Orwell’s Mr Jones – The Farmer
Was
Gareth, Orwell’s Mr Jones the Farmer?
•In Orwell’s allegory, most of characters were chosen carefully:
•Napoleon (pig) = Stalin; Squealer = Propaganda/Pravda; Boxer (strong horse) = 1900 Boxer Rebellion of ‘super-human’ Chinese martial artists.
•So why Mr Jones – who clearly alludes to Tsar Nicholas? AF is set on an English
farm – so why
not Mr Smith, as Jones is a popular Welsh name? Or Farmer Guinness as his Farmer was an alcoholic?
•Leading Orwellian Biographer, David Taylor considered the possibility; ‘plausible enough, although there's no mention of him in the index to GO's collected (twenty volume) works. Orwell had a habit of picking up names from the world around him…
