Pre-Reading: The Preface (by Kyle)

Reading the "Preface" for Animal Farm really gave me, as a reader, great insight into the novel even though I haven't begun reading it yet. The book was written after author George Orwell witnessed what Russia's Soviet communism was doing to the country. Orwell felt that the world needed to know about the negative impact Russia was having, and he decided to portray his message through a group of fictional, talking farm characters. This brings me to the first literary element expressed throughout Animal Farm; the preface tells the reader that it is an allegory, which is essentially a historical events portrayed in a fictional story. Animal Farm is perhaps one of the greatest and most well-known allegorical tales of all time. The book is also a fable, which is a story genre that often includes talking animals and a moral that the reader learns from the characters' actions. The main theme that the preface talks about is the concept that, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Animal Farm will more than likely explore this belief a lot throughout the book. I believe the statement is true in a sense when you apply it to our world, because it is obvious that all humans are equal, because we are all humans and physically/mentally alike. On the other hand, some humans are treated more equally than others, and unfortunately, the majority of the human race is treated by one another as if they are not human, and therefore they aren't equals. The perfect example of this in history would be looking at the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis treated the Jews like they were vermin, even though they were humans just like themselves. Like Russia, which Animal Farm is based upon, Nazi Germany was very much a communist country, so the concept of some animals being more equal than others can be easily defended by historical proof in other communist countries. I believe Orwell used this theme as a way to express his strong disaproval of communism because the reasoning behind the theme can be backed up with historical evidence.