What are Snowball's Characteristics in Animal Farm?

Question

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Answer 1

Snowball

Orwell's stint in a Trotskyist battalion in the Spanish Civil War—during which he first began plans for a critique of totalitarian communism—influenced his relatively positive portrayal of Snowball. As a parallel for Leon Trotsky, Snowball emerges as a fervent ideologue who throws himself heart and soul into the attempt to spread Animalism worldwide and to improve Animal Farm's infrastructure. His idealism, however, leads to his downfall. Relying only on the force of his own logic and rhetorical skill to gain his influence, he proves no match for Napoleon's show of brute force.

Although Orwell depicts Snowball in a relatively appealing light, he refrains from idealizing his character, making sure to endow him with certain moral flaws. For example, Snowball basically accepts the superiority of the pigs over the rest of the animals. Moreover, his fervent, single-minded enthusiasm for grand projects such as the windmill might have erupted into full-blown megalomaniac despotism had he not been chased from Animal Farm. Indeed, Orwell suggests that we cannot eliminate government corruption by electing principled individuals to roles of power; he reminds us throughout the novella that it is power itself that corrupts.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animalfarm...

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Animal Farm - George Orwell

Animal Farm study guides feature: Chapter-By-Chapter Summary and Commentary, Plot Summary, Character Descriptions, Literary Analysis – Themes.

http://www.bookrags.com/notes/af/

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animalfarm...

http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/barr...

The parallels between Animal Farm and Soviet History

http://www.slashdoc.com/documents/56586

http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work...

http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/article...

Answer 2

Snowball is a leader.  People follow him because of his charismatic speaking and his obviously superior intelligence.  But in some ways, Snowball lack originality.  He copies the ways of the humans, but is too proud to say they were not his original ideas.  In this way he is much like the person he is symbolizing.  Snowball leads not by the choice of the people around him, but because of his ability to deceive and frighten others.

Answer 3

Snowball is an intelligent pig who helps to establish animalism. Snowball is also very strong and seen as a rival in a power struggle.

*As a symbol, .Snowball represents Leon Trotsky, the Communist theorist who helped bring about the 1917 Russian Revolution but was later expelled by Stalin.

Below is a link to a great study guide.  Below that you will find a link to spark notes and explained quotations from the work.  : )   Good luck!

Answer 4

I have not read the book, but here are a couple of links that may help you.