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. –Animal Farm, George Orwell Why is this passage an example of exposition? It introduces one of the main conflicts of the novel. It introduces several main characters in the novel. It describes the physical environment of the novel. It describes the time period in which the novel takes place.

In literature, exposition is the part of a story in which the author sets the stage for what will happen. It is where the theme, characters, conflicts, setting and/or circumstances are laid out.

The excerpt we are analyzing here belongs to the allegorical novella "Animal Farm", by George Orwell. One of the main conflicts of the story is precisely the rebellion of farm animals against their human owner. The excerpt introduces that conflict as a character presents that idea to the others: that man should be seen as the enemy.

"Animal Farm" was written as a criticism to the results of the Russian Revolution. The animals represent the people, who believed that by taking power and ruling under the ideal of communism they would be free from the maladies capitalism and inequality had brought. In the novel, the pigs take power and begin to control the other animals by means of false propaganda. They end up becoming what they once fought against.