So you believe animal farm is a tale of animals that actually talked and formed a government? Well...Instead of reading the book and believing what is written?
No, the author knew his audience would understand the wink, just as people didn't leave Forrest Gump wondering why they never remembered the "real" Gump shaking hands with the president.
The joke is in the name and the ideas which could not have happened, a thing noted in the article snippet I provided from 2005. It's just a literary convention, like a book in the form of a diary that isn't really a diary. Here's another mind blowing fact, many times the author's name on a book isn't their legal name. Sometimes a masculine name will even be used when, and hold onto your hat for this one, the writer is a woman.
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