Animal Farm. Fable?

To Be or Not To Be… a Fable Everyone knows at least one fable. A fable is a story that typically has animals as characters and a moral stated at the end. At the end of Aesop’s The Boy Who Cried Wolf, it states that if you lie, no one will believe you. Animal Farm does not directly state the moral but it can be considered a fable because it has animals as characters, uses metaphors and teaches a lesson. One classic characteristic of a fable is to have animal characters, and most characters in animal farm are animals. In this novel, Napoleon is a pig who becomes the leader of the farm and has human traits. He is the pig who takes the farm over after Old Major dies. Another animal character is Boxer. He is hard-working and never gives up. These are important traits because they are human like. “All animals are equal” (page 43). This goes along with having animal characters because the animals were all supposed to be the same. As in, they were all supposed to have the same rights as humans do. Another characteristic of a fable is to use metaphors, and animal definitely meets this criteria. Napoleon’s character was not just a pig, he was a metaphor for Stalin trying to take over after Lenin died. Just as Boxer was not only a horse, he was a metaphor for the working class in Russia during the Russian Revolution. Boxer, as I said before, was a very hard worker. He had a “motto” which was, I will work harder (page 75). This is significant because the working class

in Russia worked very hard and followed all of Stalin’s rules so they would not get pummeled by him. Although fables usually have a moral stated at the end, Animal Farm can still be considered a fable because it teaches a lesson. Throughout the novel, the animals learn that if you get power, or become a leader/dictator, you will most likely abuse it. The pigs are almost equal in the beginning but, as the novel goes on, the pigs get more and more power. This