In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at how Orwell’s childhood, colonial experiences, exposure to poverty, and participation in the Spanish Civil War influenced his political awakening and literary world—particularly ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’.

George Orwell’s Childhood and Personality

George Orwell was born on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, Bengal, India. His birth name was Eric Arthur Blair; his father was of Scottish descent and worked as a low-ranking official for the Indian government, while his mother came from a family with British and French roots. Introverted and highly sensitive from an early age, he did not fit in well with his family and grew up cultivating his own imaginary world. This disposition laid the foundation for his writing at an early age and led him to harbor the ambition of becoming a writer by the time he was about six years old.
His school years were not easy for him. While attending a private elementary school on the south coast and the prestigious Eton College, Orwell keenly felt that his family background fell short of that of the traditional elite. The wealth gap and class discrimination left him with a deep sense of alienation and inferiority, while the strict and unreasonable discipline fostered an aversion to organization and control. At the same time, the atmosphere of tolerance and intellectualism he encountered at Eton led him to discover Leninist thought and socialist literature, broadening his intellectual curiosity.

Colonial Experience, Poverty, and the Transition to Writing

After graduating from Eton, Orwell decided against attending university and went to Burma in 1922 to become an imperial police officer. This decision was influenced not only by his family’s financial circumstances and academic struggles but also by his sense of alienation and aversion to the hypocrisy he had experienced at school. In Burma, he witnessed colonial rule firsthand and, while fulfilling his role as a ruler, felt guilt and self-loathing over his position of oppressing the indigenous population. These experiences are reflected in the themes of guilt and self-reflection in his early novel, ‘Burmese Days’.
After returning to England in 1927, Orwell roamed the slums of East London, experiencing poverty firsthand; he then went to Paris in 1928, where he endured a grueling life marked by theft and labor exploitation. Those 18 months in Paris drove him to the very bottom of society, and even after returning home, he continued to document his experiences of poverty while working as a private tutor and in other jobs. Based on these experiences, ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’, published in 1933, was the work that led him to use the pen name “George Orwell” for the first time.
Thereafter, he published a series of works drawing on themes derived from poverty and the realities of labor. ‘Burmese Days’ (1934), ‘A Clergyman’s Daughter’ (1935), and ‘Shoot the Bull’ (1936) received critical acclaim but did not achieve significant commercial success, so his financial circumstances did not improve much.

Political Awakening and the Turning Point of the Spanish Civil War

In 1936, Orwell married Eileen O’Shaughnessy, finding domestic stability, and began to express his socialist concerns more clearly. Like other intellectuals who had witnessed the limitations of the capitalist system in the wake of the Great Depression, he turned his attention to the realities of the working class. He visited industrial cities in the north, documenting workers’ lives in reportage form, and published ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ in 1937. In this book, he leveled scathing criticism not only at capitalism but also at the British left itself.
Another turning point was the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in 1936. Orwell joined the civilian militia to fight against fascism, and his wife accompanied him. He went to the Aragon Front as a member of the Trotskyist-aligned POUM militia but was wounded in combat; at the same time, he witnessed internal struggles with Communist forces backed by the Soviet Union. The Stalinists’ suppression and purges of the POUM left him disillusioned with communism, and he eventually developed a strong aversion to both fascism and Stalinism.
His experiences in Spain were a decisive turning point that led Orwell to develop a deep aversion to authoritarianism, regardless of whether it came from the left or the right, and these experiences became a key motif in the creation of his later masterpieces, ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and ‘1984’ (1949). Furthermore, his reportage ‘Homage to Catalonia’, written based on his wartime experiences in Spain, vividly illustrates the turning point that led him to break with communism.

Orwell’s Later Years and Health

Around that time, Orwell continued his rural life in Wellington, Herefordshire, tending a vegetable garden and raising livestock with his wife. However, as his health deteriorated due to injuries sustained during the Spanish Civil War and symptoms suspected to be tuberculosis, he left for Morocco in September 1938 to recuperate.
During the winter he spent in Morocco, he wrote his fourth novel, ‘Coming Up for Air’. The novel tells the story of a middle-aged insurance salesman; through a scene in which the protagonist returns to his hometown with money earned from horse racing only to have his house blown to pieces by a bomb, it reveals a strong premonition of the outbreak of war. Orwell’s premonition soon became a reality with the outbreak of World War II.
He subsequently published two collections of essays in quick succession: ‘Inside the Whale’ (1940) and ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (1941).
Starting around the fall of 1941, he joined the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and worked as a producer in the department covering the Far East, particularly India. After leaving the BBC in 1943, he took a position as literary editor at ‘The Tribune’, a weekly newspaper that supported the British Labour Party, in November of that same year. It was around this time that he began writing ‘Animal Farm’.
‘Animal Farm’ became a bestseller immediately upon publication, bringing Orwell worldwide fame and financial stability. However, despite this success, his health deteriorated rapidly after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1947. Nevertheless, he devoted himself to conceptualizing ‘1984’, which would become his magnum opus, and completed the work in 1949.
Unfortunately, shortly after the publication of ‘1984’, on January 21, 1950, Orwell died at the age of forty-seven at a university hospital in London after suffering a severe hemoptysis.

Animal Farm

Difficulties in Publication

Orwell first conceived the idea of using animals to criticize the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime in 1937 while fighting directly in the Spanish Civil War. During the war, he witnessed the reality of Stalinism and the Soviet Communist Party firsthand and was deeply shocked by the power struggles within the ranks of the allied forces, where innocent people were imprisoned or purged on fabricated charges. He later recalled that he sought to expose the Soviet myth and restore socialism to its true form through his work.
Although Orwell found it difficult to carve out time for writing due to the worsening of his tuberculosis and his broadcasting duties, he gained some breathing room while working as an editor at the ‘Tribune’, and he intensively completed the manuscript over the course of roughly four months, from November 1943 to February 1944. This was a full six years after he first conceived the idea for the work.
However, even after completing the manuscript, another obstacle—publication—awaited him. Because British intellectual circles at the time were deeply inclined toward Soviet ideology, finding a publisher willing to accept the manuscript was no easy task. In a preface titled “Freedom of the Press,” intended for the first edition, Orwell confessed that he had struggled greatly to find a publisher; however, this preface was not included in the first edition and was discovered as a typewritten manuscript in 1972.
Orwell first sent the manuscript to Golanz Publishing, which had published his books in the past, but it was rejected because the owner, Victor Golanz, was a staunch left-wing socialist who supported the Soviet Union. Faber & Faber also rejected it; T.S. Eliot, an executive at the publishing house, described the work as “good” but refused to publish it on the grounds that “the overall Trotskyist perspective lacks persuasiveness.”
Dial Publishing in the United States also returned the manuscript, stating that “Animal Farm would not sell well in the U.S.” Jonathan Cape initially signed a preliminary contract and began the publishing process, but suddenly refused to publish after receiving a phone call from Peter Smollett, a senior official in the Ministry of Information. This individual was later revealed to be a Soviet spy.
There were roughly two reasons why British and American publishers were reluctant to publish ‘Animal Farm’. One was that the work was not a general satire of dictatorship but a blunt critique of the Soviet system and its leaders; the other was that portraying the ruling class as pigs might offend the general reader. After facing consecutive rejections from various publishers for a year and a half, Orwell was even considering self-publishing and trying to raise funds when, finally, a small-to-medium-sized publisher named Sacker & Warburg stepped forward to take on the publication.
Sacker & Warburg, founded in 1935, was known for its anti-fascist and anti-communist leanings and had previously published Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’ a few years earlier. Thus, after many twists and turns, ‘Animal Farm’ was finally published on August 17, 1945, as World War II was drawing to a close. This was a year and a half after the manuscript was completed.

Plot Summary

The novel is set on “Manor Farm,” run by a human farmer named Mr. Jones. All kinds of animals were raised there, and one day, Old Major, the farm’s boar, summoned the animals and argued that since humans were exploiting them, they must designate humans as “the enemy.” Major emphasizes the principle that “all animals are equal,” argues that a revolution is necessary, and teaches the revolutionary song “Beasts of England.”
After Major’s death, the young pigs Snowball and Napoleon emerge as leaders, and the animals prepare for the revolution. Finally, the animals rise up in unison, driving Mr. Jones—a drunken and irresponsible farmer—and his workers off the farm, and rename the farm “Animal Farm.” There, they adopt the “Seven Commandments” of Animalism, at the heart of which lies the rule that “All animals are equal.”
For a time, things seem to go well immediately after the revolution. Food is plentiful, and the farm is run relatively peacefully. The pigs, who are relatively intelligent, draw up plans and strategies; Snowball teaches the animals to read and write, while Napoleon educates the young puppies on the principles of Animalism. Under the pigs’ leadership, Sunday meetings are held and study sessions are organized to combat illiteracy, so that even the horses and ducks develop a sense of ownership and participate in running the farm. However, the pigs’ privileges had existed to some extent from the very beginning.
But when Mr. Jones and his henchmen, aided by another farm, attempt to retake the farm shortly thereafter, Snowball and the animals repel them with a surprise attack. The animals name this battle the “Battle of the Barn” and celebrate the victory each year with fireworks.
Up to this point, Animalism—that is, communist ideals—seems to be realized to some extent. But soon, a power struggle among the pigs intensifies over the construction of a windmill. The idealist Snowball argues for mechanizing the farm with the windmill to improve their lives, while the realist Napoleon hatches a plot to seize power.
Napoleon unleashes his fearsome dogs to oust Snowball and ascends to the position of supreme leader by executing, one after another, the animals who had sided with Snowball. He establishes a dictatorship by using the cunning Squealer as his spokesperson to persuade and manipulate the animals, while mobilizing the dogs to create a climate of fear. Sunday meetings are abolished, and all decisions begin to be made arbitrarily by Napoleon and his inner circle of pigs.
Through Squealer, Napoleon claims the idea of building the windmills as his own achievement and uses the construction of the windmills as a pretext to crush the animals’ freedom. When the windmills collapse in a storm, he blames Snowball and shifts the animals’ discontent onto Snowball’s alleged acts of sabotage. Furthermore, under the pretext of “purifying” the farm, he purges animals who complain or protest by branding them as Snowball’s spies. Eventually, the revolutionary song “Beasts of England” is abolished and replaced with a hymn glorifying Napoleon.

Ending and Key Scenes

In the latter part of the story, Frederick, a farmer from a neighboring farm, attacks the farm and blows up the restored windmill. In the so-called “Battle of the Windmills,” the animals ultimately emerge victorious, but the cost is enormous. Many animals, including the loyal horse Boxer, were injured, and Boxer was sold to the slaughterhouse by Napoleon, who had pretended to admit him to the infirmary. Only the cynical donkey Benjamin realized what was happening, but the other animals were fooled by Squealer’s excuse that Napoleon had taken the utmost care of Boxer.
In addition to Boxer, many animals who had participated in the revolution lost their lives, and the human farmer, Jones, also met his end in another region.
Several years passed; the windmills were completed and production improved, but the lives of the animals—with the exception of the pigs and dogs—did not improve significantly. On the contrary, Napoleon forced them to work even harder than before and reduced their food rations. The “Seven Commandments,” which had embodied the revolution’s slogans and discipline, are eventually reduced to a single sentence: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Napoleon and the other pigs of the ruling class live even more lavishly than the humans did in Jones’s time. They move into the farmhouse where Jones once lived, drink alcohol, sleep in beds, wear clothes, and engage in trade with humans, handling money. The pigs, imitating the humans, walk upright and even wield whips; the slogan “Two legs bad, four legs good” is changed to “Four legs good, two legs better.” After witnessing the pigs invite the farm owners to all-night parties and clink glasses with them, the other animals can no longer tell who is human and who is pig. Ultimately, the tradition of revolution is eradicated, the farm’s name is restored to “Manor Farm,” and the story comes to a close.

Fable and Political Allegory

The 1945 first edition bore the subtitle “A Fairy Tale,” though it was often omitted in subsequent editions. While this subtitle risked the book being mistaken for children’s literature, it is actually more appropriate to call this work a fairy tale for adults. The tradition of animal fables originated with Aesop’s fables in ancient Greece; it is a form frequently chosen by writers because depicting human society through animals creates an aesthetic distance that allows for more objective satire. While “Animal Farm” borrows the form of an animal fable, its content falls within the realm of political satire and allegory.
Allegory is a narrative form that layers another level of meaning beneath the surface story, representing abstract concepts through concrete elements such as people, objects, and events. In this novel, the characters and events can be interpreted as corresponding to the Russian Revolution and Soviet history, and this one-to-one correspondence conveys a clear message to the reader.
‘Animal Farm’ is a fable that carries on the British tradition of satire by anthropomorphizing animals to criticize human empire; it is also a political satire modeled on the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union, and, in particular, the Stalin era. For example, the Manor represents Tsarist Russia, the farmer Jones represents the last emperor, Nicholas II, and the animals’ rebellion refers to the October Revolution of 1917. The prophet Major symbolizes Marx, the dictator Napoleon symbolizes Stalin, and the idealist Snowball symbolizes Trotsky. In some French translations, Napoleon was rendered as “César” due to the symbolic significance of the name. The conflict between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks is likened to the rivalry between Napoleon and Snowball, and it is these exquisite metaphors that elevate this work to the ranks of a masterpiece.
The biting nature of these allegorical metaphors is also evident in the reward scene following the Battle of the Windmills. To celebrate his victory, Napoleon awards himself seven salutes and a new medal, while the other animals receive only an apple each, the birds two ounces of corn, and the dogs three biscuits.
Although ‘Animal Farm’ was primarily aimed at the Soviet communist regime when it was published in 1945, it possesses a universality that transcends specific eras and political systems because it addresses the universal issue of how a revolution that begins with idealistic promises can degenerate.

Orwell’s Background and the Meaning of the Work

George Orwell fought directly in the Spanish Civil War, where he witnessed the ruthless purging of some members of the civilian militia he belonged to simply because they did not sympathize with communism. He also conceived this allegorical novel based on his own experience of running a farm. In “Freedom of the Press,” Orwell explained the reason he chose a farm as the setting, stating that he had once seen a boy of about ten whipping a large horse while driving it, and realized that the way humans command beings stronger than themselves closely resembled the way the wealthy exploit workers.
In “Why I Write,” Orwell described this novel as “my first conscious attempt to fuse political and artistic aims.” He strongly criticized Stalinism and expressed sympathy for Trotsky. Meanwhile, Leon Trotsky emphasized that works of art should first and foremost be judged according to the laws of art, and that novels should not be treated as mere political adaptations. However, “Animal Farm” has such strong political overtones that it sometimes feels as though its artistic goals have been partially sacrificed.
The novel is peppered with scathing satire on events from the Russian Revolution and the Stalinist era. The extent of Orwell’s loathing for Stalin is evident in his diary, where he referred to him as a “murderer whom one cannot even spit on with any satisfaction.” Although Orwell was once a leftist affiliated with the British Independent Labor Party, he was critical of Stalin and, following the Spanish Civil War, developed deep skepticism toward Soviet-centered communism. In the preface to the 1947 Ukrainian translation, he stated that shattering the Soviet myth was necessary for the reconstruction of the socialist movement; the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 can be interpreted as proof that Orwell’s judgment was correct.
The central theme Orwell sought to convey through ‘Animal Farm’ is the nature of power and its dangers. As John Acton put it, “All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”—a proposition that serves as the core lesson running throughout the novel. Orwell’s life and writing can be seen as a record that exposes and warns against the nature of power, while urging resistance against those in power.
Ultimately, ‘Animal Farm’ is a work that reads like a lengthy report on those who covet and seek to maintain power, as well as on the intellectuals who, while in power themselves, follow in the footsteps of those in power. As an explicit political fable and an allegory of the Russian Revolution and Stalinism, it became a powerful symbol in the discourse on freedom before and after World War II, and has been hailed as one of the greatest masterpieces of political satire since Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.