are deeply sophisticated.
Historical Context
- WWII Context: Orwell struggled to find a publisher in 1944-45 because the UK was allied with the USSR against Nazi Germany, and many didn’t want to criticize Stalin at the time.
- The Russian Revolution: To get the most out of the book, it helps to have a basic understanding of the Tsar’s fall, the rise of the Bolsheviks, and the eventual struggle between Stalin and Trotsky.
🎯 What to Think About As You Read
Key Questions to Keep in Mind
- How does power corrupt?
- Watch the transition of the pigs from “comrades” to “masters.” Is there a specific moment when they cross the line?
- What is the role of education?
- Notice how the animals who cannot read or remember the past are the ones most easily manipulated.
- Can a revolution ever truly succeed?
- Orwell was a democratic socialist. Does he believe the revolution failed because of the idea or because of the leaders?
Literary Elements to Notice
- The Seven Commandments: Keep track of how they are subtly changed over time. Who changes them?
- The Sheep: Note how they are used to drown out debate with simple slogans (“Four legs good, two legs bad”).
- The Windmill: What does this ambitious project represent in terms of the state’s promises and the workers’ labor?
🎓 About Orwell’s Style
The “Aesthetically Pure” Fable
Orwell wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, to “fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.” The language is extremely simple, almost like a children’s book, which makes the underlying horror even more effective.
💡 Reading Tips
- Identify the “Historic Parallels”: As you read, try to match the animals to their historical counterparts (e.g., Mr. Jones is Tsar Nicholas II, Old Major is a mix of Marx and Lenin).
- Watch the Dogs: Pay close attention to how the dogs are raised and used. They represent the secret police (NKVD).
🎯 Your Reading Goals
As you read, try to:
- Trace the slow erosion of the original “Animalism” ideals.
- Understand how the pigs use “Squealer” to maintain control through propaganda.
- Reflect on the final scene of the book—it is one of the most famous endings in literature.
Pre-Reading Guide created: 2025-12-25
For Great Literature 105 - Book 02 of 10