Question

Is there ambiguity in "Animal Farm," by George Orwell?

Answer 1

There is on the surface but not in reality.

Explanation:

Taken at face value it is a story about animals in a farmyard. However in reality it is a political critique.

The content of Animal Farm may be seen as ambiguous but I feel the ambiguity lies in the interpretation. It is often misconstrued as an attack on communism, but in fact it is an attack on Stalinism.

It is not the case that Orwell (or to give him his real name Eric Blair) is attacking the inevitable failure of communism. It is an attack on the way in which socialism in the embryonic Soviet Union was hi-jacked by Stalin. Blair was a committed socialist who fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.