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Which Animal Farm characters represent Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky?
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George Orwell
Known best for his powerful anti-utopian novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), English author George Orwell came to be regarded as a prophetic voice in 20th-century literature.
In George Orwell’s allegorical novella Animal Farm, the characters representing the key figures of the Russian Revolution are as follows:
- Napoleon: Represents Joseph Stalin, the leader who consolidates power and establishes a brutal dictatorship.12
- Snowball: Represents Leon Trotsky, the intellectual leader and rival to Napoleon who is eventually driven from the farm.312
These characters serve as central figures in Orwell's satire, illustrating the betrayal of the revolution's egalitarian ideals as the pigs transform the farm into an oppressive regime.2