Opravy

Animal Farm was written in 1945 by the British author Gorge Orwell.

It tells the story of the animals of a farm in England, who get rid of the farmer and organize themselves to live without humans.

Written just after the second world war and right in the cold war, the book actually takes on a politic message, even if nothing is really explicit.

But we can wonder how can Orwell make a reflection of the stalinism through an animal tale.

Firstable, it sounds like a book for children.

The characters are animals talking, just like in a tale, the narration is easy to understand, the story is told as if it was happening right now.

We guess the wit of Orwell, who tells the story in a pleasant way and give it a universal and ironic meaning.

Behind that story, we guess the main historical characters of the stalinism, and even the events of the Russian Revolution.

If we take the windmill, Napoleon eventually take over the idea of the enemy he just eliminated, as Stalin in 1927 about the industrialization of Russia.

And the book is full of direct references to events of that period.

* The abolition of the general meetings of Sunday morning call to remind the liquidation of the last advantages of a worker democracy.

* When Napoleon is taking the control of the farm, he chase away Snowball just as Stalin did with Trotski to have the full powers.

* Boxer could be compare with Stakhanov, the working class hero shown to advantage.

* When the pigs have moved to the farmhouse, Squealer confuses the animals and they can't contradict him because they can't even read.

Squealer could be an allegory of propaganda, using the unknowledge of the population to convince that Stalin is a good man.

We could easily make a link with Lord of the Flies, written in 1954 by William Golding, who had received the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1983.

Just as Animal Farm, behind the adventure-book-looking, there is a bleak conclusion tinged with his era and the nightmare of the second world war.

The characters need a chief to decide for them and reassure them from the fear of the monster hidden in the jungle, like the animals need a chief to decide and run the farm.

At a moment, the self-proclaimed leader, Jack, says "I was chief, and you were going to do what I said." It can recall "Do you want to see Jones back ?" Jack uses fear of an enemy who anesthetize minds and allows to free from laws and reason.

In the both books there is laws, the Seven Commandments written on the wall of the Animal Farm and the reglememt of the children in Lord of the Flies.

Just as Animal Farm, this is a book about the mechanism of the power which leaded to world disasters.

The rise of the dictator Jack is due to fear and violence, intrinsic to the human race, and those of Napoleon to the gap of reflexion from the animals who don't have the knowledge necessary to contest the orders.

Orwell doesn't really denounce stalinism, he prevents us that in every society, power is unavoidable.