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Animal Farm

by George Orwell

Rating: 9/10

Summary

  • The book is set in a farm called Manor farm where there's a group of animals including sheep, horses, chickens, pigs and so on and a farmer called Mr. Jones and his Family.
  • The animals grow frustrated with Mr. Jones leadership of the farm and how he treats them so the pigs plan and stage a revolt and takke control of the farm with Mr. Jones unable to defend himself against such a large number of animals.
  • The pigs lead the farm afterwards and make a song called "Beasts of England" that unites the animals and make a list of seven commandments which are rules that the animals must follow, one of which that animals shouldn't sleep in bedsheets.
  • At the beginning all the animals work much more efficiently so they get a bigger harvest and their rations are much larger than they were under Mr. Jones. But over time the pigs become more and more alike to the humans and change the commandments to suit their needs; Though they manupilate the animals to believe that they were always so (as the animals can barely read).
  • The pigs start wearing clothes, sleeping in beds and even start refining their own alcohol on the farm to make beer all the while the other animals are still sleeping in the hay and their rations keep getting reduced though not officially of course, their rations have never been bigger.
  • The pigs prey on the other animals and manupilate them due to their poor memory and lack of reading skills into believing they have their best interest in mind with the hard working horse always saying "Napolean [the lead pig] is always right".
  • The pigs also start trading with the nearby farms and learn engineering to build a windmill to allow them to refine corn to get a higher price for it to afford their luxorious lifestyles.
  • The book ends when the pigs start walking on two legs, get whips to make the other animals more obedient and essentially embody the previous leadership as if nothing had changed.

Notes

  • It's very interesting to see the transition of the pigs from animals that were on the same level as the other animals to deceiving and manupilating them and changing the history to their liking.
  • It was also pretty cool to learn that the different pigs and characters in general are based on real life people and it makes sense as it feels very lifelike to history and human nature in general.