Question

Read the passage from chapter 1 of Animal Farm.

"This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep—and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word—Man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.”

Which historical figure or concept does Man symbolize?

Nicholas II
communism
Lenin
modernization

Answer 1

None of the four. In the passage “Man” stands for humanity as the oppressive ruling class — i.e., human exploiters/the capitalist/bourgeois class — not a single person. (Mr. Jones represents Nicholas II; Old Major is the Marx/Lenin figure.)