Crash
05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
I first read Animal Farm many years ago, not because I was required to for a project but because I came across many references to it in other works of fiction. After I read it I understood why so many authors use it as a reference in their own works. Everyone seems to focus on the Socialism/Communism aspect of Orwells work but overlook the broader picture. George Orwell was obviously very knowledgeable on the subject of human nature in a general sense. That is why his books are still popular so many years after they were written. Animal Farm is really about power (as is 1984, of course) and what it does to those who wield it, regardless of their political beliefs. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" (Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887. 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men'.)<br>