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摘 要

乔治奥威尔是英国著名小说家，新闻记者，也是社会批评家，被公认为是一颗毒瘤。而战争之年1945年出版的作品《动物庄园》就是他的经典作品之一。故事描述了一场“动物主义”革命的酝酿、兴起和最终蜕变。该作讲述农场的一群动物成功地进行了一场“革命”，将压榨他们的人类东家赶出农场，建立起一个平等的动物社会。然而，动物领袖，那些聪明的猪们最终却篡夺了革命的果实，成为比人类东家更加独裁和极权的统治者。

这本书里面人物个性鲜明，猪领导的贪婪自私，无产阶级马的勤劳热心，知识分子驴的明哲保身，种种人物无一不与当时的社会背景有关，例如故事中的拿破仑象征着当时的斯大林，而老少校则是马克思和列宁的缩影。因此本文从分析人物形象出发，旨在探讨人物在历史背景下的寓意。该研究有利于帮助学者对奥威尔以及《动物庄园》的进一步深层次研究，也可以加强读者分析于文学作品中人物形象及其寓意的关系。

关键词：人物性格 人物寓意 象征意义

1. Introduction
   1. Introduction of the story

Animal Farm is a political fable novel which describes an animal revolution including its ferment, the rise and the final disintegration. Suffering from the leader Mr. Jones of the farm, Manor Farm, the animals begin their resistance under the guide of pigs. At last, the animals achieve in power, and the farm was renamed as “Animal Farm”, adhering to the equality of all animal. However, the two leading pig try to go after power and strife, a winner announced that the other party is a traitor. Since then, with more and more right in hand, the winner pig has become the new privileged class. If any animal is slightly dissatisfied, it will lead to a bloody cleaning. What’s worse, the idea of the farm has changed into “some animals are more equal than any other animals”, which makes most of the animals under control of other animals.

As an allegorical novel, Animal Farm gives the author the real feeling that the so-called equality, freedom is limited, relative and short, and there is not Utopian idealism era world at all. In this story, a group of animal with the ideal vision tried to break the old regulation, which should make them out of the cage but actually jump into another trap. Sadly, they are still deceived, enslaved to be ruled, so inequality is the same outcome. The difference is only that in the human animal farm management, the human control the animals while in the animal farm, poor animals are under the rule of other animals, which is a great pity.(Alok, 1998: 35) The most frightening sentence in Animal Farm must be that, which has been tampered with only one commandment: all animals are equal, but some of them are more equal than the other animals. When the equality also has high and low status, the so-called equality is nothing but self-deceiving lies, and the so-called freedom has become arrant joke. After that, the humble civilians can only struggle in the predicament of silent. Since the publication of the Animal Farm, it has aroused great repercussions. It has been translated into many languages, and has also been adapted in other forms of art shown all over the world. For example, in November, 2002, the drama Animal Farm was shown on stage in the theatre.

• 1. George Orwell’s main works and his experience

George Orwell is a famous British novelist, journalist and social critic, always regarded as a dangerous heresy. Among all his works, Animal Farm and 1984 have an important impact in history, in which he takes the role of a prophet that he points out cold tone outline of human dark future, making readers’ heart tremble. Combined comedy with tragedy, his works caused great tension. Differing from others, Orwell directly exposes the decadence of language rather than allude to other people with a novel regime. In his opinion, the language is the curtain to hide the truth, as well as the tools to gloss over the reality. He believes that the writer must maintain his independence to be an eternal protester in the sense of resistance to violence and suffering in an age of language decay. For his profound ideas in the work, he is considered as a solemn conscience of a generation. Some critics hold that more than a person to see Orwell, more guarantee of freedom to protect. With specific ideas, Orwell criticized the totalitarianism headed by the Soviet Union in the Stalin era under the name of the socialist. He satirized those people addicted to the totalitarian society and the pursuit of power with his spicy writing. The prediction of totalitarian regimes in the novel have took place unceasingly in the following fifty years of history, so his novels, including Animal Farm, have been called as one of the political satire classics in literary world. Also, he was called the solemn conscience of a generation.

At the end of 1936, Orwell took part in the war in Spain, which was supposed to protect the democratic government represented by the Republican government, but he witnessed the struggle of life and death in the Left. When Orwell returned from Spain, he was filled with indignation for the action of the Spanish Republicans under the control of the Soviet Union. So he wrote a lot to expose their hypocrisy to personal persecution. In the 1920s and 1930s, when many Western left-wing intellectuals put their hope in the Soviet Union, Orwell held his own judgment on the essence of Stalin’s Soviet Union through his own experience and a series of events of the Soviet Union. If it is said that the whole works during his life are mainly reflected in the two themes “poverty” and “politics”, the main driving force to stimulate his writing is the conscience and sincerity. Animal Farm in the form of fairy tales is the product of this kind of thought. Therefore, each character in Animal Farm in a very political color has a strong simple. For example, the old pig, Old Major, put forward the idea of animal, alluding to Marx and Lenin. While the pig, Napoleon, one of the leaders of the animal revolution and becoming the leader of the farm, represents Stalin. In conclude, the study of the characters and their implications in literary works can help the readers understand the background of the works and the author.

1. Literature Review

2.1 Literature review of symbolism studies

Symbolism is one of the most common ways used in English literary works by various methods, including symbol, hint and metaphor. Since the objective things exist actually, the creation relies on the value of art rather than the description of it, which implies a state of mind. In addition, symbolism focuses on the ways of expression, revealing the theme by the rich meaning of the characters and things in the work.

The symbolism of literature creation originated in Europe in the 19th century, creating a starting point of the Symbolism, which was the theoretical base for the development of British and American literature and directly contributed to a new peak of literature development. In the process of the development of history and culture in particular, passion, romance and responsibility collide with each other, to a great extent which launched a world with ugliness and beauty opposed, in order to enhance the literary aesthetic and artistry and efficiency.

French poet, Charles Baudelaire and American poet, Edgar Allan Poe were the symbolism pioneers. Although symbolism first appeared in 1886, the works of Baudelaire and Poe early in the middle of the nineteenth century firstly involved some symbolism concepts.

As an international literary trend, symbolism enjoys different development characteristics in various countries, for it relates to the various national temperaments, cultural traditions and the writer’s personal writing styles and so on. For example, French Symbolism seems to be pure while the Anglo American symbolism is relatively complex. The achievements of symbolism in the field of poetry earned highest, and almost the majority important poets in the twentieth century can be referred to be the symbolist poets. In addition, the symbolism has also made great success in the field of drama.

In a word, this paper may analyze on the characters in the work of Orwell, Animal Farm, including their implications.

2.2 Literature review of Animal Farm

George Orwell has been studied by lots of critics from different perspectives, including self-identity, political theory of novel creation and characters, the theme of war and reality. Some scholars considered the story full of psychological and neural theories.

Paul Thagard, one famous Canadian philosopher, makes some comments on Orwell’s work, Animal Farm. He studies this story by using the multiconstraint theory, trying to analyze the topic that the brain is wider than the sky. Analogy, emotion, and allegory are the main things that he wants to show. Especially, he holds that there are three vital elements to appreciate the allegories of the work of Orwell, similarity, structure, and purpose.(Thagard, 2011: 135) As a successful allegory, Animal Farm satisfies all of the limitations of analogy. At the same time, it appeals to the strong feeling of readers. Although the limitation of similarity and structure may not satisfy all of the need, it is very clear that the representation between the story and history can realize the emotional and political aims. The allegory emphasizes on overthrowing his ratification to the oppressor, contributing to the high development of new literature due to the depression and anger. (Ibid: 140) In particular in the process of history and culture, allegory plays an important role.

One scholar in Cambridge University, Erika Gottlieb, studied further than others, for he pointed out one interesting problem faced with Orwell. The problem is that among so many stories with great success and praise in that period, the works of Orwell received unprecedented resentment, in particular the work 1984, in the year of whose year it was very strange for many people to comment directly on the limitation of analogy.(Gottlieb, 1996: 29) Considering 1984 as a classic rather than the only simple of the paradox, the readers can find some effective angles to the strategies of Orwell in a more comprehensive way. There was no doubt that the critics in 1990s expected to give a fair consideration to Orwell’s work because he is actually an author who is the most indelible and the most widely acclaimed writer with a number of arguments.

Some Chinese scholars think more about its humanistic theme. For its main idea was the real portrayal of Russian revolution and Soviet dictatorship, Animal Farm was considered as a political allegory universally. So at first most comments were based on the angles of politics and literary. The scholars before have made a comprehensive research on novel totalitarianism, anti-Utopia theme, black humor and satire art. What’s more, the story contains rich humanistic theme, which is worth studying for literature lovers.(Jing, 2012: 55) Many Chinese scholars confirms that the humanism is a vital theme by studying the description in the novel, including the suppression of freedom, the inequality among human beings, the repression of characters and the degeneration of human nature. Animal Farm advocates the humanistic spirit, which is essentially a totalitarian government. This novel criticizes the totalitarian government trampled and destroyed the humanism.

Different people may hold different ideas on Orwell’s works. But each literary works has its unique aims. In Animal Farm, the author aimed at propagating his political idea that he believed firmly in socialism, but the Soviet Union realized this dream incorrectly in his opinion. As he explained in Why I Write, his every work since 1936 was opposed to totalitarianism directly or indirectly. As to his work, Professor Xia Zhiqing points out that from Aesop’s fables in western literature, numbers of fairy tales and allegories were brought about century by century. But in the late twentieth century, no work is clearer than Animal Farm that directly pointed out of the reality of human being. Orwell hoped that this work could influence people’s political ideas, but most of the readers misunderstood it as only the pastime reading for this story describes the slapstick with simple words. So this paper would help readers study more about the inner meaning of this literary work by analyzing the characters and their implications.

1. The Characters in Animal Farm

3.1 The main human beings in the book

During the animal farce, there were several human beings throughout the novel, for example, the former master of the farm, Mr. Jones; the master of Fox Farm, Mr. Pilkington; the master of Cowbar Farm, Mr. Frederick, and the lawyer, Mr. Whymper. All of these people were representations of different kinds of social status in history.

3.1.1 Mr. Jones

The former leader of the animal farm is Mr. Jones, who was a selfish master in that society. He kept all the animals in bondage, enjoying himself on the farm. When he got used to the life of boss, all his animals defeated him and got him rid of the farm, which was quite beyond his expectation. Though consulting with other leaders, Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick, he finally gave up his farm, moving to another country.

In this story, he was a selfish and tyrannical master, as the representative of the last king in history, Czar Nicholas II. In the history of Russia, this king held his strong power of authoritarian regime and legal belief. In addition, he abolished many regulations of progress due to his anger for his father’s death. For example, he forbade many people to enjoy education in high school or even national schools, including coachmen, servants, washerwomen, small shopkeepers, and kids. Moreover, the policy of high pressure was put on the revolutionary movement if anyone showed negative attitude towards his policy.

3.1.2 Mr. Frederick

Mr. Frederick was the master of Cowbar farm, who is also a selfish person. Moreover, compared with Mr. Jones, he was more clever and cruel. After listening to Mr. Jones, he tried to help to get the animals in control, but failed, after which he began changing his idea that the animals may have their own emotions rather than always be kept in his control. Turning to be slippery, he pretended to be friendly with the animals and made friends with pigs, trying to seem reliable. What’s more, human’s fawning on the pigs made the animals so proud that the leaders became more and more addicted to rights and status, which brought Mr. Frederick a chance to get the animal farm with violating the contract.

Actually he was the sample of Nazi, German, who hurt people seriously in history. On the one hand, Nazi made generous promise to the people of all strata to expand the socialism; on the other hand, it claimed that Nazi was the group for public instead of a class party, focusing on the middle and lower classes for their support, which moved German in depression. However, Nazi held firmly that the country should be controlled by people with high status while those in lower class should be killed drastically.

3.1.3 Mr. Whymper

Mr. Whymper was the lawyer, the only connection between the animal farm and the outside world. While other people took a negative attitude towards the animal farm, he agreed to be the middleman between the farm and the outside and take task every Monday morning. As a lawyer, he seemed quite fraudulent with whiskers. Although his business was limited, he was shrewd enough that he knew the need of middleman in the animal farm and the pay must be very rich. Though it will be very ashamed for him to follow one pig, he agreed for the commission. Furthermore, as a businessman, he tried to persuade the pig to make business with outside world, such as eggs and wood, from which he could enjoy some profits.

He was such a shrewd businessman without any moral principle. So were the capitalists in the West who were named as the friends of Soviet Union but wanted to make a fortune there, such as Hamor, who was the first American who operated the leasing enterprises in Soviet Union. What’s more, he advised another capitalist to run in Soviet, Henry Ford, who then became the only agent of Ford cars and tractors in Soviet. These businessmen went there with the only dream of making a pile rather than helping people in need.

3.2 The main animal members in the story

Compared with human beings in story, some of the animals showed the progress of society. For example, Old Major was the sponsor of the idea of freedom; the pig, Napoleon, led the revolution against human; the donkey, Benjamin, held a suspicion towards the behavior of Napoleon; the horse, Clover, always took care of everyone and worked diligently.

3.2.1 Old Major

Old Major put forward the idea of animal doctrine. As a pig with medium white mane over twelve years old, he was of great respect by all of the animals on the farm. One night, in the animal meeting, one argument was pointed out by him about what the life is in the world. The life of animals was short but they could linger on with their last breath of life. What’s worse, they would be forced to work on a job until the end of their life if they moved a little. Even dead at last, they turned into food on the table. As known by Old Major, human being is the only enemy that they could do nothing but squander a lot. In a word, people should be defeated by animals so that the root cause of hunger and overwork could always be pulled out form the life of animal.

Old Major played such a role of mental rouse, which was just like Marx and Lenin develop the Socialism. Marx and Engels put forward the idea of scientific theory system as the theoretical principle and guiding ideology of the working class political party, including scientific conception of the world, theory of social and historical development, proletarian revolutionary theory and theory of socialism and communism. In addition, the idea of Leninism contains six parts: imperialism theory, proletarian revolutionary theory, national colony theory, proletarian dictatorship theory, Socialism building theory, and new proletarian party theory. Both of two ideas developed Socialism in the development.

3.2.2 Napoleon

Every group has their own leaders, so do the animal farm. To some degree, Napoleon was their leader to make the revolution against human. After Old Major’s death, many smart animals had understood the idea of Old Major, but they didn’t know how to make it come true. Napoleon took this responsibility and became the leader with the support of most animals. At the beginning of the revolution, the principles he made were to respect all of the animals that all of the animals were equal, which made everyone in favor of him. Unfortunately, he changed the original theme of their revolution that he enjoyed the life of being a king too much. In final, the other animals still worked like slaves that the life was not improved after the revolution, after which soon people got the control of the farm once again.

As a matter of fact, Napoleon in the story is the description of Stalin in history, who was the leader of Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953 and played an important role in the history of Soviet and the world. As is known to all, the October Revolution (1917) was led by Lenin to help Soviet develop. After the death of Lenin, Stalin became the chairman of Soviet people’s committee, and then he began his own assertion of building socialism first in a country by giving up the New Economic Policy of Lenin. Moreover, he carried out the socialist industrialization and collectivization of agriculture, not only helping Soviet become the strong country in heavy industry and military, but also leading to the great famine in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. What’s more, he set up the personal worship and connived the doctrine of Lysenko. The Great Purge was brought about to kill and oppress the opposition leaders in a large number, even some ordinary cadres and masses.

3.2.3 Benjamin

While everyone was excited about the success of revolution, only one animal showed a doubtful attitude different from others. He is one of the oldest animals on the farm. With a bad temper, he seldom brought about his opinions, or some sarcastic words might be spoken from him. For example, since the god provided him with tail to drive flies, he preferred to have neither tail nor flies. Among all of the animals, only he never smiled. According to him, nothing was worth laughing. Even after the revolution, he kept the same as before, working in a leisurely manner. Showing nothing towards the beginning and the ends of the defeat, even asked about whether feeling glad for the left of Mr. Jones, Benjamin just answered that the life of donkey was long enough that none of animals had ever seen a dead one. Although ignoring to comment on the revolution, he joined with others to defeat the enemy. Never standing on one side, he never believed in the benefits, such as the windmill might save their labor force. In his opinion, the life would continue whether they had a windmill.

He was provided with strong ideas of self-preservation. Compared with others, he thought clearly about the revolution, including its ridiculous ending, which he could predict before. Clam but acquiescent, he represented the author himself, the individual intellectuals. Orwell kept a critical thought about the idea of totalitarianism, but he chose to protect himself by writing rather than advocate in public to wake people up. Maybe due to the fact of the society, he was not allowed to suggest, so he wrote the role of Benjamin to insinuate his manner.

1. Symbolism Used in Animal Farm

Besides the characters in the story, there were plots in book using the symbolism, such as the ridiculous regulation in story.

As this story condemned the totalitarian dictatorship, it also exposed the selfishness and deceive of totalitarian rulers. For example, after the successful insurgence, the pigs reduced the animal principle to seven commandments:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. 2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. 3. No animal shall wear clothes. 4. No animal shall sleep in a bed. 5. No animal shall drink alcohol. 6. No animal shall kill any other animal. 7. All animals are equal. (Orwell, 1984: 36)

Soon under Napoleon’s calmness, the original seven commandments turned into the new seven commandments, especially the latter four:

1. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheet. 5. No animal shall excessively drink. 6. No animal shall kill any other animal without reasonable excuse. 7. All animals are equal, but some animals are higher than others. (Ibid: 187)

From these changes, we can obviously find that the new commandments gave the some animals more space to indulge themselves. Actually the old seven commandments were turned into a maxim that four legs good while two legs better, which was too general but convenient for those clumsy animals to remember, such as sheep, hen, and duck. At the same time, it was fake that the animals transferred their attention from the concrete items of commandments, which helped Napoleon distort the seven commandments for his selfishness. As a result, the rulers, pigs, gave themselves lager rights to squander resources created by other animals.

Similar to this significance, Stalin did the same thing in history. Aimed at helping Soviet Union overcome the economic crisis, he became the leader after Lenin. However, the origin policy was abolished and he carried out his own ideas. Some people think him as a tyrant. During his working time, more than 20 million people died from his policy, including political purge, banish, and the establishment of Gulag.

1. Conclusion

Animal Farm is analyzed by critics to have something in common with the history of Soviet Union even the international communist movement in the twentieth century. Something can be found similarly in many communist party countries. The author predicted the fatal of communism movement from the changeable development of animal farm in book, which was then confirmed by history, such as drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1991. But the meaning of this book is much more than it for this allegorical novel pointed out in literary way that the fundamental interests of the group with the control of distribution rights is to maintain its own dominance, and its final result might run in opposite directions with its basic demands to defend the social equality regardless of the form of the appeal. The story happened on a farm, the roles of which are the animals that are revolutionary roles of every hue. However, these animals are more than their simple roles for they represent actually real political creatures in history. For example, the leader pig, Napoleon, was the symbol of Stalin, one well-known chairman in Soviet Union. During these years, many scholars have studied Animal Farm on the theme of anti-totalitarianism and anti-imperialism, but they seldom refer to the symbolism used in. In nature, the symbolism used in book is quite unique.

In addition, considering the experience of Orwell, the understanding of his political thought is the first step to comprehend this allegory full of symbolism. Since symbolism is widely used in book, the simple language is endowed with magic intimation, which motivates readers to imagine a lot. The whole story is the extending form of metaphor, the whole characters, plots, and the scenic representing other things out of the story. This paper studied the story from the angels of characters and the symbolism, which hopes to help readers learn more about the story, the author, and the history.

Works Cited

Bonifas, Gilbert. George Orwell: l’ Engagement. Paris: Didier, 1994.

Calder, Janni. Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four: Open Guides to Literature. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1997.

Carter, Michael. George Orwell and the Problem of Authentic Existence. London: Croom Helm, 1995.

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