Animal Farm Essay
by George Orwell

     In the book Animal Farm, by George Orwell, the idea of how
power can corrupt is depicted in the novel. The theme of the novel
is “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. When
one receives to much power, such as the character Napoleon, it
forms a dictatorship like government in which all decisions are
made by one man. When a revolution happens, or a sudden change
occurs people begin to grow unhappy while working for their
government with no say in any political decisions.
     When the animals of Animal Farm took over there main
beliefs were based on their made up commandments called
Animalism. The beliefs derived from this law were basically that
“man is our enemy”, “all animals are comrades”, “do not become
like man”, and “no animal should be more powerful then another”.
These views were from Old Major, who had given a speech to stir
the animals into rebellion. Old Major’s dream was for the earth to
be ran by animals. When Old Major died, Snowball, Napoleon,
and Squealer replaced him. At first things started off pretty well;
the harvest was very good the first year and the reading and writing
system had helped some, but had limited success on others.
Napoleon soon shared his view on education and took the puppies
into his home and started teaching them. In time the leaders of
animal farm started to have mixed feelings. Snowball said the
animals only had to work three days a week, but Napoleon said it
would only result in the animals starving to death. Napoleon then
had the dogs kill off Snowball. Napoleon had eliminated Sunday
morning meetings. The committee of pigs were now the leaders
and there were no more debates. Napoleon soon started
brainwashing the lower class of animals to believe him. The
traditions of Old Major were soon forgotten, it was now Napoleons
plans. Under new leader Napoleon the work week had been
extended so that each animal had to work 60 hour weeks.
Napoleon also hired Mr. Whymper as a go between for trade.
Napoleons hiring of Mr. Whymper had gone against Animal Farms
motto. The pigs now lived in the house and changed some of
Animal Farms laws such as “no animal shall sleep in a bed” was
now changed to “no animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets”. The
laws were changed to fit Napoleons needs. Napoleon had changed
around their seven commandments One was “no animal shall kill
another”,this was changed to “no animal shall kill another without
cause”. Napoleon had gone from follower to dictator. Napoleon
had claimed absolute power over Animal Farm.
     In conclusion, history has proven that we need differences in
the world so we can exchange ideas and make new ones, We need
people to have different opinions and different views so we can
make a better world. In animal farm, the animals tried to be equal,
but in time some animals had certain views and different opinions
and some gradually became more powerful. No matter how
hard in society we try, equality will never truly be reached by
mankind. Equality breeds mediocridy.