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Summary IB English B - Animal Farm notes
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IB English B - Animal Farm notes Context of the story, themes for English B oral discussion, characters...
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Animal Farm Essay
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ANIMAL FARM - CONTEXTAnimal Farm - Allegory and Satire
● Allegory for the Russian Revolution + the aftermath & freedom
○ Civil war → Stalin led the Communist party from 1922-1953
○ The Rebellion = The Russian Revolution (1917-23)
○ Napoleon = Stalin
○ Snowball = Trotsky (helper of Lenin)
○ Old major = Lenin / Marx
○ Mollie = part of the bourgeoisie (rich people moved away to the UK, USA,
Argentina, other parts of Europe after the revolution, out of the USSR
○ Mr Jones = Nicolas II.
○ Boxer = workers
○ Benjamin = passive intellectuals that refuse to oppose Stalin
○ Moses = the Russian Orthodox Church
SATIRE - the use of humor and irony to criticize some idea or issue
CONTEPORARY RELEVANCE - something that can be applied to a broader contex
● cautionary tale about how power corrupts, manipulation (warning people that they should
overthrow the authority which is corrupt)
● SOCIAL STRATIFICATION (hierarchy) - Orwell claims it is bound to happen because power
itself corrupts
Political Terminology
● Democracy (system of government)
○ power is held by the people
○ people elect their representatives in parliament
○ Orwell didn't like the English monarchy - democracy the antidote to this inequality
(he realized that democracy is not perfect)
● Socialism = system of belief (idea)
○society should own the means of production
○Orwell was a democratic socialist - believed people should strive for a free and equal
society
○ everyone would contribute to the common good and everyone would take what he/she
needs - the system doesn’t work because people are selfish and take more that they
actually need
● Communism = system of belief (revolutionary movement)
, ○ people own and share everything equally, there’s no government and no social classes
○ there was never a real communist society in the history (not a real communist
country, as explained by Marx and his theory)
○ explained in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
● Capitalism = system of belief (economic system)
○ means of production are privately owned
○ businesses compete to create prosperity and wealth
● Fascism
○ authoritarian governments ruled by a dictator
○ idea: unity and military strength will endure war and solve economic difficulties
○ example: Nazi germany, fascist Italy
○ Orwell presents fascism as a threat to democracy (Europe, the 20. century)
● Totalitarianism (system of government)
○ single political party rules without opposition
○ mantaining control through propaganda
○ military strength, violence and terror
○ mass surveillance
● Socialism and capitalism are both ideas and most countries are somewhere in between (social
democracies, example is Australia).
POLITICAL SYSTEMS IN ANIMAL FARM:
● Capitalism - at the beginning, when they live under Mr Jones
● Socialism - after the rebellion, under Snowball and Napoleon
● Totalitarianism - after Snowball is exiled and Napoleon takes over
Historical Background
Important people of The Soviet Union between 1917 and 1940
● Lenin - initiator of the Russian revolution
● Stalin - dictator of the USSR
○ he raised Russia to a global superpower
○ has great manipulating skills
○ Stalin ruled with violence and fear - if you didn't play by his rules, you were killed
○ paranoid so he had purges
○ the purges are a part of the reason why Orwell wrote it under a fake name and did not
directly criticize Stalin’s regime (published in 1945, at the time of Stalin)
● Trotsky - banished from Moscow to Mexico, where Stalin ordered to murder him
The Russian Revolution
● World War I. (1914-18) - the country is falling apart
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