Animal Farm (Grades 9–1) York Notes

The novel is an attack on how political leaders gain power and retain it for their own purposes.

Orwell shows that dictators wish to control what people do and how they think, as shown when Squealer bans the singing of ‘Beasts of England’.

Major’s speech describes a perfect world for the animals, a utopia, but we see the Farm descend into its opposite – a dystopia.

Orwell’s presentation of Moses, who tells the animals about Sugarcandy Mountain, mirrors Marx’s view of religion as a false comfort to the poor or oppressed.

The pigs are able to seize power as they are the most intelligent animals. The other animals’ inability to question the pigs makes them easy to exploit.