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A review by dylanhenning
Animal Farm by George Orwell
dark
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
At the time of this review (January 2025) Animal Farm is coming up on its 80th anniversary and unfortunately this book is still as relevant as ever.
This book is often a target for bans here in the United States and it’s easy to see why. Without getting into spoilers the people who want to ban this book and prevent people from reading it and digging into its themes and ideas are represented as the villains/ oppressors in this story.
Let’s talk about those themes. The story starts with the animals on this farm deciding to rise up against their human owner and run him off the farm. After this successful battle they decide to rename the farm to Animal Farm (hence the title of the book) and they decide to govern themselves according to a list of commandments. The commandments are simply summarized as stating that the animals won’t do any of the things their human oppressors did like sleep in beds, wear clothes, or stand on two legs.
Things start out well with this new self governing system with everyone sharing the hard work and the resources among themselves. However some animals like the Pigs are able to read and write where most of the other animals can’t. So they rely on the pigs to tell them what the commandments are and how the systems of government work.
Again not getting too deep into spoilers but eventually a pig named Napoleon is able to convince the rest of the animals that things would be better under his leadership but that in order to achieve success the other animals will have to work harder and make sacrifices but if they trust in Napoleon and his plans everyone will benefit.
Napoleon uses the other animals lack of education and skills to his advantage to spread misinformation, propaganda, and uses fear and intimidation tactics to keep the animals in line but also to enrich himself and ultimately the other pigs.
This book was a commentary on the Russian revolution of 1917 and the events that followed bit you could take this story and apply it to things happening in the United States and around the world still today. Oppressors use misinformation, propaganda, and fear to gain and hold power and to keep the public in line. They also use the levers of government to keep people poor and poorly educated to keep them from realizing what’s happening and revolting.
This story ends at a pivotal moment and leaves the reader in suspense. There is no clean and satisfying ending. There’s no happily ever after moment. There’s no finality to it. We don’t know what the animals will do next. Will things change and they overthrow the oppressors? Will they learn lessons from these events and make changes to address the inequalities that allowed this situation to happen? It all depends on what the animals do next. Similarly the ending to the story of humanity isn’t written either. It’s up to us as the human race to make changes and address the cracks in the system to prevent this cycle from continuing over and over again across the world.
This story ends at a pivotal moment and leaves the reader in suspense. There is no clean and satisfying ending. There’s no happily ever after moment. There’s no finality to it. We don’t know what the animals will do next. Will things change and they overthrow the oppressors? Will they learn lessons from these events and make changes to address the inequalities that allowed this situation to happen? It all depends on what the animals do next. Similarly the ending to the story of humanity isn’t written either. It’s up to us as the human race to make changes and address the cracks in the system to prevent this cycle from continuing over and over again across the world.