LEC052016. Christy Mariya Joy. Marxist Reading of Orwell's Animal Farm.

 

MARXIST READING OF ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM

 

            Animal Farm, the allegorical novel by George Orwell, depicts the ideology of Marxism and the garbling of this ideology by its followers. Marxism is a social, political and economic philosophy emerged during the nineteenth century with the publication of Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. It fights for the emancipation of the working class which is subjected to the exploitations of the business class or Bourgeoisie. Likewise, the novel too begins with a protest against the farm owner by the animals, who symbolizes the working class. As the story progresses, the actual intention of the rebellion was forgotten and the condition of the animals worsened under the rule of new leaders, something which happened with the contemporary Russian society.

            In October 1917, Vladimir Lenin, the architect of Russian revolution, became chief commissar of Russia, after the overthrowal of monarchy. Under his rule, Russia restored its prosperity and modernized the nation’s primitive infrastructure. After his death in 1924, Stalin and Trotsky were the new heirs of Lenin’s power but Stalin slowly expelled Trotsky from Russia and later assassinated him in Mexico leading Stalin to the unquestioned dictator of Russia. “The ‘heroism’ of figures like Stalin is built upon heaps of corpses. He was a striking example of the paranoid survivor described in Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power as ‘mankind’s worst evil, its curse and perhaps its doom’” (Pomper 460). Animal Farm is a fable where animals take up human characters. Old Major represents Marx and Lenin, the great leaders of communist movement and his speech brings about a revolution in the farm.

“Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first. …. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth. But is this simply part of the order of Nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no!” (Orwell 2)

The Old Major addressing the animals as ‘Comrades’ itself is an evidence for the depiction of Marxism as the major theme. His speech has an everlasting influence on his audience which made the other animals aware of their rights. It includes all the essential concepts to motivate the revolution action. Thus, his speech reflects the ideology put forward by Marx which paved the way for the upliftment of the working class. The animals call the principles put forward by Old Major as ‘Animalism’ which corresponds to the ‘Communism’ of Marx and Engels. With these beliefs, they expelled Mr. Jones, the farm owner and changed the name from ‘Manor Farm’ to ‘Animal Farm’. Furthermore, they established ‘Seven Commandments’, which serve as the legal pillars of the farm.

The Seven Commandments protect the system serving equal priorities to all which is evident from the seventh one, “All animals are equal” (Orwell 8). But as the novel progresses, certain changes are introduced in these commands for the sake of certain groups of animals. The very fundamental command of equality itself is changed to “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.” The condition of the animals become worse than those at times under human control. Literally, they end up at the same point from where they start. Hence the novel portrays how Marxism was used as the revolution idea against a prevailing system and how it was later corrupted by its followers.

           

WORKS CITED

Orwell, G. (1945). ANIMAL FARM. (R. da Rat, Ed.). Rat, Roderick da. Retrieved from www.huzheng.org/geniusreligion/AnimalFarm.pdf

POMPER, PHILIP. “REVOLUTIONARY MACHISMO AND ANIMAL FARM.” Russian History, vol. 21, no. 4, 1994, pp. 438–460. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24658491. Accessed 6 Feb. 2021.