Writer's methods

A simple animal story with a political meaning

In Animal Farm, Orwell makes complex political events understandable through a familiar setting: a farm whose animals overthrow their owner. The story’s form is the kind of work it is; its structure is how Orwell arranges events; its language includes both the narrator’s account and the words spoken, sung or written by the animals. These choices work together to expose how a revolution promising equality can produce new masters.

The novella is a beast fable: its animals talk, organise meetings and make laws, while retaining recognisable animal characteristics. Boxer’s physical strength and the sheep’s flock behaviour become ways of exploring human labour and conformity. This anthropomorphism makes political relationships concrete: readers can see who pulls the stones, who receives the food and who gives the orders.

The subtitle A Fairy Story suggests an accessible tale with recognisable character types and a conflict between good and evil. Yet Orwell frustrates expectations of a happy ending. Rather than finishing with a neatly stated moral, the story leaves readers to recognise a lesson that most of the animals have not fully understood. Its apparent simplicity makes its injustice more, not less, disturbing. The familiar animal story enables Orwell to reach readers without requiring specialist political knowledge.

It is also a political allegory: the farm’s story has a second meaning concerned with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the development of the Soviet Union. Napoleon represents Stalin, while the pigs’ growing privileges recall the emergence of a powerful ruling bureaucracy. Orwell’s criticism targets the Stalinist betrayal of socialist ideals, rather than treating the original desire for equality as foolish. The allegory also supports a wider warning: replacing rulers is not enough if ordinary people cannot hold their successors accountable.

Why this apparently innocent story was controversial

Orwell wrote the novella between November 1943 and February 1944, during the Second World War, when Britain and the Soviet Union were allies against Nazi Germany. Four publishers refused it; one withdrew its acceptance after consulting the Ministry of Information. Publishers feared that its criticism of Soviet rule would offend an important wartime ally. Secker & Warburg eventually published it on 17 August 1945.

This history helps explain the force of Orwell’s chosen form. Talking pigs and a small farm might appear remote from international politics, but the allegory made its target recognisable. The beast fable exposes exploitation in straightforward terms at a moment when criticism of Stalin was politically uncomfortable. Orwell’s commitment to clear expression challenges the willingness to excuse or conceal oppression because of political loyalties.

Satire exposes the absurdity of power

Satire criticises through ridicule, exaggeration and irony. Orwell makes the pigs’ behaviour both absurd and threatening. In Chapter 8, hens credit Napoleon with their egg production and cows praise him for the taste of the water. These incidents ridicule a leader’s personality cult: the promotion of one ruler as an extraordinary, almost infallible figure responsible for every success. They recall the glorification of Stalin and show how admiration can displace independent judgement.

Minimus’s poem in Chapter 8 calls Napoleon “Lord of the swill-bucket!” and repeatedly addresses him as “Comrade Napoleon!” The extravagant praise is comically out of proportion to its farmyard subject. Its patterned verse makes the praise suitable for public repetition, while its claim that Napoleon provides food and security conflicts with the animals’ hunger and fear. Orwell presents official culture as serving the ruler rather than telling the truth about people’s lives.

Satire does not make the suffering harmless. As the story moves towards executions, hunger and Boxer’s betrayal, amusement becomes increasingly bitter. The ridiculous claims matter because they help sustain a violent regime.

The plain narrator lets readers notice what the animals miss

The novella has a third-person narrator who usually tells events in straightforward prose. The narrative can enter the animals’ thoughts, but often reports their explanations without immediately correcting them. Readers therefore compare what the animals believe with what has actually happened.

This creates dramatic irony. In Chapter 6, after Muriel reads the altered rule about beds, the narrator observes: “Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment mentioned sheets”. Readers encountered the original Commandment in Chapter 2, so they recognise an alteration where Clover accepts a failure of memory. The calm account allows the contradiction to become clear without an explicit accusation from the narrator.

This narrative method makes the rewriting of Soviet history understandable through an everyday situation: a public rule changes, but those governed by it are persuaded that their memories are wrong. Readers retain the evidence that the animals struggle to preserve.

In Chapter 10, the narrator states: “Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer”. The rest of the sentence identifies the pigs and dogs as exceptions. Readers can explain what the animals cannot: increased wealth benefits the ruling group rather than everyone. Orwell challenges the idea that national prosperity alone proves the success of a supposedly equal society. His plain voice makes injustice comprehensible beside Squealer’s explanations that obscure it.

A circular plot: different rulers, familiar oppression

Events generally unfold chronologically across ten chapters. This lets readers trace the gradual erosion of Animalism rather than seeing the pigs’ final corruption as a sudden change.

The larger shape is circular. Chapter 1 begins at the Manor Farm with Jones drinking and neglecting the animals. Chapter 2 renames it Animal Farm, marking the hope of a new social order. In Chapter 10, Napoleon restores the name “The Manor Farm” while drinking with human farmers inside Jones’s house. The return of the name makes the abandonment of revolutionary identity explicit.

Physical details also return. The animals burn the whips after the Rebellion in Chapter 2; Napoleon carries one in Chapter 10. What first represented human oppression now belongs to an animal ruler. The ending’s resemblance to the beginning asks readers to judge change by lived conditions, not by the identity or slogans of those in charge. Within the Soviet allegory, the overthrow of the old ruling order has produced another privileged elite.

This structure can seem deeply pessimistic: the animals have struggled only to exchange one ruling group for another. However, their early shared achievements and genuine hopes support a different emphasis. The failure exposes the betrayal of equality, not proof that equality itself is worthless. Orwell’s warning concerns the concentration of power and the need for an alert population.

The Commandments record a gradual betrayal

The Seven Commandments are both a symbol of the Rebellion’s principles and a structural device that allows readers to measure change. In Chapter 2 they are displayed in large white letters on the barn wall and presented as permanent law. Their public presentation suggests that everyone should be able to judge behaviour against the same standard.

Orwell then reveals alterations at significant moments:

Snowball writes the original rules in Chapter 2. Muriel reads the altered bed rule to Clover in Chapter 6, reads the altered killing rule in Chapter 8, and notices the changed alcohol rule later in Chapter 8.

An absolute prohibition becomes a rule with an exception controlled by those in power. Crucially, the pigs’ behaviour is followed by the discovery of wording that excuses it: law serves authority rather than restraining it. The changes recall the Soviet regime’s manipulation of political principles and historical records. Orwell shows that control over the record of the past can prevent people from challenging present abuses.

Chapter 8 supplies physical evidence when Squealer is discovered beside a broken ladder, a brush and white paint beneath the Commandments. Most animals cannot explain the scene, but readers connect the objects to the later alteration.

By Chapter 10, seven rules have been replaced by one, which Benjamin reads to Clover. It is displayed in capitals across two lines:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

The second line destroys the promise of the first. Equality cannot logically have degrees, yet the regime preserves the language of justice while openly establishing privilege. The movement from seven clear rules to one contradiction completes the structural record of betrayal.

The windmill turns hope into recurring labour

The windmill begins as Snowball’s promise of electricity, comfort and a shorter working week in Chapter 5. It symbolises the possibility that collective effort and technology might improve everyone’s life. In the political allegory, its enormous demands recall Stalin’s Five-Year Plans for industrial development.

Its repeated construction and destruction also shape the plot. A storm brings down the first, unfinished windmill in Chapter 6; Napoleon blames Snowball. The rebuilt structure is destroyed with explosives by Frederick’s men in Chapter 8. Each setback generates fresh labour and fresh political explanations. The repeated rebuilding keeps the animals sacrificing for a better future that is continually postponed.

After the explosion, the narrator concludes in Chapter 8: “It was as though the windmill had never been.” Years of exhausting work have apparently disappeared. Squealer nevertheless calls the battle a victory, exposing the gap between an official interpretation and the animals’ injuries and ruined work. Orwell shows how political celebrations can conceal devastating costs to ordinary workers.

By Chapter 10, the completed windmill mills corn for profit rather than supplying the promised electricity. It is therefore not simply a failed machine: it succeeds commercially while failing to deliver its original social promise. Orwell distinguishes economic growth from an improvement in workers’ lives.

Other symbols reinforce this distinction. The farmhouse changes from a preserved reminder of Jones’s luxury into the pigs’ residence. The flag’s hoof and horn initially represent animal solidarity and recall the Soviet hammer and sickle; their removal in Chapter 10 strips away that revolutionary identity. Material objects reveal changes that political speeches try to conceal.

Songs and slogans change from solidarity to control

Words are not always oppressive in the novella. In Chapter 1, old Major’s speech gives the animals a shared explanation for their suffering. His repeated address “Comrades” creates solidarity, while his questions draw attention to the products and offspring taken from them.

Beasts of England turns that argument into a collective emotional experience. Its seven four-line stanzas use rhyme, repeated phrases and concrete images of food and freedom. The opening stanza returns at the end with a changed instruction to spread the message. This enclosing structure makes the song easy to share and gives it a purpose beyond the farm: it communicates a common revolutionary hope.

After the executions in Chapter 7, the same song becomes mournful. Its promised future exposes the present’s failures. Napoleon bans it and Minimus supplies an anthem focused on loyalty to the farm. The narrator observes in Chapter 7 that “neither the words nor the tune ever seemed to the animals to come up to Beasts of England”. Official obedience cannot replace the emotional power of shared hope. The replacement of revolutionary music parallels the Soviet authorities’ changing use of anthems: public culture is reshaped to support the current regime.

Slogans undergo a similar transformation. In Chapter 3, Snowball’s maxim “Four legs good, two legs bad” condenses Animalism into a memorable opposition. It helps communicate ideas, but removes the detail needed for careful judgement. In Chapter 5, the sheep’s chanting interrupts debate. A phrase intended to communicate principles becomes a means of preventing discussion.

In Chapter 10, the sheep chant “Four legs good, two legs better!” after the pigs begin walking upright. The familiar pattern now promotes the opposite judgement. Orwell shows how propaganda can demand obedience to changing policies while retaining the outward appearance of continuity.

Figures, euphemisms and the normalisation of injustice

Squealer combines frightening questions, claims of expertise and impressive statistics. In Chapter 3, his warning about Jones’s return makes questioning the pigs’ privileges seem dangerous. In Chapter 8, his production figures offer apparent proof of progress despite the animals’ hunger. These speeches expose how authority can make people distrust their own experience.

The narrator’s phrase “Squealer's lists of figures” appears in Chapters 9 and 10. In Chapter 9, the figures accompany processions, songs and gunfire that temporarily distract the animals from empty stomachs. In Chapter 10, they have become almost the only evidence available for comparing past and present. Statistics replace independent judgement rather than supporting it. This develops Orwell’s criticism of totalitarian propaganda: the government controls both the claims of success and the information needed to test them.

Squealer also calls a cut in food a “readjustment”, never a “reduction” in Chapter 9. This euphemism makes deprivation sound like neutral administration. Hunger remains real, but its official description disguises the worsening conditions.

The ending shows the cumulative effect. When the pigs walk upright and Napoleon carries a whip, the narrator reports in Chapter 10: “It was as though the world had turned upside-down.” Immediately afterwards, the repeated phrase “It did not seem strange” introduces further human habits and privileges. The movement from shock to acceptance is frightening: practices once rejected as oppression have become ordinary. Orwell makes the final transformation the outcome of years of intimidation and manipulation.

Even names contribute to characterisation. Squealer’s name evokes a pig’s sound and foregrounds his verbal activity; Boxer’s suggests physical force, fitting the horse whose strength others exploit. Napoleon’s name evokes military and imperial authority, while his actions establish his role as the Stalin figure in the allegory. These associations make the fable’s contrasting forms of power memorable.

Turning methods into an argument

Understanding methods helps you explain how Orwell constructs the novella’s meanings. In Edexcel Paper 1 Section B, the essay is assessed through AO1 (interpretation and textual support: 16 marks), AO3 (relationships between text and context: 16 marks) and AO4 (clear, accurate writing: 8 marks). AO2, the separate assessment objective for language, form and structure analysis, is not assessed in this question. Methods are useful when they advance your argument about the text’s meaning and Orwell’s purpose.

A paragraph can connect a deliberate choice to evidence, interpretation and relevant context:

Orwell presents public celebration as a means of protecting unequal power. In Chapter 9, the animals take part in supposedly spontaneous demonstrations that Napoleon has ordered. Songs, processions and Squealer’s production figures help them forget their hunger, even while the pigs enjoy protected rations. The contrast between organised displays of success and deprivation recalls the propaganda of Stalin’s Soviet Union, where public glorification of the regime obscured the experiences of ordinary people. By placing the celebrations beside the animals’ worsening conditions, Orwell encourages readers to judge political claims against material reality. Their enjoyment also makes the warning more troubling: propaganda can offer genuine comfort while helping to sustain exploitation.

Form and purpose

• Beast fable: talking animals make human exploitation concrete; readers infer the lesson the animals largely miss.
• Political allegory: revolutionary Russia and Stalin’s Soviet Union; also a wider warning against unchecked power.
• Satire: exaggerated praise exposes the personality cult and authoritarian hypocrisy.
• A Fairy Story: accessible form, but no reassuring happy ending.
• Written in 1943–44; published in August 1945 after refusals linked to reluctance to offend Britain’s Soviet wartime ally.