In Animal Farm George Orwell describes what happened in Russia from the revolution until the end of World War II. He portrays Russia as a farm where the animals eventually have enough of the cruel farmer. They revolt against him and take control of the farm. We are told about the struggle for power among the animals, the hardships they experience in trying to build a new society for themselves and how the leaders finally end up behaving just like the farmer had done. The revolution had gone wrong. The characters in the novel have real life equivalents like the Tsar, Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky. Different kinds of animals represent groups in society like workers, peasants and the upper class. But Animal Farm is not just a political novel, it is also a beautifully artistic piece of writing. Orwell uses several different genres to get his message across. In this essay I will analyse Orwell’s use of fable, defamiliarisation, satire, fairy-tale and allegory. I will discuss the characters in the novel and the real life equivalents they represent, and give a chronological presentation of the events to try to explain how Orwell portrays the historical events.