When I compiled my list for the Classics Club, I included a couple re-reads. I wanted it to be all new—the idea being to cross things off my TBR list—but there were a few books I wanted to read again. I first read Animal Farm in high school, immediately after 1984. My initial impression was that it was an off-brand 1984 with fewer layers, more obvious themes, and a gimmick with talking animals. I forgot it soon after reading, but every time someone said they preferred it to 1984, I wondered if I was missing something. So I decided to read it again. Oh, and it’s short. I needed to balance The Lord of the Rings, Vanity Fair, and two giant books by Dostoevsky.
Animal Farm is a satiric fable in which the animals on Manor Farm forcibly overthrow the humans on their farm. They believe they can run the place more efficiently and more equitably than any human. They’ll eat better, be treated better, and work less, plus the intangible benefits:
But they were happy in their work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings. (59)
Despite the animals’ hopes, the longed-for utopia never comes to pass as the pigs seize power and entrench themselves in the farmer’s house, bending rules more and more to their own benefit.
High School Opinion
It was hard to take the animals seriously. The idea of animals manipulating farm tools with hooves and paws seemed too ridiculous. It felt like the allegory/satire was being prioritized over any semblance of story.
Current Opinion
Using animals makes the book more timeless than it would be otherwise. While Stalinist Russia was one of the original targets of Orwell’s satire, it applies to other totalitarian regimes. This book is aging well—surprisingly well. If it felt overly tied to a specific time period or country, it wouldn’t be as affecting.
I do still think that using animals forces the story to be simpler than it might otherwise be. The animals’ hierarchy is determined by the ability of each species to become literate. The pigs have the most power because they read and write most fluently. Though there’s an early effort to educate everyone on the farm, there’s a hard limit to each species’ ability to learn and retain information, so the pigs ultimately rule over an uneducated populace. The strength of any satirical novel lies in its ability to map onto and critique the real world; these limits on literacy help drive the plot, but I don’t know what it’s meant to mean that the working animals are incapable of learning. It would be one thing if they weren’t allowed to be educated, or discouraged from learning to read—but that they’re incapable?
Orwell does such a stunning job of showing how the pigs change the rules, hide their cushy lifestyle from the other animals, and engage in double-speak that it’s not necessary to make the animals unintelligent. In fact, it might have made his point more strongly if some of the animals were intelligent, but still fooled because all of them want so badly to believe that their lives will improve. It’s their hope and misplaced faith that gives the book any emotional resonance at all—otherwise, it would be a fairly shallow study.
High School Opinion
It bothered me that Animal Farm lacks a central protagonist. The story felt generic and unfocused.
Current Opinion
Animal Farm is stronger for not having a central protagonist. A lot of novels that poke at a society’s flaws have a protagonist that challenges the system. It’s a solid format because it lets the author insert their own commentary in a natural-sounding way, and gives the reader someone to cheer for, but it’s an old format. No single animal is the sole focus of Animal Farm, and seeing the animals be systematically ground down makes the novel’s point clearer than any protagonist’s speech.
Writing the story from a distance also allows Orwell to present each new power grab by the pigs in an interesting way. He writes things so that they’re clear to the reader but obscure for the other animals. At times, he finds a way to inject a little humor by writing this way, and a little levity never goes amiss.
High School Opinion
The fate of one particularly hard-working animal is too upsetting to talk about.
Current Opinion
The fate of one particularly hard-working animal is too upsetting to talk about.
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Overall: 4.2 (out of 5.0) While there’s not much in Animal Farm that’s subtle, it’s very well written. There’s an odd charm to it, and even some humor. While it sometimes feels like simplified 1984, it’s a much more palatable story. I don’t know that I’ll ever re-read 1984—Room 101 shook me as a kid when every book/movie I’d read/seen previously made me think the ending would be different.