Animal Farm Summary
...Jones's farm, the farm animals are preparing to meet after Mr. Jones goes to sleep, to hear the words that the old and well-respected pig, Old Major, wants to say to them. The animals gather around as Old Major tells them that he had a dream the previous night and senses that he will not live much longer. As the animals prepare for his speech, the narrator identifies several of the animals which will become more important in the story: the cart-horses Boxer and Clover, the old donkey Benjamin, and Mollie the pretty mare. Before he dies, he wants to tell the animals what he has observed and learned in his twelve years. Old Major goes on to say that animals in England are cruelly kept in slavery by man, who steals the animals' labor and is "the only creature that consumes without producing". He describes his vision of an England in which animals are free and live in complete harmony and cooperation, free of the tyranny of man and his evil habits.
Old Major tells the animals that they must all band together to fight the common enemy, Man, and rise up in rebellion when the opportunity comes. He exhorts them to remain true to their animal ways, and then leads them in a rousing song of revolution, called "Beasts of England". They are stirred into a frenzy by Old Major's speech and sing the song five consecutive times, until Mr. Jones stirs and fires a shot into the air to quiet them down. Soon the whole farm falls asleep.
Chapter One: Analysis
Animal Farm is a satire on the Russian Revolution, and is one of the best 20th-century examples of allegory, an extended form of metaphor in which objects and persons symbolize figures that exist outside the text. As its title suggests, the setting for this fable-like novel is a farm, and the bulk of the characters are the farm animals themselves, all of whom symbolize various revolutionary figures or political...
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