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Satire
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
Although Animal Farm is set in a fictional version of England, Orwell uses the novel’s setting to allegorize the rise of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin through the ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s leadership. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, which removed Tsar Nicholas II from power, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin and inspired by the writings of Karl Marx, established a socialist state. This state evolved into the Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, there was a vicious power struggle between prominent Bolsheviks, with Joseph Stalin eventually seizing power and exiling rivals like Leon Trotsky. Stalin consolidated the power structure of the Soviet Union by the late 1920s, enforcing policies of rapid industrialization and collectivization with a heavy hand. These policies transformed the Soviet economy, but they also caused widespread hardship and famine. He also maintained his iron grip on power by murdering or exiling people he saw as threats. This era of tyrannical dictatorship and the brutal reinforcement of authority was Orwell’s inspiration for Animal Farm.
The physical setting of the farm itself is simple and relatable. The world the animals are born in and die in only comprises the farmhouse, the grounds, and the fields and sheds in which the animals live. These run-of-the-mill places would make the setting familiar to most of Orwell’s readers, and this familiarity helps ground the fantastical premise of the story in reality.
The fact that Animal Farm’s surrounded by other farms still run by humans mirrors the dangerous position revolutionary states like the former Soviet Union often found themselves in. Just as the farm is surrounded by hostile forces in the early stages of its new governance by the pigs, so too are revolutionary states like the former Soviet Union often met with resistance from their neighbors. This isolation makes the farm very vulnerable both externally and internally. As there are almost no external checks on the power that the pigs begin to wield, it’s allowed to increase unchecked until they gain total control. The isolated setting intensifies the sense of entrapment felt by the animals—and by extension, the reader—and illustrates the perils of unchecked power in a closed-off country suffering under totalitarianism. The farm isn’t just a backdrop for the novel’s action; it’s an important part of its broader political commentary and its central allegory.
Related Themes:
