Equality and class — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Equality and class
Themes
What you need to know
How Orwell explores equality, class and the rise of a new ruling class across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'the pigs, who were manifestly cleverer than the other animals, should decide all questions of farm policy', 'Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations', 'But everyone worked according to his capacity.', 'A too rigid equality in rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism.', 'Once again all rations were reduced, except those of the pigs and the dogs.', 'were discouraged from playing with the other young animals', 'neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labour', 'ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL / BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS', 'the lower animals on Animal Farm did more work and received less food than any animals in the county', 'If you have your lower animals to contend with ... we have our lower classes!'.
How the pigs turn themselves into a ruling class, and the final Commandment as the betrayal of Old Major's first principle.
Context: the Soviet promise of equality and the privileged ruling group that grew up under Stalin.
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.
