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Jared Bishop
Mrs. Milarch
English 11
14 December 2016
A history lesson in Animal Farm
Animal farm is an example of Marxism gone wrong and how when a populous is
uneducated and becomes too trusting a leader can and will take advantage of them. The book
Animal Farm is a great history lesson of how Marxism went wrong in The Soviet Union and how
Joseph Stalin rose to power, it's also a great example of satire, and how Logos, Ethos, and
Pathos are used throughout the book.
Animal Farm is a great allegory for Joseph Stalin's rise to power because that's what the
book is based off of. Karl Marx invented communism as a perfect way to live where everybody
in a society works and is treated equally, with a leader that looks out for everyone in the
community. In Animal Farm, old major is the founder of animalism, a way of living on the farm
where every animal works equally to make the farm function fairly. In the book Karl Marx is
portrayed as old major and his idea of Marxism is the same as animalism. Once Karl Marx died,
his idea of a perfect Marxist society became foggy and uncertain. When Joseph Stalin rose to
power in Russia, he promised to lead Russia as a Marxist society, and he did, in the beginning.
He quickly changed what he promised and turned his Marxist society into a communist
dictatorship, where he would eventually kill over 30 million of his own people. In the book, once
old major died napoleon and the rest of the pigs took control of the farm. Once the animals took
over the farm from the humans, the pigs promised they would continue In old major's vision of
animalism, everyone would work an equal amount and everyone would get equal reward. The
animals trusted the pigs and the pigs took advantage of them, the pigs started to break the rules

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and do things for the betterment of themselves instead of the group, they even caused the
death of some of the animals. What happens in the book is an allusion towards what Joseph
Stalin did in Russia.
The book animal farm is also a great example of satire. Marxism on paper is the perfect
society, where everyone works the same amount and makes the same amount, and everyone
looks out for one another. Marxist societies are run by one leader who has the groups best
interest in mind, and the people will follow everything he says. Napoleon and the rest of the pigs
are a satirical example for why Marxism doesn't work in real world applications. When humans
rise to power they get greedy, want more then other, and will take advantage of the uninformed,
which is exactly what the pigs do in animal farm, they take advantage and manipulate the rest of
the animals, and the end of the book you can't tell the difference between the pigs and any other
human.
You can find examples of logos, ethos, and pathos throughout animal farm. Logos was
shown in the book when the pigs started to change the seven commandments. It was clear that
the pigs were lying and didn't have the animal's best interest in mind, unfortunately the animals
were too trusting to realize what the pigs were doing and they couldn't stop it. Ethos and pathos
was also used multiple times in the book. It was used in the beginning of animal farm when the
reader found out how the animals were treated on the farm. They were underfed and
mistreated, this drew emotion towards the animals and the reader wanted them to be treated
better. Ethos and pathos are also used later in the book when napoleon had his dogs kill many
of the animals on the farm, this upset the reader at how Napoleon was treating the animals and
showed he was no better then the humans.
In conclusion, George Orwell's animal farm is a great history lesson on how Marxism
and communism is related and shows how easily uneducated people can be taken advantage of

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if they are too trusting. Animal farm show this in a satirical way by basing the the history lesson
around a farm, while also using plenty of logos, ethos, and pathos along the way.

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Work Cited

Orwell, George. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 1996. Print.