Lack of Education and the Rise of Class Stratification: Boxer, Napoleon, and the Fate of Animal Farm Peter Liu 11th Grade

The first president of the United States, George Washington, famously stated, “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter” (Washington). Often an uneducated working class is exploited for labour by the higher intellectual class. This type of exploitation is evident in the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell. While Animal Farm is intended to be an allegory for the Russian Revolution, Orwell demonstrates somewhat more broadly how an uneducated working class is easily manipulated by the smarter population. After all the animals cooperate to overthrow the owner of the farm, Jones, they quickly agree to establish specific rules to ensure every animal is equal. Napoleon, a pig who symbolizes Joseph Stalin, creates seven commandments that the animals devotedly follow. However, only pigs are capable of actually reading and remembering what the commandments are. The consequence of the pig’s higher intelligence results in them reaping the rewards and luxuries provided by the hard work of the other animals, who do not have the mental capacity to understand they are being taken advantage of. The ignorant working class in Orwell’s novel Animal Farm illustrates how class stratification...