Book Portfolio #4

Animal Farm By George Orwell
This book is all about "animalism" which is based on socialism in the time of Stalin. It all starts with a pigs dream to take over the farm. He dies, but his ideas and dreams of the farm being run by animals continues. The more the animals strive to reach this goal, the more power hungry they become and they will stop at nothing.The theme in this book is that the idealists from the Soviet Union were corrupting and they would stop at nothing. Stalin and his followers can be compared to Old Major and Napoleon. The rest of the animals are his followers and whatever he says to do they must do. This theme is significant because it shows the ideas of the Soviet Union in a different light. It shows what the conditions were like when people refused to follow or if they were becoming old and useless. They would sell them, even if it was their best friend. That meant nothing. All that matter was that the socialist ideas prevailed.

Socialism must succeed no matter what and it changes people for the worst. This is the overwhelming thought in this book. The first example of this is when the animals scare away Mr. Jones, the farmer. This demonstrates the theme because this is the first action that they took in their fight to take over. This shows that they were ready and were not going to let anything stop them. They wanted to carry out the plans the Old Major never got to because of his death. The second example is when Snowball is chased away from the farm by Napoleon and his puppies that he was "educating." He then took command and stated that there would be no more meetings. The only ones to make decisions would be the pigs. This showed the fact that all animals were not equal and it began to show who would be the power hungry ones. Napoleon then decided to purge the farm of anyone that may be followers of Snowball. He doesn't want anyone who does not follow him wholeheartedly. So he looks for the ones who are not loyal and they are killed. The last example of the theme is the fact that Napoleon sold his friend who was sick just for money to get whiskey. This shows that the leaders would not even let their feelings get in the way of furthering themselves in the socialist or "animialist" community.

This theme can be shown in many historical contexts. The most obvious one is the Russian Revolution. With Stalin and his men taking over and installing the socialist beliefs in people. The other historical event this could be tied with is the Holocaust and Hitler. In the book Napoleon started making things up about Snowball that weren't true. He told people that he was bad and that he was the one who destroyed the windmill. He then went on a hunt to find everyone on the farm that supported Snowball. They were then killed. This is similar to what Hitler did to the Jews. He blamed them for the War that had happened and everything else in the world that they lived in. He then began to "purge" the world of the Jews. He began to tell people that they were to blame for everything and that they deserved to die. This is what Napoleon did to Snowball. It can also be connected to Stalin and his way of living. Stalin was a socialist and he believed that there were certain people that deserved to be in power. He also thought that if you were going to succeed nothing could stop you. Not friendship or anything. In history Stalin started out as a secretary general of the communist party. This is similar to Old Major and Napoleon. They were first part of the group who were loyal to the humans. They gratefully served them. But then they turned on them and decided to take over. This is similar to Stalin because he manipulated people to let him be the only one in power. He then decided that he didn't like the Communist party and wanted to get rid of them. So he captured whoever belonged to that party and either they died in prison or they were killed. The last connection between this book and Stalin was that fact that he stopped at nothing. He was willing to kill the people that he knew and were possibly friends with just to get what he wanted. He wanted to be a part of socialism and nothing anyone could do was going to stop that. This theme is significant in history because Stalin and Hitler were 2 of the most powerful people in this time as were the pigs on the farm. We need to learn about our past to realize how we got to where we are today and this was a big part of it.

So in the end the hunger for power in the socialist or "animalist" community overtook everyone and they were not the same. They got what they wanted no matter who they hurt in the process. The importance of this theme in the book is because it seemed to be based on true events and you need to understand what happened. The importance of this theme in history is because the socialist way of life was not a good one. This has been demonstrated by many people in history including Hitler and Stalin. This book was very effective in showing the theme. It had very good examples and real life connections. I also thought that it was very interesting and it keep you asking questions and wanting to read more. In the end of the book it was said that "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." This is very true even in our society today. We all are "equal" but it seems that some can get away with more. It is also said in the end that the other animals could no longer recognize who were pigs and who were humans because they all looked like pigs, greedy and ruthless and will stop at nothing.