The October Revolution In George Orwell's Animal Farm

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The book Animal Farm by George Orwell is a prime example of an allegory for a very important event, the Russian Revolution/October Revolution. “Animal Farm is George Orwell's satire on equality, where all barnyard animals live free from their human masters' tyranny.” (cliffnotes). The Russian Revolution occurred in 1917 when the working class of Russia rebelled against the government of Tsar Nicholas II. They were led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks (revolutionaries). Various events, characters, and beliefs in Animal Farm are a representation of who was involved in the Russian Revolution and what happened. George Orwell wrote this book in hopes to resemble the Russian Revolution details. Orwell related both the character’s tactics, personalities, …show more content…

George Orwell uses flags, plans, struggles, and events that occurred during the October Revolution as inspiration for those in Animal Farm. In the book, a 2-year plan was created to build the windmill and in the same way, Stalin wrote a 5-year plan to create a list of their economic goals. In addition to the plans made, both the book and the Russian Revolution include flags that appear various times. In Animal Farm, the flag had a horn and hoof on it, while the Soviet flag had a hammer and a sickle. The occurrence of the pigs altering the story of the Battle of Cowshed is very similar to the occurrence of the Soviets re-writing history. Both Stalin and Napoleon changed the stories in order to show them as heroes of their own situations. In addition to the pigs changing history, they also started becoming more like humans as the book went on and in the same way, the Revolutionaries were slowly becoming known as the privileged …show more content…

He does this through the character’s traits, events, symbols, and beliefs. Orwell uses history as a point of view for his story and by reading Animal Farm, I can connect many situations in the story to those of the Russian Revolution. Relating Animal Farm to a historical event made me realize that many authors use things that have already happened in the world, good things or bad, as inspiration for their stories. The comparison allows the readers to make connections and be more informed about both the views during the revolution and the different leader’s

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