Animal Farm

“Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer—except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.”

Animal Farm is a story about a group of farm animals who overthrow their human owner, desiring a farm where all animals are equal. Initially, their revolution is succesful, but as time progresses, their great society turns out to not be much better than the one they fought to leave.

This story is still applicable to modern societies, where the few are able to hold power over everybody working for them. It is a lesson in learning to not trust blindly, and that leadership does not always have your best interest in mind.

Providing that lesson in the form of a group of farm animals rebelling works perfectly in my opinion. Who are more oppressed and used on a daily basis than these animals?

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”

Does that not seem familiar to the way a lot of workers are treated across the world? How only those on the top are able to live lavishly, even though they aren't as capable or have to work as hard as those under them?

Even if you aren't looking at it from a political standpoint, or examine it based on the times in which it was released, there is still much in here that can provide food for thought. Orwell packages his message in a novella that reads away easily, and that will leave you upset for many of the characters. Because nothing is fair, nothing is equal. Not even animals.