An Analysis Essay of the Metaphors in Animal Farm

George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm, is a satirical novel that serves as a metaphor for the power struggle seen in society. The Farm itself represents a country or nation. Meanwhile, the animals represent the working class and the humans represent oppressive leaders, which could often be seen when this book was written (1945). Already, some animal’s names serve as metaphors. For example, the pig is named Napoleon, who was a French military and political leader in the 1800s.

Before the animals stage their revolution, the author uses the animals to depict what conditions the working class were in compared to the ruling elite. This can show how unbalanced society is. The animals lived in bad conditions and were often neglected, just like the working class. Mr Jones (the farm owner) is a symbol of the ruling elite. The ruling elite cared very little about the people in the working class like Mr. Jones. The people (and in the book the animals) lived difficult lives only to produce for the ruling elite. This is shown when Old Major talks about how everything that animals produce is sold and only Mr. Jones enjoys the profits. 

The animals represent different types of people in society. As the animals establish as a group that they no longer want to be controlled by humans, the different groups begin to break out. The pigs, for example, are a symbol of leadership and as they slowly start to take on the role of leadership,which symbolizes the ruling elite, they start to show dominance. Meanwhile the naive animals represent the working class. They are loyal and hard working. As an example, Boxer often repeats the sentences, “Napoleon is always right” and, “I will work harder.” Boxer doesn’t have his own opinion and he follows Napoleon blindly down his lead. This is similar to the working class.

George Orwell doesn’t just want to only limit criticism to the working class/ruling elite to separate between the animals. He even depicts the power struggle between the newly established leaders. Napoleon wants to be the sole leader of the farm animals. Napoleon uses the attack dogs to scare the animals and force them to go down his lead. Next to Napoleon, is Snowball, who is also a pig. Snowball tries to challenge Napoleon for control over the animal farm. Snowball is also less menacing and manipulative than Napoleon. I believe this is how Goerge Orwell tries to show the different types of leaders.

George Orwell’s metaphor comes in full circle at the end of the book. At the beginning, The animals staged their rebellion because they no longer wanted to be treated poorly by the cruel ruling elite. The pigs begin to take over the ruling elite and start to become the leaders. As this is happening, society is repeating itself. Throughout the book, the pigs become the ruling elite. As everyone on the farm is working the pigs are taking the extra food. For example, when the pigs took the apples and the milk for themselves. If they wanted true equality throughout the farm, the pigs should have shared the extra food with the other animals.

Overall, George Owell makes every character part of his metaphor about how unbalanced society can be between the working class and the ruling elite.The farm, the animals, and even each type of animal, all play an important part showing the reader just what can happen when leadership is followed blindly.