Analysis of Animal Farm Story by Using Marxism Criticism

Marxism Criticism

Marxist criticism pays special attention to the division of class, class struggle,
oppression, and political background of the story. In other words, this criticism
focuses more on the social and political elements of a work than its aesthetic (artistic
and visual) value.

 The Marxist theory is more concerned with social and political elements of a work
than its aesthetic value.

 Marxist theory can be applied to literature by analyzing the social, economic and
political elements such as class division, class struggle, and oppression.

Summary Of Animal Farm

The members of Animal Farm lives under bad conditions. The farms owner, Mr.Jones, an
alcoholic and mean man, exploites them. One day, the oldest animal of the farm, Old
Major, calls all the animals for a meeting to tell them about a dream he had last night. Hw
dreamed about a song, “Breasts of England”, which contains effective sides against
human beings. Every animal was very excited for the revolt against the owner.

Old Major dies a few days later. The young pigs, Napoleon and Snowball,
leads the revolution. After three months later, the animals started rev olt against
Mr.Jones to take the farm. The aim of the revolution was to create and make a new
farm which is leading by only animals, or bringing the animalism. Animalism is a
philosophy which defends the rights of the all animals on the earth and it has seven
commandments such as “four legs good, two legs bad” and most important
commandment is “all animals are equal”. And also animals changes the name of the farm
to “Animal Farm” from Manor Farm.

The smart and inventive pig, Snowball and cruel, dirty pig Napoleon starts to fight
for leadership.
The Analysis

Political

“Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are

miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will

keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to

work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has

come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows

the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is

free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.”(Chapter 1

Paragraph 7)

From the quotes above, we know that there are the class division between human and

animals. The owner of the farm takes everything that the animal produces, and gets all

the profit for himself. Also,mistreat the animals. Also, old major makes the other

animal to release about the Animalism.

“And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead

you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common

interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. And

among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle. All

men are enemies. All animals are comrades.”(Chapter 1 Paragraph 12)

“….remember always your duty of enmity towards Man and all his ways. Whatever

goes upon two legs is an enemy.“…. we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any

other animal. All animals are equal.” (Chapter 1 Paragraph 16)

From the quotes above, we know that the old Major as a great leader because he

inspired other animals to have their own equal, to not be oppressed by humans. He

urges the animals to do everything they can to make this dream a reality and exhorts

them to overthrow the humans who purport to own them. The animals can succeed in

their rebellion only if they first achieve a complete solidarity or “perfect

comradeship” of all of the animals against the humans. From the quotes above, there

are the actions or the strategy from the animals to struggle and against the humans.

They held a secret meeting to discuss about their ways to against Mr.Jones.

“…. Meanwhile the animals had chased Jones and his men out on to the road and

slammed the five-barred gate behind them. And so, almost before they knew what was

happening, the Rebellion had been successfully carried through: Jones was expelled,

and the Manor Farm was theirs.” (Chapter 2 Paragraph 12)

“Their first act was to gallop in a body right round the boundaries of the farm, as

though to make quite sure that no human being was hiding anywhere upon it; then

they raced back to the farm buildings to wipe out the last traces of Jones’s hated

reign. All the animals capered with joy when they saw the whips going up in flames.

Snowball also threw on to the fire the ribbons with which the horses’ manes and tails

had usually been decorated on market days.” (Chapter 2 Paragraph 13)

From the quotes above, there are the actions or the strategy from the animals to

struggle and against the humans. Their action are a form of politics which are they

fight for their equal, they rebelled and attacked the farmers, also burn all the stuff

related to Mr. Jones.

“…. Snowball also busied himself with organising the other animals into what he

called Animal Committees. He was indefatigable at this. He formed the Egg

Production Committee for the hens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the Wild

Comrades’ Re-education Committee ….”“The reading and writing classes, however,

were a great success. By the autumn almost every animal on the farm was literate in

some degree.”(Chapter 3 Paragraph 6 and 8)

From this quote, we can see that Snowball is a very kind leader because he organized

all the animals’ needs. He is a kind of leader that always gives priority for the

common interest and fair to all animals. The political in this quote is when the

Snowball and Napoleon lead Animal Farm. Then, when Snowball becomes their

leader, he teaches all the animals to read, and write, their life was happy. Because

Snowball is a better speaker, he has many ideas and he is very vivid. Snowball

replaces the inscription “Manor Farm” on the front gate with the words “Animal

Farm.”

“At last the day came when Snowball’s plans were completed. At the Meeting on the

following Sunday the question of whether or not to begin work on the windmill was to

be put to the vote.” When the animals had assembled in the big barn, Snowball stood

up and, set forth his reasons for advocating the building of the windmill. Then

Napoleon stood up to reply. He said very quietly that the windmill was nonsense and

that he advised nobody to vote for it,” “At this, there was a terrible baying sound

outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into

the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, In a moment, he was out of the door and

they were after him. (Chapter 5 Paragraph 13 and 14)

From the above paragraph, we can see that there are two very different political

systems. Snowball has the idea to build a mill that they can use in winter. Snowball

presents his idea to build a windmill, to produce electricity for the other animals, but

Napoleon was jealous of snowball and said it was all bullshit and snowball lies. Here

it appears that Napoleon used a cunning politics because he reversed the facts and

used his 9 strong dogs to ward off snowball from the farm. And Napoleon explains

that Snowball was in fact co-operating with Mr Jones. He also explains that Snowball

in reality never had a medal of honour, that Snowball was always trying to cover up

that he was fighting on the side of Mr Jones.

In addition, seen from the first two lines that at the time of the leadership of snowball

is a democratic leadership because everything they will do in Animal farm is always

decided through deliberation or discussion and voting.

“Napoleon, with the dogs following him, now mounted on to the raised portion of the

floor where Major had previously stood to deliver his speech. He announced that In

future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special

committee of pigs, presided over by himself. These would meet in private and

afterwards communicate their decisions to the others. and receive their orders for the

week; but there would be no more debates” (Chapter 5 Paragraph 16)

From the above paragraph, we know that Napoleon As supreme leader enacts changes

to the governance of the farm, replacing meetings of all animals with a committee of

pigs who will run the farm. Eventually, Napoleon's supremacy has him paranoid that

someone will try to overthrow him. Also, we can see that at the time of the leadership

of Napoleon, all decisions are made by himself without consultation with others

animas and no other animal is allowed to argue with it.

Social

“All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work; they

grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything that they did was for the

benefit of themselves. … ” “Throughout the spring and summer, they worked a sixty-

hour week, and in August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday

afternoons as well….” “….The animals lashed ropes round these, and then all

together, cows, horses, sheep, any animal that could lay hold of the rope — even the

pigs sometimes joined in at critical moments….” (Chapter 6 Paragraph 1-3)

The social elements seen from this paragraph are all animals work hard to help each

other to finish the windmill and never complaining because they believe what the

leadership tells them that they are working for their own good now. Even the project

presents a number of difficulties. The animals struggle over how to break the

available stone into manageable sizes for building. They are concerned with common

interests.

Economic

“Meanwhile, through the agency of Whymper, Napoleon was engaged in complicated

negotiations with Frederick and Pilkington. The pile of timber was still unsold. Of the

two, Frederick was the more anxious to get hold of it, but he would not offer a

reasonable price….” “….Napoleon had arranged to sell the pile of timber to Mr.

Pilkington; The relations between Napoleon and Pilkington, though they were only

conducted through Whymper, were now almost friendly….” (Chapter 8 Paragraph 5

and 6)
We can see from the above paragraph that animals do economic activities or actions

with humans; they do a trade transaction and negotiate for the sale. Napoleon and

Squealer make an adverse transaction for other animals that napoleon sells all the

produce from animals such as eggs, milk. In addition, Napoleon have all benefited

from humans without giving it back to other animals. By this point, Napoleon and

Squealer have so systematically perverted the truth that the animals cannot recognize

their leaders’ duplicity even when they witness it directly.

References

https://pediaa.com/how-to-apply-marxist-theory-to-literature/

https://www.academia.edu/33273317/Analysis_Animal_Farm_by_George_Orwell