Animal Farm Themes

Two of the many themes of Animal Farm, by George Orwell, include that people’s ignorance contributes to their being oppressed by others and that in society, individuals are not treated equally.

The first two posters show that people’s ignorance contributes to their being oppressed by others. The “Napoleon is Always Right” poster comes from Boxer’s motto and I chose to use this because Boxer was a very important, influential, and respected animal on the farm. He worked hard and had a good attitude which gained him respect and trust from the animals, meaning that whatever he said, they believed. Boxer was not the brightest animal and he was also one of the ignorant ones being oppressed. He did not understand Napoleon’s true intentions and just assumed that everything he did was for the good of the farm, which helped Napoleon use him for his own selfish needs. The second poster shows the sheep’s favorite saying, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” This is a shortened version of one of their commandments and the sheep loved to chant it all the time. Because of this, the animals were basically brainwashed into thinking that they shouldn’t trust any human at all. This also confused them a lot when Napoleon started doing business with the humans, but were easily convinced that the trade was good when the pigs “explained” everything and Boxer recited, “Napoleon is always right.”

The next three posters (with 4, 5, and 6 written on them) also show the same theme. Those three posters show three of the commandments that were conveniently changed when the pigs did something against them. You can see that the original commandments were written normally and then the alterations were added to the end in drippy, messy paint. These posters show the theme because during the book, when the pigs did something wrong and the animals had their doubts, they would always turn to the commandments which the pigs had changed and the animals were too dumb to realize.

The last poster shows the theme that in society, individuals are not treated equally. It shows the single commandment at the end of the book, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.” This shows the theme because in Animal Farm, the animals had the idea of complete equality and they thought that they had it for a while, but it was not able to last. Eventually, the pigs rose to the top and treated themselves as kings while the other animals suffered. They said that they had an equal society, but they never did.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: New American Library, 1946. Print.