Snowball and Napoleon as Metaphors for Russian Leaders in Animal Farm

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Animal Farm written by George Orwell is an allegory of the Russian revolution. The classic book written in 1944 won its place into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 2011. Each species in the novel is cleverly created to match the different rankings in the hierarchy and main characters to match each person with a major role in the Russian revolution. In the book the animals lead a revolution led by the idea of animalism by Old Major which represents Karl Marx, the writer of the manuscript of communism. Every animal was promised to be treated equal and be free. However, a hierarchy starts to fall into place with the sheep representing the general public only following, the horses being the patriotic workers, Benjamin the donkey representing the intelligent Russians knowing that communism will not solve anything, the Hens being the lowest class peasants always producing but never getting to keep an of their produce, and finally the pigs, they are the smartest being easily able to manipulate the public representing the politicians.

After the revolution Napoleon and Snowball are left in charge. Napoleon and Snowball representing Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Snowball wants to see the success of animalism and is a brave and strong military leader, as seen when Jones and his men attack at the battle of cowshed and he charges through the gunfire and ends up with multiple bullets in his back. Snowball is idealistic; he comes up with things like plans for the windmill which would make everyone’s life easier, and also creates the clubs for the animals. However, Napoleon completely contradicts him. Napoleon doesn’t care about the success of animalism and is a selfish ruler and is consistently changes the seven commandments to suit him. He also is portrayed as cowardly as he doesn’t fight in the battle of cowshed. Selfishly Napoleon can’t share power and exiles Snowball and uses the other animals lack of intelligence to his advantage and uses Snowball as a scapegoat. By the end of the book Napoleon is just as bad as Mr Jones was and goes against everything animalism to the point where they couldn’t be separated from the humans

This book is perfectly crafted by George Orwell to portray a historical event using animals as metaphors for people and levels of the hierarchy involved at the time. He also creates events that can be translated to ones in the real world. This is why book written in 1944 is still seen as a classic and very much belongs in school whether it is in an English or history classroom.