Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Janet

Hailed as a classic, Animal farm indeed hooks you from the first chapter on, but the feeling at the ending can only be properly described as creepy and eerie. George Orwell wrote the political satyr in relation to Joseph Stalin, the then dictator of Russia. Using animals on a farm, he stages a rebellion much like the overthrow of the royal family in Russia. He chooses to use pigs to portray Stalin and his henchmen, who rise to the top of the social pyramid. In the end, the pigs succumb to the corrupt lure of power and become dictators, ruling over all the other farm animals, much like Stalin did. The farm is even worse off than before, and the pigs are shown at the very end to have become human-like, symbolizing their greed for both wealth and power.