An Analysis of Classism in George Orwell’s Animal Farm

Abstract

Classism plays a significant role in shaping social hierarchies within literary narratives, often revealing how power, privilege, and inequality operate across different historical contexts. This Research explore the illustration of class struggle and class consciousness in George Orwell’s Animal Farm using the Marxist theoretical framework of Karl Marx and Georg Lukács. Through a qualitative descriptive method, the researchers conducted a close reading of the novel and coded all relevant dialogues, speeches, and narrative events. The analysis identified 46 instances of class struggle and 28 instances of class consciousness, illustrating how the pigs gradually monopolize power, exploit ideology, and suppress the working animals. The findings reveal that Orwell’s portrayal of class conflict reflects Marx’s concept of the proletariat’s exploitation by the ruling class, while the animals’ shifting awareness demonstrates both the emergence and erosion of class consciousness. Key speeches from Old Major articulate the origins of oppression and inspire revolutionary awareness, whereas the pigs’ later manipulation exposes how revolutions fail when ideology is controlled by a new elite. Overall, the study shows that Animal Farm not only critiques totalitarianism but also depicts the cyclical nature of classism, emphasizing how power can corrupt revolutionary ideals and restore hierarchical structures unless true class consciousness is sustained