Animal Farm satire not at all gentle upon a particular State—Soviet Russia? It seems to me that a reviewer should have the courage to identify Napoleon with Stalin, and Snowball with Trotsky, and express an opinion favourable or unfavourable to the author, upon a political ground. In a hundred years time perhaps, "Animal Farm" may be simply a fairy story, today it is a political satire with a good deal of point." "Animal Farm" has been subject to much comment in the decades since these early remarks. The pigs Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into "a complete system of
The Ass and the Pig the life of ease he has left and is tempted back. His situation is made clear to him by the relation of an animal fable (supposedly of a former birth) in which a young ox complains to his elder brother of the easy lot of the farmyard pig. Soon afterwards the pig is slaughtered for a marriage feast and the ox finds comfort in the reflection that a simpler diet is at least a guarantee of survival. Although different pairs of animals are involved in largely different situations, and although the conclusions that their authors draw from them differ too,