Pigs And Corruption In George Orwell's Animal Farm

Power can have the persuasive action in undoing the moral ethics of one’s character. This can be seen throughout history, such as World War II and proven by the actions of Napoleon in the allegory, Animal Farm, by George Orwell. As Lord Acton said “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In history what was viewed as a villain or wrong doer is never the same as the perception. A leader does not begin wanting to do wrong, they start with the best intentions, but power is a tricky thing, showcased in Animal Farm as Utopian ideals but with failed practices.

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, he uses the animals to represent Russian history by showing the mistreatment of the animals, them breaking free of their owner, and going back to the terrible lifestyle they had before. The main cause of the animals going back into the terrible lifestyle is the pigs, mainly Napoleon and Squealer; they took over the farm, killed animals, and manipulated the animals. George Orwell uses both Napoleon and Squealer to demonstrate the many ways of manipulating people.

Power is one of the most desired things in the world, and is often hard to attain, but once it is gained it can often corrupt a person. Corruption due to power is shown in many instances in the book, Animal Farm. In the book, there is an opening for someone to take control of the power, and the animals that do are the pigs. The pigs gain the power for many reasons. When power is gained there are many things people can do with it, either bad or good. The pigs’ actions in animal farm show the different ways that power can be used by those in charge.

In George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, one of the major themes was power, and how absolute power corrupts absolutely. To the animals, Jones was a tyrant, always mistreating and abusing them, until one day Old Major told them of a dream he had, where the animals will be able to live in a utopia, and lead lives of peace. After the rebellion occurred and the animals overthrew Jones, Napoleon soon came to power. He promised the animals lives of prosperity, and for a while Animal Farm was a blissful place, however after a while his reign became a tyranny, one very similar to Jones, if not worse.

The next few chapters of Animal Farm by George Orwell begin to settle the roles the animals fall into after the rebellion. They band together and complete the tasks required of the farm in a timely manner. The pigs easily take control over the farm and the animals follow their orders. They do successfully harvest the crops however, they ruin into problems quickly.

Simplicity and repetition helps the pigs gain complete control by covering up the pigs lies and convincing the animals that they do not need humans. Propaganda is most efficient when it is a simple catchy slogan or a word repeated over and over again (Stults). Napoleon teaches the sheep four legs good, two legs bad to know their friends from their enemies (Orwell 34). For example, “Once the sheep got it by heart, the sheep developed a great liking for this maxim, and often as they lay in the field they would all start bleating, Four legs good, two legs bad!” (34). If the humans can not be trusted, then only animals can be trusted which means the smartest animals should be the leaders which are the pigs. Through simplicity and repetition the pigs teach even the dumbest of animals this slogan. Second, Squealer repeats “Tactics” a number of times to conceal Snowball is the creator of the windmill design (58). Squealer conceals who the original creator of the windmill is by “repeating Tactics, comrades, tactics!". Although the reader knows Snowball created the windmill, the animals believe Napoleon created it because right before they began asking questions Squealer repeated tactics a number of time to confuse them and get their minds off the subject. The pigs can confuse the animals easily by using simplicity and repetition. Furthermore, Napoleon ends most of his speeches with “Long Live Animal Farm” to make the farm animals think he wants Animal Farm to succeed (64). For

Throughout the book of Animal Farm the theme of leadership and corruption is continuous. The animal’s who have the biggest part in both of these major themes are the pigs. Napoleon, for example, takes over as the leader in the beginning of the book and later his leadership methods turn corruptive.

The adage "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is a crucial message that can be found in the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. It can be applied directly to Napoleon, a pig who serves as the leader of Animal Farm. As Napoleon gains more and more power, he soon becomes a selfish, immoral leader. At first, he had the farm’s best interest at heart, but he soon became blinded with power. This eventually causes him to turn into a copy of Mr. Jones, the previous leader who they had overthrown.

“Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power” (William Gaddis). Power can become something that is overruled, and eventually corrupt. The book Animal Farm is an allegory based off of the Russian Revolution. Animal Farm and the Russian Revolution have many connections that are made throughout the book. Napoleon, who was the main character was connected to Joseph Stalin, they were both cruel and misleading people.

People desire dominance; to fulfill their craving, manipulators use propagandic methods to maneuver and manage their audience’s mind. Propaganda is a communication method which creates certain feelings and motivates specific actions (Stults). In George Orwells’ Animal Farm, the animals of the farm plan on living in peaceful equality after overthrowing their human leaders, but the intelligent, cunning pigs seize the farm’s defenseless leadership. Orwell wrote Animal Farm as an allegorical “fairy story” (“Preface” 6) resembling the Russian Revolt during the 1900’s. An important similarity between Animal Farm and the Russian Revolution is the propaganda techniques the leaders used to acquire their power. By gaining trust, covering the truth,

Power is an object of craving for anyone from the most influential leader, to a small child, however, power is very delicate and must be used properly in order to prevent corruption. In the novel Animal Farm, by George Orwell, this theme of power leading to corruption is very clearly present. Animal Farm tells a story of farm animals who revolt against their corrupt farmer, only to find themselves, again, under the power of a corrupt leader. An allegory is a work of art or literature that displays a hidden meaning, seen only by analysing that work past its assumed significance. Animal Farm is an allegory showing how power can corrupt the hopes and goals of a

When eating in a disorderly fashion, being called a pig is almost accurate, but what do pigs have to do to be called humans? In the novella, Animal Farm written by George Orwell depicts a satire illustration of the Russian revolution with the likes of farm animals as the Russian’s, and the pigs of the group as the corrupt leaders. The pigs on the farm start a war with the humans and revolt and finally win the war, the pigs start showing signs of abuse of power and start trading with the humans and become corrupt leaders themselves. The novella shows how the group of animals adopted the pigs as their leaders and went from starting a revolution with their human leaders to changing and soon becoming corrupt and even worse leaders than the old

This is significant to the theme because they use the threat of Mr.Jones coming back and claim milk and apples as a necessity for pigs. As Napoleon’s reign continues, he uses humans to make the animals work harder during that year. Orwell writes,”All that year the animals worked like slaves”(67). This demonstrates how cruel Napoleon is to his own people. This matters to the theme because this shows how Napoleon is willing to put a terrible fear onto his fellow animals to get them working.

He justifies the horrific actions Napoleon performs through lies and circular reasoning. “No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?” It does not sound right that the animals cannot make any decisions because that is not freedom, yet it is said in a way that makes it sound like a beneficial thing for all the animals. Squealer also gives misleading and false comparisons between the quality of life before and after Mr. Jones. Squealer would read “lists of figures proving that the production of every class of foodstuff had increased by two hundred per cent, three hundred per cent, or five hundred per cent, as the case might be.” The other animals had no reason to disbelieve him, as they did not remember the life before the rebellion, and these facts presented by Squealer are untrue as the animals are now almost always hungry. Squealer also bans the “Beasts of England” and replaces it with another song. “He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade Napoleon, Beasts of England had been abolished. From now onwards it was forbidden to sing it.” Squealer announces this because the pigs want the other animals convinced that they have presently achieved

The pigs’ deception is so effective because they built their reputation of being intelligent within the farm and thus the animals accept what they say as true. The pigs’ reputation is present from the beginning of Animal Farm when Major tries to encourage the other animals to rebel. Major is “so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say” (Orwell 4). This quote shows how important Major is and how influential he is on the farm. Thus, one can assume that his reputation in a way represents the other pigs for he is the most prominent member of the pigs. His reputation of being wise and benevolent is the reason the animals revere him so. Then when he dies the work of organizing the animals falls upon the pigs. “The work of teaching and organizing the others fell upon the pigs, who were generally recognized as being the cleverest animals” (Orwell 15). This quote show that the other animals who are collectively less educated than the pigs are heavily relying on the pigs’ reputation to figure out in their mind who they are. By generalizing the pigs as intelligent the animals fall into the trap that many people do. A real example of this is how people sometimes generalize Muslims as terrorist. When one generalizes, they can either open themselves up or ignorantly close themselves to the other aspects of the person, place, or thing. In Animal Farm, the animals open themselves up and end causing themselves to