A fable about human nature
Farmer Jones, a drunk, get too careless with the security apparatus of the farm, and the animals, motivated by a new philosophy formulated by a revered old hog, eject him to run the farm himself. Their sacred hymn is “Beasts of England.” Free of the farmer’s tyranny, yet beset by enemies on all sides, the animals at first work together in harmony. However, little by little, a certain class of animals (pigs) betrays the revolution’s ideals and soon end up as bad as the human farmers. The animals are once again exploited, and what is even worse, betrayed.
This was a short novel, very direct and, to my mind, spoke to human corruption. I’m not sure if socialism, when compared to other ways of organizing society, is more susceptible to lying and greed. Part of the dramatic tension came from the animals slowly discovering that they had been conned – their deepest ideals had been violated. The sheep, however, never seemed to figure that out, but were happy repeating whatever stupid things the pigs told them. The most interesting part of this was the corruption of the language and memory in such a brief time period in order to support the ascendancy of the pigs. What is recently agreed to be the truth is not good for Animal Farm.
This probably was a very effective piece of political fiction. So there were aesthetic aims, and they were also political aims.
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