Why Everybody Should Read 'Animal Farm'

 by Edward Hubbard 

I would recommend this book because in a simplistic way the book explains Communist ideas through anthropomorphism. It also tells us that power corrupts and can change those wielding the power into the devil's minions.

I liked how on one layer it is a fun tale about animals taking over a farm but on another it represents the lower class overthrowing the upper class in the Russian Revolution in 1917.

Most of the creatures in Animal Farm represent a character in the Russian revolution. For example, Napoleon is Stalin (the antagonist), Squealer is the newspaper or propaganda chief as he talks to the animals in his eloquent speeches. Snowball is Leon Trotsky who cares for the animals and wants them to do well. Boxer represents the peasant workers of a Russia and Mr Jones is Tsar Nicholas II because Mr Jones gives the animals just enough food and enslaves them. 

It is interesting when Snowball is exiled because the utopia the animals expect is turned to a dictatorship led by the pigs. Over time, the situation becomes worse than it was with Mr Jones and the original seven commandments are defiled and changed to fit the dictatorship.

I like how overtime Snowball's name is muddied , when he started, he was the hero. His reputation is changed from a brave pig who cares for the animals to a dirty traitor who fought the animals at every opportunity in so far as the propaganda tells us. And no one questions this!

I like how at the end the pigs are no longer animals but humans who make the animals work for them.

This book touches on many ideas. Some moments such as when Boxer is sent to the knacker's yard, will make the reader cry.

This should not stop the reader from reading this book because it is such a political masterpiece.