Boekverslag : George Orwell - Animal Farm
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George Orwell


Animal farm


The original name of the farm was: Manor Farm. The animals at that farm start a revolution because

the farmer treats them wrong and then they call it 'The Animal Farm'. Because they took it in and it's now managed

only by animals.


Wolters-Noordhoff BV => the Blackbirds of 1993

Date of publication:


Date of first publication:



On day the farm animals took possession of Mr. Jones' farm. The animals decided that the intelligent pigs would

do the management and the others would do the manual work. The pigs also introduced 'The Seven Commandments

of Animalism' to the other animals. But unfortunately the pigs began to take advantage of their position. And not

every animal was very happy with the new situation: one liked it more with the farmer, another was spreading lies,

the next was very cynical about the new system and the last was very selfish. But some pigs had faithful disciplines

and the farm was run successfully, even though the animals had to work harder. And when the neighbour farmer

attack them, they won the battle. But then troubles started: there had to be a leader elected. And one of the two pigs

was driven away and the other pig, Napoleon, became a dictator. He terrorised the animals with his bodyguards,

the dogs. He changed 'The Seven Commandments' to suite himself and the animals had to obey his will or else

they would be punished. The farm had become much richer, but the animals'life was much harder. The only pride they

had was that they were the only farm run by animals. But when the pigs had changed all the rules of

'The Seven Commandments' they became human: they walked in clothing, talked and drank with human.

The other animals were shocked.


Napoleon the pig:

At first he dreams of the revolution and then he has all good ideas about the farm, but later on he becomes selfish

and addicted to the power: he is mean if he has to, and when he's the leather he does everything to keep the power.

That means he loses everything the Animal Farm stood for.

Snowball the pig:

He also dreams of the revolution, but he keeps his believes. He was the leader during the revolution, but Napoleon

takes the power and sent him away from the farm., because he wanted to believe in animalism

and 'The Seven Commandments'


The story takes place in a farm. It was called 'Manor Farm' when human ruled it.

After the animals took control, it was called 'The animal farm'.

Point of view:

It's an omniscient narrator. Someone outside the story tells us everything about the animals.


This books is full with politics:

-Power => what power can do to a person. Napoleon was at first also an idealist who wanted to make things better.

But he got addicted to the power. And the leader has changes 3 times: first the farmer, then Snowball

and at the end Napoleon.

It's a story about the real life: the animals are used to reflect people everywhere in the world. I think the book is about communism, Old Major is Karl Marx, he wrote the communism but died before the Russian Revolution took place. Snowball is Lenin, who wanted to make the communism work on a nice way, without killing or forcing people to do things they don't want to. He wanted to run the communism with deliberation. Napoleon is Stalin who killed all around himself without any reason, he made people work with empty tummy's, when they didn't work along, he kills them. Also the way the animals work is lead away from the communism, everything together and everybody gets the same reward, whatever he does. Some bad things from the communism came out also. Some animals don't work 'cause they'll get their reward anyway. Some animals like the old system better and leave the farm (Russia).

At the end, the animals could not see the difference between the pigs and the farmers, this is a very open end, because Orwell doesn't tell how the animals live forward, do they live forward under Animalism or do they get a farmer above ??

Orwell wrote the book in 1945, at that time the Soviet Union was still communist so he could not give it the right end.


Political novel

Writer's biography:

George Orwell is a pseudonym for Eric Arthur Blair. He was born in 1903 in India. He moved to England

in 1907. When he studied in Eton he already wrote some articles. His first book was 'Burmese Days' in 1934.

He got wounded in the Spanish Civil War and wrote a book about it. This made him write more about politics.

He was a democratic socialist, and against Communism. He wrote in a plain style. 'The animal farm' and

'Nineteen eighty-four' are his most famous books. He died in 1950 from tuberculosis.
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