Animal Farm

Animal Farm is both an allegory and a fable that uses personified animals to tell of struggles of a communist society that leads to a dystopian future. An allegory is a story or poem in which characters, setting, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities. Animal Farm accurately portrays the Russian Revolution by using animals to stand for people and the pigs represent the powerful leaders of a Communist nation. A fable is a very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life. In the book, the animals revolt without putting much thought into the future, which leads to a bleak and miserable life. The lesson being taught is to think before you act. Personification is a literary technique in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes. The animals (mainly the pigs) can speak, read, and walk on two legs. These are human characteristics that are given to the animals to relate them more closely to mankind itself, thus making it personified. A dystopia is a hypothetical or otherwise imaginary society in a work of fiction (especially one set in a speculative future), a place in which people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives or in which “everything is unpleasant or bad.” Once the pigs take over and Snowball is abolished, the pigs quickly turn the farm back to its old ways by executing any animals associated with Snowball, and also by forcing the animals to work longer and harder than ever before while receiving less food rations, making their lives miserable. By making Animal Farm an allegory and a fable that uses personification, the author accurately shows how Communist Russia was a dystopia by using fun animals and easy to understand topics. The theme of the novel is to show of the troubles that occur when the animals achieve a totalitarian government (a government in which one person holds all of the power of a nation) and a communist