Corruption In George Orwell's Animal Farm

One night, all the animals of Mr. Jones’ farm, gather together in the barn to listen to Old Major, the pig, tell them about a dream he had, in which no animal had to live under the reign of human owners which would happen after a large rebellion against the people that treated them as slaves. After his death, which occurred only three nights after that meeting, the rest of the animals spent months working on plans to make the rebellion that Old Major had spoken of, into a reality. In the beginning the pigs, particularly Snowball and Napoleon, which had naturally become the leaders, faced difficulties convincing the other animals that this was the right thing to do.

The animals want to escape humans, but what happens when one of their own turns on them? The story Animal Farm by George Orwell, Is about the animals on Mr. Jones's Manor Farm. The Oldest pig is Old Major, and he describes a dream he had. His dream was of the animals rebelling against the humans. A few days later, Old major dies in his sleep and Two new pigs take power, Snowball and Napoleon. Then make the rules of Animalism called the seven amendments. Napoleon wants to be in full control, so he uses guard dogs he raised to banish Snowball and then lies and says Snowball is a “bad guy”. Napoleon continues to change things until he is the unquestioned ruler of the farm. The theme corruption can change people. The story shows this through Napoleon's dialogue, actions, and appearance.

Napoleon ends up kicking Snowball out of the farm since he wanted to be the only one in charge and makes the animals believe that Snowball did not care about them and wanted the worst for them all. The animals believe this because they did not know what was good from bad. As stated, “Sixth Commandment decreed "No animal shall kill any other animal." And though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was felt that the killings which had taken place did not square with this…….Muriel read the Commandment for her. It ran: "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.

As the head pig, Napoleon started manipulating the other animals to his will. He abused Snowball’s name, he banned “the Beasts of England” from being sung, he sold the animal’s products, and he publically executed animals after forcing them to confess their “crimes”.

Napoleon, who is one of the more intelligent pigs on the farm is force to take authority and eliminate opposition. Napoleon takes “nine sturdy puppies” (35) and becomes “responsible for their education” (35) while raising them up. The puppies soon become “fierce-looking wolves” (53) which he uses them to intimidate and petrify all the animals. Napoleon’s guard dogs “dash straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws” (53). Snowball “running faster than ever”

After having a taste of power, the pigs lose themselves in their lust for ultimate power. Because of the supreme position of the pigs in the farm, a minority controls the majority of the animals, their greed for power leads to the corruption of the power. First of all, Napoleon uses dogs to expel Snowball in order to have exclusive power. Napoleon starts to against every suggestions Snowball proposes at the beginning. He raises the puppy secretly and shows them up while excluding Snowball. These fierce dogs become a sign of Napoleon’s authority and absolute power. It is the first time that execution happens in the farm, it disobeys the essence of Animalism, all animals are friends. However, no one dares to question him because Napoleon has the absolute power, even though it starts corrupting. Secondly, when the pigs move into the farmhouse and begin sleeping in the beds, the Fourth Commandment turns out to have mysteriously changed. It now reads “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.”(Orwell, 67) Bed is a symbol of being human in the story. The pigs’ greed of being human has not

Perhaps the most significant one of all was Napoleon throwing out the second most powerful animal on the farm, simply because he was a threat to his own reign. The animals were so engrossed by Napoleon that they fully supported the termination of Snowball, solely for the reasons given to them via Napoleon. “Napoleon produced his schemes of his own, but said quietly that snowball would come to nothing.” (54). At such an early point after the pigs power was established, Napoleon had already started to create a divide between Snowball and himself. When he told the other animals how horrible for the farm Snowball supposedly is, the farm would start to trust him more and therefore depend on his more.While gaining the animals trust more, he simultaneously gained more power for himself, for with Snowball gone all the power he had would now be his. “He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a maneuver to get rid of Snowball…Now that Snowball was out of the way, the plan could go forward without his interference.”(58). Napoleon is willing to do anything to gain and maintain his own power, regardless of how it is done and who will be effected by it. As shown by this windmill incident, Napoleon will use any instance to further manipulate the other animals, just to gain even one more sliver of much desired

Out of the many themes possible in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, political corruption stands out the most. Political corruption on the farm began when “Napoleon stood up and, casting

Napoleon uses propaganda and lies he spreads with Squealer, that all his actions are put forward to the benefit of ‘all’ the animals. Squealer speaks,” Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back!” He creates fear within the animals of Mr.Jones coming back again, and tells them, “Napoleon is always right.” He sees Snowball as a threat to his power, he spreads his words “Comrades, do you know who is responsible for this? Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill? SNOWBALL!” He tries to make false information and lies to the common animals. The external conflict between Napoleon and Snowball over power are shown, due to Napoleon’s greeds. Although the common animals of the farm found Snowball more likeable, the nine loyal dogs of Napoleon frightened the animals and strengthened the power of Napoleon allowing him to become the leader after Rebellion. Napoleon is unsatisfied of any ideas rooted from Snowball, brings out his specially trained dogs to go after Snowball. Snowball who does not have a physical force of his own like Napoleon’s, is chased out of the farm allowing Napoleon to become the one and only leader of “Animal Farm”. I feel empathetic to Napoleon some of the time, but to this extent I wouldn’t agree or connect with Napoleon. He uses and exploits other animals for his benefit, and untruly spreads propaganda to keep in power.

Snowball, an ardent believer of Animalism, is “a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker is speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character. (Orwell, George)” Snowball is a young pig that is inventive, innovative and beyond intelligent. Snowball is parallel to Leon Trotsky. The leader of the pigs puts his heart and soul into advancing Animal Farm’s infrastructure and government.

Then suddenly, nine enormous dogs - the puppies that Napoleon had taken away to "educate" burst into the barn and chased Snowball away. Napoleon then declares himself leader. The initial intentions of the ideals of equality and justice were unsuccessful and the Animal Farm ended up being a dictatorship of pigs, who were the cleverest, and most idle of the animals. As years pass, the pigs become more and more like human beings - walking upright, carrying whips, and wearing clothes. Eventually even the seven commandments were reduced a single principle of Animalism reading, "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Before Napoleon had even chased snowball away the farm he was starting to become egocentric, Napoleon shows how truly selfish he is when Snowball was no longer apart of the farm napoleon had full control and started spending the money that the animal's had worked hard to get on whiskey. Napoleon committed acts much worse than that in a way he had sowed racism towards the other animal's by changing the seven commandments so that the pigs could be treated like royalty by the animals ''ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THEN OTHERS''(Orwell 1945, pg.97). Napoleon turned out to be a very selfish person who was cruel towards anything that was not a pig he was consumed by the power he obtained and lost his humility towards the other animals of the animal

The pigs under Napoleon often twisted the truth to justify their actions, as well as to make the animals trust Napoleon’s leadership. Napoleon used Squealer, the sheep, and the farm rituals to spread propaganda. For example, Napoleon used Squealer as his mouthpiece to push his doctrines and ideas by getting him to explain to the farm animals that everything Napoleon did was for one reason or another. Squealer would refute each and every one of the farm animals concerns, form ones about food rations to the commandments’ revisions to even their memory about their past life. If any animal had any distrust in Comrade Napoleon, Squealer would eliminate it. But as time went on and there were more changes to The 7 Commandments of Animalism, Napoleon

After the animal uprising on the farm, a rule system is put in place, and all animals prosper under the equality of their newfound society. Three pigs, Squealer, Snowball, and Napoleon all establish themselves as important figures of power on the farm. “EVIDENCE.” They are powerful right from the start, for they were the ones who proposed the uprising in the first place. Each and every animal has their own job and place under “Animalism”, which were the general rules of the farm animals new lives. “EVIDENCE.” No animals are corrupted or suppressed by other animals, and life for them is going just swimmingly. Every animal is living its ideal life, all equal parts of the society that they helped make.

Snowball was viciously chased out of Animal Farm: Napoleon