Napoleon doesn’t want anyone thinking he’s made a mistake, because if he does no one will want to do as he says because it might not be correct, so Napoleon uses Squealers absence as a means of mopping up his mistakes. “When the key of the store shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced Snowball had thrown it down the well.”pg 57
Napoleon doesn’t take part in activities for the animals, he’s more of a secretive planner, almost the opposite of someone like squealer who manipulates, physiologically brain washes the animals into doing whatever the need. Whenever he thinks an animal does not think that he works hard, he will get Squealer to make a speech on how difficult it is to be a leader and how it is a burden, not a blessing. “Do not imagine, comrades that leadership is a pleasure.” pg 40
Napoleon keeps the animals busy so that they don’t realise what is happening: the pigs are getting fatter and leading better life whilst the other animals are getting thinner and thinner: “Squealer was so fat that he could with difficulty see out of his own eyes.” pg 92
Throughout the book Napoleon stays the same: He is always very greedy and must always get his way.
Napoleon, the pigs and the dogs would go on to break every single commandment but one in the book. Eventually they would rub off every single commandment and write “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.” Which means that the pigs are more important than the other animals in the book and they should take priority.
The pigs break the first commandment by starting to walk on their hind legs and when they started making deals with Mr Pilkington.
They managed to not break the second commandment.
They broke the third commandment when the pigs started wearing Mr and Mrs Jones’ clothes.
They broke the third one by sleeping in Jones’ bed, so they changed the commandment to ‘No animal shall sleep in a bed, with sheets’.
To not break the fourth commandment, they change it to “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess”.
Finally, they broke the last commandment whilst Napoleon was killing Snowballs “secret agents”, so they changed it to “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause”
The battle of the Cowshed, one of the ever-changing stories in the book; in one-chapter Snowball is a hero, the next he is a villain, leading the humans into battle with a cry of “LONG LIVE HUMANITY!”
It is used as a way to ensure Napoleon’s status as a hero and a leader among the animals, who will grow up wanting to be like him.
In conclusion, George Orwell presents Napoleon as a representation of Joseph Stalin, who like Napoleon, lead a revolution that turned into a dictatorship. George Orwell did this because he wanted to tell everyone how bad things were in Russia for the normal, working class people (the animals) and how they (pigs) became just like the people they came together to overthrow in the first place.
By Gil