Animal Farm is a satirical allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on August 17, 1945. The story is a fable that uses a barnyard setting to represent the Russian Revolution and explores themes of class and power. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. The rebellion is initially successful, but it is ultimately betrayed, and under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon, the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before.
The grand theme of Animal Farm has to do with the capacity for ordinary individuals to continue to believe in a revolution that has been utterly betrayed. Orwell attempts to reveal how those in power—Napoleon and his fellow pigs—pervert the democratic promise of the revolution. The emotional force of the novel comes from the authors depictions of those ordinary animals who unthinkingly give themselves in good faith to working for the very system by which they are oppressed.
