Social Conflicts in “Animal Farm” by George Orwell Essay

One of the main characters of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” says: “Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no!… Man is the only real enemy we have” (Orwell, 2). This quote is truthful from the point of view of revolutionary moods overwhelming the farm. Orwell uses the farm analogy in order to demonstrate the most common course of all revolutions and struggles for freedom. The animals identify a leading power, which is men, as the ruler that must to be overthrown. This is the only way for the animals to establish equality and create a flourishing, happy and wealthy society. “Animal Farm” by Orwell is a description of the metamorphoses that happen within a freedom movement turning it into a corrupted tyranny.

The novel demonstrates the emergence and development of a disorder within a society when some of its members start to feel dissatisfaction with its leaders and ruling power. Orwell shows that sometimes it takes one extremely expressive speech to start a revolutionary movement, set the masses against the ruling powers by means of pointing out the unfair aspects of their life, inequalities, social and financial gaps. In literature conflict is a literary element that serves to represent the opposing parties or ideas that confront each other. The conflict of “Animal Farm” starts with the sentence: “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing” (Orwell, 2). This way the author shows the differences between the two sides of the initial conflict that begins because of the inequalities and exploitation of farm animals by humans without an appropriate reward. This kind of conflict is highly recognizable, as it is commonly experienced in the world of nowadays.

Gradually, the brotherly and united atmosphere in the farm society fades away. Just like any freedom movement, the farm faces the inevitable difficulties such as lack of enthusiasm, cold attitudes and constant disagreement in the leading segment of the group. In order to emphasize the feelings of discomfort and uncertainty the author puts the farm into unpleasant and cold settings. The purpose of the literary element called setting is to establish the time and place of the happening events, describe the way the surroundings affect the characters and their story. In “Animal Farm” the setting describes winter: “In January there came bitterly hard weather. The earth was like iron, and nothing could be done in the fields” (Orwell, 18). Even though the description is quite simple and not very rich, it successfully establishes the cold mood starting to bother the farm and its society. The reader gets to sense that not only the weather was “bitterly hard”, but also the relationships between the leading members of the farm.

Orwell starts his story with the emphasis of one of the most popular social conflicts – the disagreement about equality and properties, saying: “Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no!… Man is the only real enemy we have” (Orwell, 2). This statement serves as a the first sparkle of the upcoming revolution that soon gets out of control, turns into a disaster and burns down the participants making them miss the way things used to be in the past.

Works Cited

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. 1945. Web.