Animals Portray Utopias

George Orwell uses animals in his book Animal Farm to portray his message about utopias. Pigs, dogs, horses, chickens, and many other barnyard animals are characters in this book. All the animals take on human qualities like the ability to speak, but they remain in their animal form.

In the book, the animals are inspired to have a rebellion against their master, Mr. Jones. When the rebellion happens, everyone is ecstatic about the future. They make plans together and are sure they will have a wonderful life. The pigs take the leadership of the farm. Napoleon and Snowball, two of the pigs, assume joint leadership of the farm. When the two leaders begin to disagree, Napoleon trains young dogs and runs Snowball off the farm.

At first, all the animals are happy and content. Things are running smoothly on the farm and work is shared evenly among all the animals. Then, things start to turn for the worse. Napoleon begins to abuse his power and makes the animals work like slaves. He takes advantage of their lack of intelligence and changes the rules. With eloquent speeches or claiming the animals remembered incorrectly, Napoleon was wonderful at making the animals believe his every word.

The message in this book is that what you might think is or will be a utopia can quickly turn into a distopia. The animals were all sure the new farm without Mr. Jones would be their version of a utopia. In the beginning, it probably was or was very close to that. But slowly, as Napoleon began to abuse his power, the animal's conditions got worse and worse. This book proves that a utopia is impossible to obtain.