Short Stories Animal Farm Characters Analysis
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Introduction
Characters, the backbone of literary fiction, give voice to the narrative through their worth-reading and worth-remembering actions, deeds and dialogues.
One of the major elements of a tragedy as described by Aristotle, the characters, in a literary piece, act as its founding pillars driving the plot forward and highlighting the major themes and motifs.
Mr Jones: the Cruel Proprietor
An embodiment of tyranny and malice, Mr. Jones is the owner of the farm who treats animals in a cruel manner by underfeeding them.
Since he loses his money and property in a lawsuit, he becomes extremely harsh to his animals on the farm. It is due to his cruelty and autocratic behavior that animals on the farm decide to rebel against him.
Led by Old Major, the animals start a revolt against him driving him and his wife out of the farm. Although Mr. Jones tries to retake his farm by initiating the Battle of the Cowshed against the animals but loses the battle bitterly. He leaves the farm and later dies in another part of the country.
Old Major: the Wise Pig
A symbolic Karl Marx, Old Major represents change and freedom in the novel. A wise pig, he not only understands the plight of the animals on the farm but also proposes a viable solution for the freedom and prosperity of his fellow animals.
It is Old Major who instigates other animals to revolt against Mr. Jones, thus taking them out of their prolonged misery after a brutal battle.
A kind fatherly figure in the literary fiction, Old Major knows the value of freedom and equality; therefore, he desires to see the animals leading a free and prosperous life without the domination of human beings or other animals.
Old Major spends his whole life fighting for the cause of his fellow animals and dies peacefully after leading a life of honesty and equality.
Napoleon: the Tyrannical Pig
Unlike Old Major, Napoleon is a cruel and tyrannical pig in the novel. Representing Stalin, Napoleon reveals to the readers the faults and follies present in human beings due to their greed.
At the beginning of the literary text, Napoleon appears to be a good and fair ruler after the death of Old Major; however, he soon becomes power-hungry and uses weak animals on the farm for his personal gains.
For this purpose, he uses puppies to build a secret police force in order to drive out Snowball from the farm. He also uses force to keep the animals in order and to take special privileges for himself being the leader of the farm.
Boxer: the Hardworking Horse
A kind-hearted and hardworking horse, Boxer appears as one of the major characters in the novel. He plays a vital role in keeping all the animals on the farm together before and after the rebellion. Fighting bravely in the Battle of Cowshed, Boxer loses his life by working incessantly without rest.
The cruel pigs of the farm send him to Knacker's yard to be slaughtered in order to get some money and personal favors. Boxer leads a simple and honest life and dies by fighting bravely in the revolt against human beings.
Benjamin: the Friendly Donkey
The oldest animal on the farm, Benjamin is a wise and educated donkey who can read well. He represents the skeptical people of Russia who do not believe in the benefits of Communism. He becomes outrageous when the pigs leave his friend Boxer to die in the yard.
After the death of his dear friend, Boxer, Benjamin becomes cynical and does not behave well with other animals on the farm. He is one of the animals who remains alive at the end of the novel.
Conclusion
An amalgamation of humans and animals, the characters in Animal Farm signify the importance of Communism and Socialism as opposed to Totalitarianism.
These characters, depicting the need for equality and freedom for animals and human beings, make the novel worth-reading through their actions and dialogues.
Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time.
Soon or late the day is coming,
Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown,
And the fruitful fields of England
Shall be trod by beasts alone.
Rings shall vanish from our noses,
And the harness from our back,
Bit and spur shall rust forever,
Cruel whips shall no more crack.
For that day we all must labour,
Though we die before it break;
Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
All must toils for freedom's sake.
Benjamin (In Detail)
Introduction
The novella, Animal Farm was penned down by British author George Orwell and published on August 17, 1945. In her book, British Literature and American Literature (1996), Leila Borges states that this novella portrays the events which led to and which occurred during the Stalin era before World War II.
In the novella, the characters, embodying animalistic forms, portray the revolutionaries of the Communist Bolshevik and overthrow the human leadership on the farm.
Later, with the passage of time, inequality starts to prevail and the socially and politically powerful people begin to manipulate the weaker ones.
The Seven Commandments shrink to only One Commandment: all animals are equal but some are more than the others. It reminds the readers of the famous maxim by Lord Acton that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
A Bystander
During and after the Rebellion, there is only one animal on the farm: Benjamin who can read as well as pigs and is intelligent enough to understand what is going around him but chooses to remain silent.
He can be called as a bystander who knows about the intentions of the pigs but does not want himself to get involved in it.
A Cynic of the Russian Revolution
Benjamin's attitude alludes to the cynics who, during Russian Revolution (1917), although did not oppose the Revolution yet believed that it all would lead nowhere and the situation would remain as it was then or as it had been in the past.
Donkey George
According to critics, the character of Benjamin resembles Orwell himself and depicts his own political pessimism. Khalida Meghaouri writes in her dissertation titled as The Use of Personification in George Orwell & Novel Animal Farm (2013) that according to Morris Dickstein, there is a touch of Orwell himself in this creature’s timeless skepticism and indeed, friends called Orwell ‘Donkey George', after his grumbling donkey Benjamin, in Animal Farm.
The Oldest
When Benjamin is asked by the animals on the farm about his opinion, he simply states that donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.
It indicates towards the fact that being the oldest among them, he has witnessed many rebellions that were of no avail and this observation makes him believe that nothing can be changed and the efforts to change things would go futile, sooner or later.
For him, the Rebellion would not make a difference and life would go on as it had always gone on that is bad, so he remains indifferent to it even though all the other animals are excited about it.
A Flat Character
Benjamin is a flat character and shows no development in his personality throughout the novella except for certain noticeable but temporary changes like when he helps the animals of the farm by reading to them the last and only commandment or when he hears the news of Boxer being taken to hospital: it was the first time that they had ever seen Benjamin excited indeed it was the first time that anyone had ever seen him gallop.
He has read the label of the slaughterhouse to which Boxer is being taken in the name of the hospital but when he reveals it to the other animals, it was too late for the animals to take any action to save Boxer.
In spite of his indifference to the Rebellion, Benjamin does not stay idle and contributes his part to the society just like the hard-working Boxer, for example, in the building of the windmill. After the death of Boxer, he becomes more morose and taciturn than ever and isolates himself from the other animals.
His pessimistic approach to future gets more intense: things had never been, nor ever could be much better or much worse hunger, hardship, and disappointment being the unalterable law of life.
