Animal Farm

In this good-natured satire upon dictatorship, George Orwell makes use of the technique perfected by Swift in The Tale of A Tub. It is the history of a revolution that went wrong- and of the excellent: excuses that were forthcoming at every step for each perversion of the original doctrine. The animals on a farm drive out their master and take over and administer the farm for themselves. The experiment is entirely successful, except for the unfortunate fact that someone has to take the deposed farmer’s place. Leadership devolves almost automatically upon the pigs, who are on a higher intellectual level than the rest of the animals. Unhappily their character is not equal to their intelligence, and out of this fact springs the main development of the story. The last chapter brings a dramatic change, which, as soon as it has happened, is seen to have been inevitable from the start.