Hello everyone, my name is Zheng Maria and today I am going to talk about the book called Animal Farm that was written by George Orwell in 1946. The book is written from the point of view of the animals, though it still refers to them in the third-person plural - they.
Who is George Orwell? You probably heard this name somewhere, he is a very famous author and people call him the father of British classics. He wrote many famous English classics like 1984, Down and Out in Paris and London, Animal Farm and etc. He was born in 1903 and died in 1950.
This is actually the first book that I read that was written by him. It got me hooked. You see, George Orwell was actually talking about the USSR of 1940s while writing this book. Let me tell you what the plot of the book is. This is the parallel universe in which animals can talk, write, read and do stuff only humans are known to be able to do. So in this universe in England, animals want to take over. They are rebels. For now, stop reading this article and think about everything you know about USSR and Joseph Stalin. The explanation will be in the end of the article.
This is the rebellion that failed. Animals did take over and they even threw the man out of the house. Some smarter animals, that learned to read and write faster, were considered more important even though it stated in their own Constitution that all animals are equal. The rebellion failed for a lot of reasons - dishonesty and propaganda, mostly. Now, it is quite clear that Orwell talks about the USSR because the animals were all calling each other comrade. It is kind of sad that USSR was like this. I mean, the governors could have done a better job.
One of the interesting facts I found out was that it was actually not clear for people back then that George Orwell was writing about USSR and Stalinism. He had to edit and add some phrases for people to understand! Also, Orwell had some difficulties publishing the book. The publishers were afraid that it would ruin the fragile alliance between USA, UK and USSR.
Time for explanation and the breaking of Easter Eggs!