Classics: Animal Farm by George Orwell
Blurb and Author Info from Goodreads
A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality.
Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
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Author
George Orwell
Publisher
Rupa Pulications
Genre
Classic Fiction
Number of Pages
136
My Review
On the one hand, it is a simple story about farm animals. But there is a deeper level to the story. It is a hard-hitting political satire on corrupted values and morals, misled and misdirected rebellions and the conflicts between classes in society. The story is as relevant today as it was seventy years ago.
The powerful story-telling and the deep thought given to the story and its characters makes it an unmissable classic to read.
Top Quotes from Animal Farm
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”
“Four legs good, two legs bad.”
“The only good human being is a dead one.”
“Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.”
“The Seven Commandments:
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.”
“All men are enemies. All animals are comrades”
“His answer to every problem, every setback was “I will work harder!” —which he had adopted as his personal motto.”
“Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.”
“Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.
Orwell is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His 1938 book Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with numerous essays on politics, literature, language, and culture, have been widely acclaimed.
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