Grade 9 Animal Farm Notes

Hi there,

I achieved a grade 9 when I sat the AQA English Literature GCSE in 2017, solely revising from these notes linked above. My notes contain 50+ quotes from the whole novella, with extremely detailed, exam style analysis totalling over 9700 words. No useless book summary, just pure analysis, as you would write in an exam.

These notes are split into 7 sections:
Napoleon
Snowball
Squealer
Old Major
Boxer
Irony
Inequality

Sample:
● “It was noticed that [the dogs] wagged their tails to him in the same way as the other dogs had been used to do to Mr Jones”. The dogs wagging their tails show their devotion and loyalty to Napoleon. The syntax of this description is significant in that it was “noticed”, which conveys the idea that someone insignificant noticed this. The ironic narrator highlights to the reader of the parallel to Mr Jones and therefore the disillusionment and betrayal of revolutionary ideals on the farm. An immediate parallel is drawn between Napoleon and Mr Jones reflecting the cyclical structure of the novella and that the leadership of Napoleon is no different to that of Mr Jones. The phrase “It was noticed” The reader would have been shocked by this knowing that these events paralleled those of the Russian revolution, as it suggests that Stalin was the same as the Tsar Nicholas II.