Animal Farm - George Orwell

I must start by saying that I don't have much idea about the political history of Russia, to my surprise this book was a critique of the events that happened after the communist revolution and the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union (clearly I am not going to go into many details with this topic) in Russia.

The story takes place on a farm with animals, which are under the control of human beings, each of the characters represents a figure or role of the historical moment that was taking place at that time in Russia (I had to search several sources to be able to understand and identify the political characteristics of the characters).

Some characters:

Howard Jones: He is a human being, farm owner, exploiter and does not care for the welfare of the animals. It represents Tsar Nicholas II.

Mr. Frederick: Human being with whom Napoleon tries to ally himself at some point in history.

Mr. Pilkington: Human being with whom Napoleon tries to meet and ally himself at some point in history.

The older man: He is a pig who has a lot of wisdom. It represents Lenin and Marx.

Napoleon: It's a pig, it represents Stalin. He becomes a dictator.

Snowball: He is a brave and revolutionary pig, he represents Leon Trosky (one of my favorite characters).

Squaler: He is a pig, he communicates all the decisions made by Napoleon to the rest of the animals on the farm. It represents Soviet propaganda.

Boxer: is a horse that works hard and faithfully believes in the decisions that Napoleon makes. It represents the proletariat.

Clover: She is a mare, she tends to be very maternal and feels great empathy with Boxer. It represents the proletariat.

Mollie: A mare who did not like work, she liked being pampered by humans. It represents the nobility.

Benjamin: He is a donkey, he is pessimistic and apathetic with the problems of the farm, he does not issue judgments and opinions in much of the development of the story. Similarity to Orwell (the writer).

Dogs: They are raised by Napoleon and are used as a form of control and repression. It represents the police.

Moses: It's a raven, who talks about "heaven." It represents the orthodox church.

Sheep and chickens: They are animals that do not know how to read or write, blindly and fanatically obey the decisions made by those in power. It represents illiterate people.

 

History on the farm begins with those ideals in which the benefit of all members of a community is sought, with an inevitable "armed" revolution with the purpose of disengaging from an authority figure that represses and does not preserve the well-being of the members of the farm (Howard Jones). The idea of ​​the revolution and of a community on equal terms is expressed by the oldest member of the farm, the old major, communicates his ideas and two figures stand out: Napoleon and Snowball. At first you feel identified with both characters, but little by little you discover how power corrupts and how ideals and laws change according to the convenience of whoever is in charge. I must say that once while I was in university I heard about Trosky and I certainly felt identified with some of his ideas, but I didn't inquire much about it, in my time my university had a strong left current.

During the development of the story, you feel hope when you believe that things can improve, the truth is that later you are disappointed and disillusioned when you see that the conditions on the farm do not improve, and the most "sad" thing is that this situation has happened many times In the history of humanity, ideals are proposed in order to help the less fortunate and end up oppressing people more.

Three characters generated very particular feelings in me, the first, Boxer, for some reason I felt that this was the generation of my grandparents and my parents, who fully trusted the character or political party in power and ignored or seemed to forget the facts or decisions that negatively affected the same society. Something similar was going on in my country until the current president arrived. The Democratic Center had governed for many years and they had enacted laws that benefited the interests of the rich and harmed the rest of us. Not in agreement with that, many human rights were violated, too many Colombians died in a violent and undignified way, I remember feeling very frustrated because I saw how older people continued to defend that political party even when the facts spoke for themselves.

Clover represents the privileged class, this character caused me deep revulsion particularly because she felt too comfortable with her master, she just wanted to receive benefits without making any kind of effort, I think that at some point we have all met people like Clover who believe that by having a lot of money are right or the laws do not apply to them, that without doing much and get more than others.

And finally, Snowball represents the dream that most human beings have when they want justice, decent conditions, job opportunities, life and health in peace, unfortunately his situation does not reach the end that we would like, I always had hope in this character until that I had to accept the reality of the situation.

The human beign is very selfish and superficial by nature, his survival instinct leads him to go over the rights of others, as long as his own well-being is guaranteed, he wil not ,ind doing harm. Money and power show who we really are and generally those intentions do not end up doing good, it´s a story that has been repeated millions of times. I wish there were more Snowballs. 

If my computer doesn´t die the next post will be on December 17th - 18th.

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