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George Orwell's Animal Farm suggests that man cannot, in fact, achieve a utopian society, as the protagonists in the story turn their backs on their ideals. It's important to remember that the book was intended to be an allegory for the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin. Stalin's attempts to remake society in the USSR had aroused great interest among intellectuals around the world, but the terrible human costs, including his ruthless purges, became apparent, many of these intellectuals became greatly disillusioned. (Significantly, publication of the book, which was written in 1939, was delayed until after 1945, when the USSR and Great Britain were no longer wartime allies.)
We see many of the elements of Stalinist government in Animal Farm, including a power struggle between Napoleon and Snowball, grinding labor to achieve animal self-sufficiency on the farm, a bloody purge orchestrated by Napoleon, the development of a privileged group of "apparatchiks" in the form of the pigs, and of course, Napoleon's ascent to absolute power. The well-intentioned attempt by Old Major to establish a utopia on the farm descends into a nightmarish dictatorship due to the ambitions of the pigs and the gullibility of some of the other animals.
Orwell's novel clearly shows that man cannot achieve a utopian society due to their natural characteristics of greed, dictatorship and simply their appetite for power.
Orwell makes good use of a real life situation where the natural human characteristics have lead to a dystopia (the Russian Revolution.)
There is also a clear link between the characters in the book and those involved in the Russian Revolution. For example, Napoleon and his fellow pigs are based on Josef Stalin and his government. Also, the other animals are closely linked to the working class of Russia. The main link is that they were so gullible and believed all that their leader said. Afterall, what bad could a leader do??? Or so they thought...
In Orwell's animal farm, Napoleon transforms not only the animals achieved and current utopia, but their visions of a future Utopian society into that of his own greed and power. This hypocritical action turns the animals Utopia into a Dystopia, yet his own into an ultimate utopia.
So, can man achieve a utopian society according to orwell's animal farm???............NO!!!
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