Select Classics: Animal Farm: (Original, Unabridged Classic)
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Set on the deceptively ordinary Manor Farm, Orwell's sharp political fable follows a community of animals who rise up against their cruel owner, Mr Jones, inspired by the aging visionary Old Major. The dream is a fair society, one built on equality and free from the boot of oppression. It doesn't quite go to plan. What makes this story so unsettling, even now, is how quietly things unravel. The animals win their freedom, then watch it get talked away from them, word by careful word. Orwell is fascinated by language as a weapon, and the conversations between the farm's residents show precisely how propaganda, revision, and spin can hollow out even the most earnest revolution. It's funny, in places. It's also rather chilling. The novel serves as a pointed warning about authoritarian rule and the way those in power set ordinary people against one another to stay there. Orwell makes his argument through pigs and horses rather than politicians, which somehow makes it land harder. Animal Farm remains a genuinely important read, not because it's comfortable, but because independent thinking is, as Orwell quietly insists throughout, the only real defence against those who'd prefer you didn't bother.
- Author: George Orwell
- Publisher: Penguin Select Classics
- Genre: Short Stories
- ISBN: 978-9815202731
- Pages: 104 pages