Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Overview... a renowned old boar, whose idealistic view of a free farm in which animals are autonomous is the spark for a revolution on the farm. Old Major is an inspiration, and considered something of a legend on the farm, because of his vision of a bright future and also his prize-winning popularity among the humans, which gives him a certain wisdom and ethos.
Personality… visionary, optimistic, and pure. Old Major’s ideals are simple in their utopian principles, but once the pigs Snowballs and Napoleon begin to reinterpret Old Major’s words, his legacy becomes somewhat mutated. Old Major was a jolly pig, who believed in revelry and song, as he demonstrates with his uplifting, revolutionary song, “Beasts of England.”
Get to Know him in...
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Animal Farm is the most famous by far of all twentieth-century political allegories. Its account of a group of barnyard animals who revolt against their vicious human master, only to submit to a tyranny erected by their own kind, can fairly be said to have become a universal drama. Orwell is one of the very few modern satirists comparable to Jonathan Swift in power, artistry, and moral authority; in animal farm his spare prose and the logic of his dark comedy brilliantly highlight his stark message. Taking as his starting point the betrayed promise of the Russian Revolution, Orwell lays out a vision that, in its bitter wisdom, gives us the clearest understanding we possess of the possible consequences of our social and political acts.
