Unjust Dystopia Animal Farm

The novel ‘Animal Farm’ created by George Orwell heavily expresses the ideals of a prolonged cruel or unjust treatment and the exercise of authority. The exponential ignorance of the farm animals towards the actions and ideas of the pigs (Napoleon, Squealer and Snowball) prove the incentive that it is easier to conform to the ideals/ways of the ‘New England’, than to rebel, as well as through the exposure to propaganda and the distortion of reality. This therefore leaving them docile, numb, and oppressed.

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.

Napoleon being another intelligent pig on the farm believed he could become the leader and have all the power on the farm by scaring the animals. He does so by telling the animals they will work more or there will be punishment “Throughout the spring they worked a sixty-hour week, and in August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons as well. This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half” (Orwell 40). “The animals believe what the leadership tells them—that they are working for their own good now, not for Mr. Jones’s—they are eager to take on the extra labor”

From the very beginning, Napoleon and the pigs take charge and make the other animals do the work for them, while the pigs just supervise. In chapter three, when they begin working on plowing the fields, the pigs do not do anything other than tell the others what to do, “The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the other” (20). The pigs, from the very start of animal farm, took charge and only directed and told others what to do. They solidified their positions as leader’s right at the beginning of the farm. Also, at the end of the book, the pigs, to show their leadership, carry whips around to make sure the work gets done, “After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters” (92). Since the creation of the farm the pigs started to slowly present the fact that they would take charge, and in the beginning when they were nice about it no one argued with them. By the end though, the animals finally realized what had happened, but by then it was too late for them to do anything about it. Admittedly, Napoleon and the rest of the pigs are greedy because they take all the extra food and make the others work like slaves, but that does not make them ineffective in the ways they make the animals work. Napoleon showed his effectiveness as a

Countless times, the book shows that the pigs lied and manipulated the others. They were able do this simply because the rest of the animals turned a blind eye towards the things they saw and were told. In the beginning, all the animals were so happy that they had won the rebellion and gotten rid of Mr. Jones, they did not realize that the newly communist society was slowly changing and not for the better. On page 32, it states “The reading and writing classes, however, were a great success. By the autumn almost every animal on the farm was literate in some degree. As for the pigs, they could already read and write perfectly.” As you can see, all the animals were educated – at least to some extent – but the pigs were by far the smartest. This shows that the other animals were able to at least recognize letters and words. While the animals were somewhat literate, they did not take the time to better educate themselves. This caused them to remain blind to the fact that Napoleon was slowly creating a group of sentinels and surreptitiously planning to get rid of Snowball. Napoleon took advantage of the fact that it had been decided that the pigs knew better when it came to certain things. For example, he took puppies away from their mother. He promised to educate them well. Napoleon seemed to be acting benevolent but

The livestock are naive, because they are uneducated. They are uneducated, because the pigs limit the amount of information that is shared with them. The horse, Boxer, is so brainwashed by Napoleon that he make the phrase “Napoleon is always right” his motto. Several examples of the animals’ uneducation would be in the following sentences. “‘That was part of the arrangement!’ cried Squealer. ‘Jones shot only grazed him! I could show you this in his own writing, if you could read.’” (Orwell, 81). This is Squealer’s attempt to make the animals disloyal to Snowball. He claims he has proof of betrayal, but conveniently, none of the animals are able to vouch for this. Another example is in this paragraph:“The commandment read, ‘No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.’ Somehow or another, the last two words had slipped out of the animals’ memory.” (Orwell, 91). You see here that the undereducation of the animals leads them to think that they were just wrong and that Napoleon and Squealer had been right all along.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is, first and foremost, a political satire warning against the pursuit of utopian desires through unjust and oppressive means. Operating under the pretense of an animal fable, Orwell disparages the use of political power to poach personal freedom. He effectively alerts his readers to the dangerous price that can accompany the so-called “pursuit of progress”. And he illuminates how governments acting under the guise of increasing independence often do just the opposite: increase oppression and sacrifice sovereignty. While the cautionary theme Orwell provides proves widely applicable, in reality his novel focuses on one tale of totalitarian abuse: Soviet Russia. The parallels between the society Orwell presents in his Animal Farm and the Soviet Union – from the Russian revolution to Stalin’s supremacy – are seemingly endless. Manor Farm represents Tsarist Russia, Animalism compares to Stalinism, and Animal Farm, with the pig Napoleon at its helm, clearly symbolizes Communist Russia and Joseph Stalin. But Orwell does more than simply align fiction with fact. He fundamentally attacks Soviet Russia at its core. And in so doing he reveals how the Communist Party simply replaced a bad system with a worse one, overthrowing an imperial autocracy for a totalitarian dictatorship. This essay will demonstrate that Orwell’s Animal Farm is

Napoleon stated that he will educate the puppies, and help build the windmill to make life easier in the farm, made the animals think that Napoleon is a hard worker and always right. He uses that advantage to create dictatorship within the farm. By having the support of the pigs by his side, he is able to convince the community that is always right. By creating propaganda of praise by the animals, he becomes a symbol of hope to the community. When Boxer stated Napoleon is always right, so did the rest of the animals since Boxer was seen as a symbol of strength for the

“No animal shall drink alcohol” (Orwell 25) was the 5th commandment, but Napoleon didn’t let that stop him. After he got drunk he had Squealer change the 5th commandment to “No animal shall drink to excess” (Orwell 109). Having that much power can be used for self-interest instead of thinking about the common good. No man or animal should have that much power or they will abuse it, just like Napoleon. Napoleon starting to think that the pigs were more superior. Orwell seemed to be stating that if Napoleon was the only one who knew what was right or true, then Napoleon could convince the animals that he and the pigs needed more of the resources, like milk and apples. Simultaneously Napoleon later on state that “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” (Orwell 134) Napoleon is literally saying all the other animals are less than the pigs. Because they are using tyranny as their style of government they can say whatever they want without having to prove it. From the start Napoleon is gaining control by having a better education, having apples and milk, drinking alcohol, wearing clothes, walking on two legs, and manipulating the animals to think they are dumb. Power is corrupting the farm and all of the other animals besides the pigs are losing control. From the start the pigs only did what they wanted to benefit themselves, by pretending to have the other animals

At this there was a terrible baying sound outside and nine enormous dogs came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball,” with this ousting of Snowball, Napoleon secured his place as dictator of the animals. After securing his position Napoleon was able to gather a group of pigs together that were meant to help him govern the other animals. The pigs were placed in this position because they were considered to be the most intelligent of all the animals. Further political corruption occurred when Napoleon begins to slowly add changes to the 7 laws or commandments set up by a past leader. Because not all the animals on the farm can read it made it easy for Napoleon to change the rules ever so slightly that the changes were barely noticeable. This parallel in today’s society can be seen when comparing under privileged areas to middle class areas, for example emphasis on education. Those with less education are more easily manipulated than those with higher education. It is

The animals, with a smaller work ethic than Boxer’s, need Boxer’s nobility to help them work hard for Animal Farm and acquire an equal amount of enthusiasm as Boxer’s already optimistic outlook on work. For the farm to run successfully, Napoleon and the pigs require the animals’ utmost allegiance to the farm’s cause and to the leaders’ changes of the farm. Boxer takes this allegiance and makes it appealing and almost inspirational for the animals. When the animals are first starting to take control of the farm, Boxer’s optimism and simplification of the leaders’ ideas to the ignorant animals help the animals understand and become more familiar with their new government. Boxer, a true comrade of promoting the farm’s humble beginnings, “absorb[s] all information” then “pass[es] it on to the other animals by simple arguments” (14).

Napoleon was able to keep the working animals from rebelling by instituting a deep fear of punishment if they did rebel. Napoleon used his guard dogs to scare the animal into submission by killing any animal that associated with snowball or followed his philosophies (Orwell 84). He also tricked the animals into submission by changing the commandments that the animals lived by (Orwell 109). The majority of the animals did not even realize that they were being tricked and generally followed what ever the pigs told

Animal Farm is a masterfully written cynical exploration into the abuse of power through language.c George Orwell's book provides a theory of power structures, equality and the very nature of human character. As a short, ten-chaptered essay, this book has made its mark on the communist and authoritarian societies with the cutting morals and the phrase “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”

At first he just expresses his opinions, but it is clear he is up to something much more. As time goes on, Napoleon gains more and more power without the animals realization. Soon, because of the animals lack of recognition, Napoleon becomes a dictator just as brutal as their prior human leader. All the decisions on the farm are made by him and his committee if pigs. The irony is that life on the farm is the same when

Napoleon was against Old Major, and Napoleon uses his private army of nine vicious and enormous dogs to become the chief pig. Napoleon wants to just sit around and tell all the other animals what to do but the other pig Snowball wants to teach all of the other animals and build the windmill. So once all of this action takes place all of the animals think the pigs are all bad