Who doesn’t love a good story about talking animals? Especially when that story involves a
communist revolution and takeover of the farm…by the pigs. It’s sort of like the big bad wolf getting
executed because he didn’t follow Party policy and conserve his energy for
other useful pursuits…like standing in line for toilet paper.
Published in 1945, George Orwell (aka Eric Blair) wrote Animal Farm as repudiation against those
who idealized the Soviet Union. The Second World War had barely ended…the Cold
War was ramping up…and George Orwell was none to pleased with those in Great
Britain who still thought Uncle Joe Stalin was the greatest thing since the
hammer and sickle.
His solution, cloak the Soviet Revolution within a fairy
tale like setting, the characters, both human and beast, representing actual
individuals who were key participants, and top it off by turning all of old
MacDonald’s fun and frolicking critters into farmer Jones’ four-legged,
bloodthirsty, commie fanatics…that talk…