[Music] animal farm is a simple plainly written tale of animals rising up to take control of their own destiny and run the farm they work for providing for one another and living off a central doctrine of rules it's an allegory for not just the soviet union and its slight insidious transformation from communism's high ideals of equality into totalitarian rule by a single dictator and his chief propagandist but also for the challenges of self-governance and the perils of government people face all around the world to understand the nature of animal farm let's first look at george orwell the author orwell is the pen name for eric arthur blair born june 25th 1903 to british parents in india he served with the imperial indian police in burma he fought in the spanish civil war and was a world war ii correspondent for the bbc his first-hand experiences of class struggles and inequalities of everyday life in england informed the writing of animal farm now the structure of animal farm parallels the russian revolution it's satire using animals and their names and actions as embellished heightened versions of reality at the very beginning old major an idealistic boar introduces ideas he's envisioned about animal rebellion and self-rule teaching the other animals the song beasts of england and helping to establish a sense of camaraderie the animals rebel against their drunken neglectful farmer mr jones and take over his farm at the battle of kaushin the animals defend their farm from humans for the first time pigs snowball and napoleon the main characters of animal farm compete for leadership napoleon ends up expelling snowball using a combination of propaganda expertly delivered by squealer his mouthpiece and poorly educating the other animals slowly eroding snowball's legacy turning him from real brave hero to imaginary scapegoat villain napoleon imposes his will on the other animals making them work harder and harder for less and less while he and his close circle of pigs live more and more extravagantly and increasingly detached from the community he orders the construction of a windmill which had been snowball's idea he had once fiercely opposed napoleon oversees collusion with humans the animals sworn enemies for supplies the animals defend their farm against a farmer frederick and his attack but their windmill is destroyed in the process boxer the noble idealist workhorse so responsible for much of the farm's success is sent away to slaughter and the animals are lied to about what happened to him by the end of animal farm time has passed and the original guiding document the animals lived by has been modified to a single commandment all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others pigs walk on two legs and are the only animals educated animal farms ending is a party scene the other animals on the farm observe from the outside where pigs and humans gather together to toast their exploitation of the other working creatures on the farm the animals looking in through the windows can no longer tell humans apart from pigs animal farm is rife with important symbols the animals names are representative of their actions or power positions things like milk and apples the windmill and even old major skull represent respectively riches and material wealth labor and the history of the soviet union vladimir lenin's body was put on display after his death so too was old major skull canonized as the founding idealist leader of the revolution mr jones's rifle is a symbolic trophy representing the animal's victory over their former masters the humans there are a number of important themes in animal farm and they all have political connections first there's corruption we see how the inches napoleon and his inner circle take when it comes to control and power end up becoming miles leading the animals far astray from their original ideas of communist utopia then there's exploitation throughout animal farm we see how the working class is exploited by ruling elites to provide for their aristocratic needs the hard-working lower classes serve the deceptive upper ones in fact deception is its own theme and we see how napoleon and squealer bend history to better suit their needs suppressing education while fear-mongering creates a culture of deception that allows for the rise of a dictator on the other hand the theme of idealism is an important one too especially at the beginning dreams of equality and legends of animal bravery set the stage for a revolution underscored by good intentions lastly there's apathy an important theme for understanding how dictatorships take place without action to back it up education is essentially useless we especially see this in benjamin the donkey whose cynical attitude and insistence that nothing ever changes becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom a complacent population is ripe for the picking by controlling dictators bent on power and control animal farm remains a legendary book that achieves many purposes it's a study of the soviet union and the russian revolution and an allegory for self-rule and how governments are structured on top of it all it's a cautionary tale for the perils of power itself