09.20 - Allegory in Animal Farm

Today we focused on allegory in Animal Farm. We started out by defining an allegory in comparison to a fable. Both are fanciful stories made up to teach a lesson and entertain people. While everything in a fable is fictional, allegory has characters, places, and events that are based on or are intended to represent real people, places and events. Animal Farm was written as an allegory for the Russian Revolution in 1917 and rise of Soviet power.

In discussing how Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian revolution we looked at which characters aligned with which people or elements of the revolution. We made connections between all of the characters that we have been looking at through our character analysis in the book and used these characters to study their corresponding historical figure/element in the Russian revolution. Everyone used the Allegory Fact Sheet to record information they found about their subject.

Directions for filling out the fact sheet and the character/allegorical subject match up is listed below.

 

(click image to enlarge)

To review the discussion on allegory v. simile and allegory in Animal Farm check out this document which summarizes these points: Allegory in Animal Farm

(In class, we reviewed slides 1-11 and 14).

Homework:

If you did not finish it in class, complete the Allegory Fact Sheet

Continue to read Animal Farm according to the class schedule.