A Feminist Interpretation Of George Orwell's Animal Farm

George Orwell's Animal Farm has been hailed as a classic political allegory,however,another notable feature of the novel is often overlooked,that is,the author marginalizes the female roles.Most of the females appear as an obscure group and have no independent identity.Their general characteristics are negative,ignorant,shallow,dependent,obedient,and greedy for ease.From the perspective of feminist criticism,this reflects Orwell's cognitive biases and stereotypes against women.Then his male ideology becomes visible,and unable to be disguised.Mainly with the help of the famous French writer Simone de Beauvoir's theory put forward in her The Second Sex,this thesis attempts to interpret Orwell's male ideology in Animal Farm from the perspective of feminism by close reading.And it consists of three chapters.Chapter One focuses on the male narrative strategies.Orwell resorts to masculine narrative point of view,masculine narrative voice and flat female images.Most of the female roles,simplicity in their character,appear as an obscure group.Chapter Two explores Orwell's disdain for females through the interpretation of the female characters.In Animal Farm,Females act as breeding tools in the form of the objects.They are trapped in a spiritual cage with belief,and subordinate to males and society at the cost of aphasia.Chapter Three probes into Orwell's ideology of male supremacy through the interpretation of the male characters.He reproduces a patriarchal society in which males are visible,voluble,active and powerful;females are invisible,muted,passive and powerless.Power always rests with the males,while females' hard labor is always ignored.Females are described as the Other.The conclusion of the thesis is reached based upon the three chapters above.In his writing,it can be easily recognized that the revolutionary writer kept the conservative ideology of male supremacy.His work explains women's social status as “the second sex”in great detail.On one hand,Orwell hoped that “everyone is equal”,as he described theideal in Animal Farm: all animals are equal;on the other hand,ironically,he expressed his discrimination against women and women's rights.It shows the contradiction of his thinking.