Animal Farm - Slide Presentation
Animal Farm - Slide Presentation
Animal Farm - Slide Presentation
Gabriele Lima
Isaac Azevedo
George Orwell's life
George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903, was
an influential British writer and journalist. He is best known
for his dystopian novels "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and
"Animal Farm," which explore themes of totalitarianism,
censorship, and the abuse of power.
Orwell's upbringing in colonial India and his experiences as a
colonial police officer in Burma shaped his critical
perspective on imperialism. He later adopted the pen
name George Orwell to protect his family's reputation while
writing about sensitive political issues.
Orwell actively participated in the Spanish Civil War, fighting
against Francisco Franco's fascist forces and joining the
Republican militias. This experience greatly influenced his
writing, and he later chronicled his time in Spain in his
memoir "Homage to Catalonia."
Animal Farm, what is it about?
The book is described as a Fairy Tale,
since practically all the characters are
talking animals, and we can see the
use of the anthropomorphic device
throughout the story. If it’s read by a
child, they would see it as just another
children’s Fairy Tale, but for an adult
(with a minimum of political and
historical sense), the tale tells a very
different story.
“I thought about denouncing the Soviet
myth through a story easily
understandable by anyone, and easily
translated into other languages.
However, the story’s details only
occurred to me when I saw a little boy,
around ten years old, guiding a huge
horse through a narrow path, that got
whipped by the boy whenever it tried to
deviate. I realized that, if those animals
acquired conscience of their strength, we
wouldn’t have any power over them, and
also, that animals are exploited by the
man similarly to how the proletariat is
exploited by the rich.” - George Orwell,
free translation.
Historical events and characters
portrayed in Animal Farm
Orwell declares that his ambition was to
“analyze Marx’s theory from the animals’ point
of view.”
The portrait of some historical characters and
groups present in the characters from the
story
• Snowball - Trotsky
The pig who challenges Napoleon for control
of Animal Farm after the Rebellion. Snowball
is eloquent, passionate, intelligent and less
subtle and devious than his counterpart.
• Consciously or not, Orwell erases
the presence of Lenin from the
story, a character who could have
made the story too complicated.
Weirdly, or maybe for similar
reasons, In Orwell’s novel 1984
you can find figures of Stalin (the
Big Brother) and Trotsky
(Goldstein), but Lenin is absent.
Anyone with a little knowledge about the
Russian Revolution will have noticed the
similarities, and Orwell strives to
emphasize some parallels.
• The excommunication of Dissidents
• History’s rewriting
• Spectacular Trials
• Mass execution
Historically relevant
passages from the book