Animal Farm Essay: Napoleon The Villain

     There are many ways in which Napoleon obtains and maintains power on Animal Farm. Napoleon obtains power fundamentally by elimination of all opposing him. He obtains and maintains power by turning other animals weaknesses into his opportunities. He also uses his education and knowledge to obtain and maintain power, as well as his ability to defeat the resistant feelings in other animals. To obtain and maintain power Napoleon uses various degrees of manipulation. He also uses persuasion and propaganda, brainwashing techniques and violence to

Firstly, Napoleon uses manipulation to generate a cult of personality in the Animal Farm. Napoleon directly shows how he manipulated the animals as he believed “...[weaker] animals on Animal Farm did more work and [would] receive less food than any animals in the country” (92).Napoleon shows how he only cares about himself as he uses the animals. He would make the animals do labour to support himself and to be powerful.The animals would agree to everything that he said because they believed that Napoleon wanted the best for them. Napoleon made the animals believe that they were in better conditions even though “starvation seemed to stare them in the face.” (50). He did a great job to hid the reality from the animals. His thoughts and

Meet Napoleon, a pig that tries to act as a human in order to pursue his lifelong dream as a farm’s dictator (not really). Welcome to Animal Farm. Napoleon is a pig in a farm called Animal Farm, after the animals decide to rebel against their farm owner Jones, they change the farm’s name from Manor Farm to Animal Farm. This story goes on to Napoleon deciding to use his intelligence as an advantage to lead the other animals. He writes 7 commandments that the animals need to followed. Napoleon’s power could have been checked after he broke these commandments, by deciding to give the pigs all of the milk and apples, by beginning to sleep in the beds of the farmhouse, and by killing two sheep.

First of all, Napoleon is unjust, does not demonstrate good leadership qualities and has poor reasoning. Napoleon has just held executions for animals he considers traitors and scares the animals while killing without reason. Orwell shows this as he states how, "the tale of confessions and executions went on until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones," (Orwell 84). This proves how Napoleon is unjust and doesn't care for the animals at all. He is only concerned with the efficiency of the farm and does not show sympathy for the animals, but treats them as though they are machines only there to do his work. Similarly, another example of Napoleon being corrupt as a leader is when he is becoming more secretive and separates himself from the other animals on the farm. For example, "Napoleon inhabited separate apartments

Napoleon, the revolutionary leader, was a power hungry and abusive pig. When the animals wouldn’t listen he had to have them follow his rules and visions. He brainwashed the animals into believing whatever he said, threatened them and used popular animals to convey his desires. As dictatorship was the most prominent form of governing during the revolution, the leader used techniques to influence the animals’ opinion.

Napoleon is completely corrupt throughout the entire novel. He never makes a single contribution to anything but himself. He is only interested in his power over the farm and not the farm itself. The only project he is happy about is the training of the puppies and trains them for purely selfish reasons. Napoleon is specifically modeled after the dictator Joseph Stalin. However, Napoleon can more generally represent political tyrants throughout human history and more notably through the twentieth century. Even Napoleons name represents a notorious dictator in Napoleon Bonaparte. The author could have selected any other name in the English language, but he chose to use the name Napoleon. In the way that Orwell writes about this character, it is very easy to sense the bullying and lying behaviors of modern day evil dictators.

While Napoleon was gaining power over the animals he had to get rid of other politicians and opposing citizens. He did this by raising dogs that would strike fear into citizens and end up chasing Snowball out of the farm making Napoleon have total power. “Four young porkers…uttered shrill squeals of disapproval…. But…the dogs sitting round Napoleon let out deep, menacing growls, and the pigs fell silent and sat down again.”(document B). This made it so the animals were too scared to oppose or overthrow Napoleon. He also made it so no one could challenge him politically. He did this by having his dogs kill masses of people so no one would dare have different opinions and speak out against him. “When they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in a terrible voice, Napoleon demanded whether any other animal had anything to confess”(document B). The mass murder made it so Napoleon had total control of the farm. The violence of Napoleon’s leadership caused the animals to fear to have their own opinions and forced them to conform to Napoleon’s

His main way of getting people to listen to him is by using his dogs to force people to do the required task or else they will get their heads bitten off along with the sheep saying ¨four legs good, two legs better¨ (Orwell, pg. 134) to help reinforce the idea that pigs are superior to the other animals. Another way Napoleon uses fear to gain the control over the animals at the farm is he threatens them with starvation. Both of these methods used by Napoleon were also used by Joseph Stalin to gain control over the masses. If society gives in to these methods then they are just giving more power and control to the higher power. Napoleon also threatens the animals with saying jones is going to come back and that is a reference back to when Stalin told his people that if they didn’t do what he wanted the old way of living was going to come back to them. With that much power and having all those people listen your commands can make you feel like you are unstoppable and greedy.

One reason Napoleon remains in charge because of causing the animals fear. Napoleon uses the nine of dogs as his bodyguards. In Document B, the dogs were vicious towards the animals and would kill anyone who disobeyed Napoleon. The dogs would slaughter the animals like they were never “comrades”. Napoleon also used Farmer Jones coming to the farm to scare the animals. The animals dreaded Jones coming back. As in Document C, Squealer says, multiple times, “Surely, comrades there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?” This rhetorical question always reassures the animals to do what Napoleon says. The fear of the dogs and Jones returning persuades the animals to do as Napoleon commands.

One way Napoleon was able to stay in charge was by using Animalism. Napoleon used the seven commandments as a way of Animalism. In the seven commandments humans are presumed as an enemy. Their ways were also speculated as bad, like commandment five which states no animal shall drink alcohol or commandment four which states no animal shall wear clothes. But animals are conjectured as good and the opposite of humans as it states in

After the revolution, Manor Farm was renamed to Animal Farm and the Seven Commandments of animalism were established to ensure equality. The pigs became the supervisors of the farm. However, the rivalry between two pigs Snowball and Napoleon made Napoleon use force. Napoleon ordered his dogs to chase out Snowball from the farm in order to become the only leader. Napoleon’s selfishness and corrupt power made him commit different atrocities against his own comrades. As a result, the lives of the animals except for the pigs and dogs were of tyranny and inequality. Napoleon became worse than their former human master. The animals spent the rest of his life almost starving and working in the construction of the windmill that was destroyed several times. The abolishment of Sunday morning meetings, the public execution of animals, and the drinking of alcohol were the most important changes that facilitated the transformation of animal farm, and Napoleon as the most responsible for the downfall of the utopian vision of Animal Farm.

They eventually began suspicious about the things that he had changed. The biggest ones he had changed was “Four legs good, two legs bad” to “Four legs good, two legs better”. Which after this is had a big impact on the farm also changed the whole idea that humans were bad and animals were better. Also the commandment “All animals are equal” was drastically changed to “All animals are equal but some animals are better than others”. After all these changes the animals still followed Napoleon and didn’t really stand up and say how the felt about

He sometimes changed the rules to benefit himself , solved his issues with violence and propaganda . He used violence to maintain his title as the leader of animal farm. One of the ways he used violence was he made Squealer brain wash everyone to make it seem like Napoleon was a great leader and nothing was he fault . The propaganda used is that he is the first one to go straight to violence when he doesn't get his way . He used dogs as a weapon to keep all his power just like how the our world uses gun to show people how powerful we really are when we are messed with .

Napoleon’s political ideas were efficient and worked well to rule a country; he even adapted his ideas to help France run more efficiently. The Napoleonic Code gave equality to all male citizens and he rehabilitated the Catholic Church for his people, despite his belief in religious freedom. He created a bureaucracy with subprefects, prefects, and mayors that ran France. All of these ideas helped France run smoothly.

Napoleon is a very threatening leader. One aspect that really contributes to him being threatening is that fact that he uses the dogs for his own good. One he takes the dogs away from their mothers when they are puppies so he can train them for his own use. “... they were the puppies whom Napoleon had taken away from their mothers and reared privately.” (39). Another example of when Napoleon used the dogs to be more threatening is when Squealer was telling the other animals that it was