ORWELL'S ANIMAL FARM VIEWED FROM HISTORICAL CRITICISM

ABSTRAK Jatiperwira, Stefan. 2018. Orwell's Animal Farm Viewed from Historical Criticism. Thesis, English Language and Literature, English Department of Universitas Negeri Malang. Advisers: (I) Dr. Johannes Ananto Prayogo, M.Pd., M.Ed., (II) Maria Hidayati, S.S., M.Pd. Keywords: history, historical satire, reflection, comparison Animal Farm is a satirical novel that satirizes the Soviet Union and its Communism. The novel serves several purposes, from being a children’s fable to a means of propaganda by governments in the West.The detailed explanation of events and the characterization, are very historical and may make its readers understand the history of the Soviet Union, how it was established and how corrupt it was. What this study tries to discover are the way Animal Farm reflects the history of the formation of the Soviet Union and the major characters in Animal Farm that represent historical figures.Historical criticism is used as the literary approach for this study since the novel is filled with historical references. For the design of the study, I use literary criticism by utilizing historical sources and references to solve the questions of the study.For data collection procedure, intensive and thorough reading of historical references and Animal Farm are conducted to find similarities between the two.Events and characteristics of characters in Animal Farm are compared with their real world equivalents to see if Animal Farm really puts the history of the formation of the Soviet Union and the people running that country in a fable. The findings of thestudy reveal that: (1)the detailed events in Animal Farmconsecutively reflect the history of the formation of the Soviet Union, for progression of events in Animal Farm align almost perfectly with progression of events in the history of the Soviet Union from the ideological foundation, up to political infighting; and (2) the description of characteristics and personalities of the characters in Animal Farm does represent historical figures in the Soviet Revolution of 1917, seen in their similar personalities, characteristics, and actions, i.e., Old Major represents Marx and Engels’ idea, Snowball represents Lenin and Trotsky, and Napoleon represents Stalin. It is finally concluded that Animal Farm captures the history of the Soviet Union in a fable, considering the result that progression of events and the characters are similar with their real world counterparts, and similarities between characters.It is suggested that: (1) scholars, who might take interest in in criticizing satirical aspects in Animal Farm, it is suggested that they include and develop the way that the animals are designed to resemble certain purposes, as mentioned in the background of this study; (2) scholars, who might take interest in developing a new study based on this thesis or making this study as one supporting opinion, do whatever necessary to finish their studies by taking whatever they need from this study as long as a proper citation is provided; (3) general populace, who might take interest in literature, use this study as a bridging element to add their understanding of Animal Farm and satire