Animal farm was written by Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell). It was published in England on 17 August 1945 and one year later in the United States. The book is about a group of animals on a farm called the Manor Farm and their owner Mr. Jones.

The story begins with Old Major a white boar on the farm, he had a dream and he wanted to relay it to the other animals on the farm. All the animals on the farm waited until Mr. Jones had gone to bed before they all congregated for their little meeting in the barn.

Before Old Major told them his dream, he wanted to illustrate the futility of their existence, he expressed that their human owners would only work them to the “last atom” and then slaughter them when they were of no more use. Old Major expressed that an animal’s life is pure misery, and the reason for this was because all the produce of their labor had been stolen from them by humans.

His solution to this conundrum was to remove man from the picture, Old Major thought by removing man, the animals would become “free and rich overnight”. He implored the other animals to remember their duty of enmity towards man. He said, “whatever goes on two legs is an enemy, and whatever goes on four legs and has wings is a friend”. He warned against becoming like man whilst engaged in the fight against man, which meant not taking up any of man’s vices. Old major proceeded to teach them a song that he knew as a youngster, this song was to become the theme song for the future rebellions whose flames were ignited that faithful night “Beasts of England”.

Three nights later, Old Major passed away, and over the next three months, the animals began scheming and planning, their rebellion. Now, Mr. Jones had fallen on rough times, he had lost money in a lawsuit and had started drinking a lot, because of this, the farm ended up in a very bad state, the animals were underfed and it didn’t help that Mr. Jones’s workmen were “idle and dishonest”,

It was in the month of June on Midsummer’s eve that the tide began to change, Mr. Jones went into town to drink at the Red Lion, it was a Saturday, he became so intoxicated that he did not return until midday Sunday. His men went off rabbit hunting without feeding the animals and Mr. Jones immediately went to sleep when he returned without feeding the animals.

The animals decided they had had enough and broke into the store – shed in search of food. Mr. Jones was awakened by the commotion, so he and his men went with whips to chase the poor hungry animals out of the store – shed, however, the animals decided enough was enough and chased the lot of them off the farm. Mrs. Jones was in the main house and witnessed what was happening and decided to pack her bags and scamper off.

So the rebellion that Old Major had predicted, happened spontaneously and the animals were left to chart their own futures.

Now, I wouldn’t want to spoil the rest of the story for those who haven’t yet read the book, so I leave future readers to garner the rest of the story by reading the book in its entirety.

Viewing the book from a surface level and ignoring the symbolism of communism etc, as this would be another discussion entirely focusing purely on the wit and real-life personalities given to the animals and the continuous drama makes this book in my opinion an interesting read.