Animal Farm: Its Parallels To European History
...George Orwell was concerned with the spread of communism throughout Europe and the world and the oppression that took place under it. He hoped to bring awareness to the problem, and did so with his novel, Animal Farm. He wrote Animal Farm to parallel the events in European history concerning the Bolshevik Revolution and the communists' rise to power. He used a wide variety of characters, scenes, and objects in the novel to represent important peoples, places, and events that were pivotal to the history of the time.
In Animal Farm, Mr. Jones represents the last Czar of Russia, Czar Nicholas II (Sparknotes). Mr. Jones repeatedly abuses and mistreates his animals, through acts of whippings, lack of adequate food, and harsh labor (Orwell). After a night in which he forgets to feed his animals, the animals break into food supply and begin to feed themselves. Jones and his men attempt to stop the animals but are chased off and away from the farm (Orwell). Shortly before the animals revolt, Mr. Jones and his men go "rabbitting" in which they try to rid the farm of rabbits that aredestroying the crops. Mr. Jones and his men's' attempt at "rabbitting" parallels Czar Nicholas II's attempt to maintain law and order in Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, as the rabbits of the farm represent the lower social classes of Russia, who begin to start waves of violence throughout the cities before the revolution (Newspeak). The animal's revolt against Mr. Jones parallels the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, in which the people of Russia ousted Czar Nicholas II after years of oppression and poverty, paralleling the lack of food and harsh punishments for the animals.
The animals of Animal Farm represent the people of Russia, but individual pigs mirror key people in the history of Russia. In the beginning, the pigs represent the Intelligentsia, the smartest people in...
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