Context — Animal Farm — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Context
Introduction
What you need to know
The contexts of Animal Farm: the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Soviet Union under Stalin, the rivalry between Stalin and Trotsky,
the purges and show trials, the Second World War, Orwell's democratic socialism and purpose, the book's publication in 1945, and allegory and fable.
How to use this context in an answer about the novella rather than as background.
The Russian Revolution of 1917: the Tsar's fall, Lenin's Bolsheviks taking power in October, and the civil war that followed.
Stalin's rule: his struggle with Trotsky after Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky's exile, the five-year plans and collectivisation, the famine of 1932–33, and the Great Purge with its show trials and confessions.
The Second World War: Stalin's pact with Nazi Germany in 1939, the German invasion of 1941, and the Tehran Conference of 1943.
Orwell's purpose: a democratic socialist who saw Stalinist propaganda at work in the Spanish Civil War, and who believed that destroying what he called the Soviet myth was essential to reviving socialism.
Writing and publication: written between November 1943 and February 1944, while Britain and the Soviet Union were allies, turned down by several publishers, and published by Secker and Warburg on 17 August 1945 as Animal Farm: A Fairy Story.
Allegory and fable: a beast fable in the tradition of Aesop, whose animals stand for real people and events, and why that lets the story speak about power beyond Russia.
For Edexcel's essay on this text, link each point to its context and the writer's purpose, which earn as many marks as knowledge of the text (16 of 40); language analysis earns no marks there.
