Entry 1

1. What is the major theme of this novel? Why is this theme important to a teenager living in 2007?
The themes are corruption of socialist ideals in the Soviet Union, the societal tendency toward class stratification, the danger of a naive working class, and the abuse of language as instrumental to the abuse of power. In Animal Farm, his allegory of the Soviet Revolution, author examines the use of language and the subversion of the meaning of words by showing how the powerful manipulate words for their own benefit. As a journalist, author knew the power of words to serve whichever side the writer backed. In the novel, Snowball is a quick talker who can always explain his way out of any situation. When the birds object to the maxim, "Four legs good, two legs bad," that the pig teaches the sheep, he explains that the bird's wing "is an organ of propulsion and not of manipulation. It should therefore be regarded as a leg." The birds do not really understand this explanation, but they accept it. The author particularly comments on the abuse of language with his character Squealer, "a brilliant talker," who acts as an unofficial head of propaganda for the pigs like Joseph Goebbels, whose bore the title of Nazi party minister of prop.