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Old Major's political philosophy of Animalism is expressly designed to liberate the farm animals, to free them from the oppressive yoke of Mr. Jones and other humans. In the Animalist utopia envisaged by Old Major, all the animals will come together to create a world of peace and plenty, where animals will finally be treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve.
Sadly, things don't turn out like that. As is often the case with projected utopias, Old Major's ends up as a brutal tyranny in which starvation, terror, and fear are very much the norm.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. And while there's no doubting the goodness of Old Major's intentions, it's also impossible to overlook the hell to which those intentions have led. The Animalist revolution was supposed to liberate the animals. In actual fact, it's led to an...
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even greater enslavement than they endured under Mr. Jones.
Animal Farm is, of course, a satire on the Soviet Union under Stalin. The communist ideology espoused by Lenin—on whom Old Major is based—was doubtless full of good intentions. Communist ideology was based on the notion that a better world was possible for the poor and the downtrodden and that once they'd taken power for themselves, they would be able to construct a workers' paradise.
But as with the farm in Orwell's story, the Soviet Union under communism became a veritable hell for those that the revolution was supposed to serve, with famine, repression, and terror becoming the norm. In both the farm depicted in the story and the country on which it is based, the road to hell was paved with the very best of intentions.
One important moral of the "fable" of Animal Farm is the ease with which language can be manipulated and twisted for evil purposes. Orwell was a journalist who understood the power of words and the power of propaganda. Therefore, he wanted to tell a tale that would urge humans to be on guard against powerful groups or individuals who might want to twist words to help themselves and harm others.
The animals are gradually re-enslaved because the pigs change the words—and hence the rules—of the farm. Most famously, the Seven Commandments are reduced to one, and that one makes no sense by stating that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
Most of the animals are fairly helpless against the manipulations of the pigs because they are not able to learn to read, but almost all humans have a high level of cognitive ability. Orwell is, therefore, encouraging people to use their wits in ways the animals cannot.
Orwell was concerned that the totalitarian dictatorship imposed by Stalin was being presented in left wing circles as benign socialism, and he wanted people to look past propagandistic language to see the horror of what was really going on.
There are a few key morals in the book, but the one that stands out the most is Lord Acton's famous notion that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The fuller quote is even more insightful.
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
We see that these words are true increasingly in Animal Farm. At first, the pigs start off just like the other animals; they want freedom and tout equality. The concept of animalism is fair. As the story progresses, the pigs, especially Napoleon and Squealer, become more corrupt, as they grow in influence. They use the animals for their own gain. The most prominent example of corruption and self-serving is what they do to Boxer. They sell off Boxer to the knackers, when he can no longer work. They consume his labor, and now they consume what remains of him, his body, for their own purposes and gain.
Finally, the story ends when the pigs turn into men, which shows the corruption is complete. Within the internal logic of the story, man is the epitome of corruption.
What does Animal Farm say about human morality?
In Animal Farm, Napoleon might've had aspirations of power prior to the Rebellion. However, the implication in the novel is that power can lead to corruption and absolute power can corrupt absolutely. When Napoleon begins to isolate himself from the other animals, he creates a class system in which certain groups of the animals are treated differently. With this structure in place, he and the other pigs further isolate themselves from the other animals to the point that they (Napoleon and the pigs) become just like Mr. Jones in terms of how he/they mistreat the animal workers.
Snowball recognizes the windmill for its power and its ability to make lives easier for the animals. Napoleon recognizes Snowball as a threat to his own power and subsequently chases him off the farm. Napoleon then claims he championed the idea of the windmill all along. However, he looks at it for its productive powers; he doesn't consider how the windmill can help improve lives of all the animals. With Napoleon, it is power and selfishness that complete his corrupt leadership.
Power is the corrupting element in this novel. It is an allegory on human morality, so what is said about the animals is implied as part of human nature.