Moses | Character Analysis in Animal Farm by George Orwell

Character Analysis of Moses in Animal Farm by George Orwell

Moses Animal Farm

Moses is a tame raven of Jones who pamperingly feed him with bread soaked in beer. The duty of Moses is to spy for his master.

Moses is clever at prophesying about a mysterious land in the sky called Sugarcandy Mountain. He is worked up with passion and emotion in describing the facilities obtaining there. Every day is Sunday there, he says: Clover is to be all through the year and hedges grow cakes and sugar. A majority of animals do not like the raven because he talks instead of doing work. But some of them want to believe in the Sugarcandy Mountain which is much better and blessed than their present life of tear and toil.

When the animals in the Manor Farm revolt on Mid-summer Eve, Moses thinks it better to fly away. He is not heard of for sometime. But he suddenly reappears after several years in the middle of a summer. The pigs, now master of the farm, permit him to do his preaching about the Sugarcandy Mountain, as before. He raises his beak skyward sand declares that on the other side of the dark cloud they can, if they look intently, discover the Sugarcandy Mountain where the animals can get complete rest and respite from their toilsome and troublesome present life. He even claims that he has visited that place once.

At the time of the establishment of Animal Farm the pigs demanded with all the force at their command that Moses’ imaginary stories should not be believed. He was denounced as an agent of Jones, under whom his job was to reconcile the animals to their hard lot. But now the pigs do not take exception to his absurd stories because they divert the thoughts of animals to a pleasant dreamland and thus feel less the harshness and hardness of their work and life on the farm. The pigs do not admit that there is a Sugarcandy Mountain but they keep Moses idle and feed him liberally with victuals and beer day in and day out

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Moses is the symbol of a preacher in Animal Farm. According to Karl Marx, religion is the opium of the masses. It is an escape from the realities of a harsh economic system. The church, further observes Marx, is the tool of the capitalist. So after the October Revolution religion was banned in Russia. But under Stalin’s direction of state affairs churches were allowed to function under certain limitations. Stalin did not mind the people being treated to a fare of fairy tales so long as the authority of the Kremlin was not questioned and challenged. So the Church was first a tool of the capitalists but now it acted as the lubricating oil of the communist wheels. Voltaire said that if there were no God it would be necessary to invent one. Stalinism tolerates and uses the church in the same safe spirit. Animals like Moses are useful to underwrite communist’s tyrannies and atrocities on their fellow beings.

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