Animal Farm George Orwell 1903 1950 Born in

Animal Farm George Orwell

� 1903 -1950 �Born in India as his father was in civil service �Became police officer in Burma and was troubled by English imperialism �Agreed and fought with socialist in Spanish Civil War �Feared communism and wrote AF in 1943 to expose truths of Soviet government George Orwell (Eric Blair)

�Russian people hungry and country lost 1 million men in WWI �March 1917 people began to demonstrate for food and the army joined the demonstration �Czar Nicholas II abdicated for himself and his son �Provisional government set up as democracy which was overthrown by Bolsheviks led by Lenin Nov 7, 1917 Russian Revolution 1917 -1921

�The ideal society is communist �Divide all wealth by need �End private ownership �Revolution will create this new society ◦ Promise democracy ◦ Working class must take control ◦ Single dictatorship will outweigh individual needs Lenin and Karl Marx

�Productivity down �Food rationed � 1920 -21 5 million starved �Government moved to Moscow �Lenin died and Trotsky, his successor, exiled �Stalin becomes dictator �Stalin purged millions, had history rewritten, demanded uniformity �Slogans: “Peace, Land, Bread” “All Power to the Soviets” �Russian became involved with Allies in WWII Novel’s parallels with history

Compliance to the leader 2. Difference of the system will lead to its appeal 3. Isolation because of difference prevents sharing the experience 4. Dictatorship prevents any other input 1. Steps to totalitarianism

�Satire: criticize through ridicule �Irony ◦ Dramatic: audience knows what the characters do not ◦ Situational: what happens is not what is expected �Symbolism: each character represents a part of the revolution Literary devices to know

�Animals have human traits �Animals remain in character as animals and humans don’t develop personalities �Story is told from an animal point of view �Story has a moral Fable/Fairy Tale characteristics