Animal Farm - The Characters

[Hate Is Art]

We All know that Animal Farm is based on the Russian Revolution, I am just wondering if i got the charcters right

Napoleon is Stalin
Snowball is Trotsky
Boxer is Russian Peseants
Old Major is Lenin
Frederick is Hitler and Pilkington is Churchill
but can someone tell me who Squelar and Benjamin as well as the other characters are meant to be please

[Pete]

Squeeler is the media/propaganda

Benjamin? Which animal was that again?

[hazard]

animal farm is about french revolution and not about the soviet union and stalin or, any russians at all for the matter.

napoleon is napoleon
snowball is marat
boxer is french proletariates
everybody else, it don't really matter. you have to know that the revolution in question is not a communist one and only a capitalist one. if you have read 1984 you begin to realize that Orwell was speaking not about THE future, but HIS future and the future of HIS work. animal farm, and the fact that you and me and everybody are supposed to think about it is the perfect example.

[Hate Is Art]

animal farm is about the russian revoulution you would have to be an idiot not to see that

[thursday night]

Hazard, that was pretty idiotic of you to say.

[Pete]

I would like to see proof and logic behind your claim Hazard, seeing as you disregard almost every animal on the farm in your post ("everybody else, it don't really matter.")

[Valkyrie]

Here is a good key to the symbolism.

www.k-1.com/Orwell/animf.htm

(Edited by Paris at 7:32 am on April 17, 2003)

[Anonymous]

Hazard is partial right...

the animal famr as a doble meaning.. it can mean Both revolutions.

also the old major is Karl Marx... he can also mean Lenin since he too started the revolution..
so i would say he is basicly the representation of the marxist leninist ideals...

it was also a subtile critic to the russian revoltuion..
since the similaritys and later results of botht he russians and french revolutions are similiar...

[hazard]

jeez guys, I don't know. first the Matrix and now this.

the basic satire in play is the logic of revolution. we can all agree on this, for some of us think it is about the russian revolutin and some of us think it is about the french revolution. we are all in agreement. what I really should be asking is WHY you think it is about the russian revlution? but I won't. I'm gonna keep it simple here.

as a basic satire of revolution, one must come to realize that a revolution is only possible when all members of the working classess band together to usurp the rulers. in this case, the rulers were the humans. the animals, lead by the pigs, began a revolution and replaced the rule of the humans with their own. the pigs could not have done it by themselves. they needed the hhorses and the mules and he dogs and the sheep in order to make the revolution work. in order to get these animals(classess) on their side, they made promises. these promises, like the french and american revolution, were freedom and equality for everybody. if these promises weren't made, the pigs would not have gotten the support they needed. so they lied. just like the french and americans lied. the bourgeoisie revolutions are all identical to the animal farm in this way. the revolution is started under the pretense of equality and freedom, except once it is over the equality only really applies to them. because they are pigs, or because they are bourgeoisie.

the final scene deals with the bourgeoisie(pigs) becoming modern monarchs. nothing has changed. notice how it wasn't the humans who become pigs. this is key. both ruling classess rely on the explitation of labour in order to function.

there's much more to this than what I have said. but I think this is enough for now. does it really make sense to you that Orwell, a known supporter of communism, would actively write out against the only functioning communist nation of his age? it don't to me. it makes much more sense to see Animal Farm in the way he intended it, as a satire of the bourgeoisie revolutions of the 18th century. the only freedom of these revolutions was the freedom of the ruling class to exploit the workers.

[hazard]

paris:

I stopped reading stuff like your link when I was in high school. it is simply propaganda. summary's like those (cliff's notes, coles notes, etc) present only capitalist interpretations of any text. for a laugh, go look up the manifesto and see what CLiff and Cole has to say aboout it. such resources cannot be trusted.

first sentence is the most brutal I've ever read. "Animal Farm is a story about the Russian revolution". it uses the word "is", leaving the impression hat there is no room for interpretation. not only that, Animal Farm is NOT about any revoultion other than the Animal revolution. it can be said that Animal Farm is analgous to the Russian Revolution, but not that it IS about it. bad bad bad bad bad. the section upon the types of animals is hilarious. it purposefully avoids the treatment of pigs as representative of capitalists. it also makes a HUGE mistake when dealing with the napoleon character. it says this charcter is "coincidental" because many see napoleon as the anti christ. no, it is coincidental, if one falsely believes that the book deals with the russian revolution, because Napoloen was a capitalist warmonger who attempted to conquer europe, just like the capitalists think stalin tried to do the same. the whole review is a waste of time. stop reading them now. and NEVER EVER NEVER use them to support an argument on ANYTHING. they really do suck the big one.

[Valkyrie]

Here's the the Preface to Animal Farm, written by Orwell after he had problems getting it published.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/Orwell.html

(Edited by Paris at 10:01 pm on April 19, 2003)


(Edited by Paris at 6:36 am on April 21, 2003)


(Edited by Paris at 7:20 am on June 21, 2003)

[the pen]

animal is about 1984
while fight with the poum in spain orwell developed a deep hatred for stalinist beurachy.
a few more
squealer-pravada
mollie- middle class
moses- russian church
boxer- uneducated working class
other horse?- educated working class

[the pen]

sry bout that last post
animal farm is not about 1984 but russia
appologies

[hazard]

paris: your link don't work. I would be very interested to read that preface, as no edition of animal farm has ever had one that I have encountered. orwell was a fan of speaking in code, too, so I would be interested in seeeing wht was said.

the pen: you might want to look a bit more deeply at the characters and what has been said here. doesn't my idea make MORE sense? aren't there already enough divisions in our movement let alone whether Orwell supporrted or opposed the USSR? for our sake, we have a good argument HERE, as I have presented it. a unified socialist front must begin by unifying all of the propaganda of the capitalists since WWII. for me, this process begins with ORWELL.

[Valkyrie]

Try this one:

http://www.yelah.net/articles/orwell


and here it the other one.. it works now!

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/Orwell.html



(Edited by Paris at 6:34 am on April 21, 2003)


(Edited by Paris at 6:35 am on April 21, 2003)

[hazard]

paris:

strangely, the preface to this preface claims orwell desired to attack international communism. this is not true. the worst anyone can put against orwell was that he was opposed to the USSR. he was clearly and obviously a communist supporter. I find this preface, in total, highly dubious. orwell, during the war, worked to decypher the propaganda of the nazi's and knows well what the pupose of the "free" press is. this preface has nothing to do with animal farm and basically goes without saying. I question the accuracy and legitmacy of this preface. I wonder if it was even written by orwell or not.

[Valkyrie]

If you mean this paragraph below from the preface of the preface, then you are reading it out of context.

The point being put forth is that the anti-communists (Not Orwell) are using both books, Animal Farm, (1945) and 1984, (1949) as their own propaganda tool against the left to demonize and "attack Stalinism, International Communism" and anything left-leaning.

And then it goes on to say that to use those two books to make generalized wholesale attacks of the left is in error because: 1) Animal Farm was a specific case reference to the Soviet Union's totalitarianism and it's selling out to Capitalist countries. and 2) it overlooks Orwells own left political leanings as a life-long confirmed socialist and all the things he did write in favor of socialism.

In otherwords, you can't use a Socialist to fight against socialism.

Here's the noted paragraph:

"It is "ironic" that the particular example of self-censorship Orwell referred to in the essay was the refusal of the left-wing and liberal press of the time to publish criticism of the Soviet Union - not a major feature of Western media orthodoxy in later years. Indeed, the subsequent popularity of Animal Farm and 1984 had much to do with their usefulness in attacking the USSR and "International Communism" (more usually, of course, these attacks were simply on anyone, left-leaning or otherwise, the attacker was anxious to demonise). Even now, Orwell is better known for these two books, apparently intended as critiques of socialism, than for the many works he wrote espousing socialism. Using Orwell's works to make generalised attacks on the left is problematic, even for the two novels championed thus - while Animal Farm is very clearly a deserved satire on the Soviet Union, its greatest criticism of the Russian leaders is that they sold out socialist principle to accommodate themselves with capitalist countries ("The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.") ............... In any event, casting Orwell as a gadfly of socialism requires serious distortion of his political viewpoint and the intention behind his writing - throughout his life, Orwell remained a confirmed socialist and worked almost exclusively for socialist journals."
____

Orwell's "Freedom of the Press" essay which includes a letter from a Publisher explaining why they were refusing to publish the book; hence Orwell's writing the essay condeming that.

Further, Orwell writes in his essay "Why I Write", 1949:

"The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects."

http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/write.htm


Notes on Nationalism, 1945
http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/nat.htm







(Edited by Paris at 6:49 am on April 22, 2003)