MS: The pigs created a hierarchy, by making themselves more intelligent than their peers (they learnt to read a lot better than the others), meaning that they could manipulate the other animals easily. Because of this, the others wouldn’t have any proof that the Napoleon had changed the commandments, or that the commandments read any differently than to what they thought it said. This gave Napoleon the will to do anything that could break the commandments, which was important so that he could make himself seem more important than the others (for example, he slept on a bed and drank alcohol).
JS: Relating to this point, the pigs also decided to build a schoolhouse in the farmhouses’ back yard, so that they could educate his offspring to a higher degree than the other animals had with their classes, early on in the book. This would mean that the dominance of the pigs would continue into the next generation of animals, as they could easily manipulate the animals, in the same way as Napoleon does now.
MS: Finally, they scared the other animals, by saying that Jones will come back. This was the lowest form of indoctrination; in the sense that he simply scared the animals into believing that they shouldn’t do wrong, or otherwise, something they wouldn’t want to happen, would happen. This is quite important, because Napoleon could stop the animals from doing wrong (e.g. Deceiving him), and also make them believe that they needed Napoleon, their leader, because they weren’t safe from the outside world. However, it isn’t quite so important, because nothing bad would happen to Napoleon if he didn’t do this, as he had the dogs to keep the animals settled.
---------------------------Opportunistic---------------------------
JS: Now for the opportunistic. Napoleon earned money, from sending Boxer to the ‘knackers’. Although it could be argued that it was planned for every sick animal to be killed in this way, we think that this is opportunistic, because Boxer didn’t plan to get sick any time soon (he said that he wanted to “enjoy retirement”, and was taken ill soon after coming to the retiring age). This point isn’t so important, as the money earned from it was used to buy whiskey, but Napoleon did use Boxer’s death as PR, by saying “Boxer’s two favourite maxims: ‘I will work harder’, and comrade Napoleon is always right’ – maxims, which every animal would do well to adopt as his own. This would have probably encouraged the animals, who were indoctrinated, to work harder.
MS: ‘The sheep ‘seemed’ to bleat “four legs good, two legs bad”, just as the animals were about to argue their cases to Napoleon… i.e. Challenge him. With the sheep: “not being the most intelligent of animals”, according to George Orwell, they tended to shout “four legs good, two legs bad” in unison, supposedly at the end of meetings, for several minutes. However, they seemed to drown out of stop any protests, which the animals had after Napoleon talked to them. This made it seem like the dogs weren’t intimidating them, and Napoleon was using force, but it was the sheep’s fault that their protests’ didn’t get across.
JS: A new ‘National Anthem’ was created, so that the principles of Animalism, highlighted in the original one, were forgotten. This point is fairly self-explanatory. Because the animals regularly sang ‘Beasts of England’, there was a chance that the animals would realise what Napoleon was doing was against the principles of Animalism, so he got rid of the old one and replaced it with a poem which one of the animals created in his honour. This would lessen the chances of the indoctrination put on the animals wearing off, as they realise the principles of animalism were a lot different to how they were living.
MS: When Moses, talked of Sugarcandy Mountain, Napoleon didn’t stop him from doing so. This is important, because if the animals had something good to believe in, even if it only came true after they died, the chances of them revolting would be much less, because there wouldn’t be much point in revolting, if they were eventually going to be happy by living the way they were at that moment in time.
JS: Overall, we think that Napoleon planned to take over the farm to a great extent, because we saw him doing odd things at the start of the book (e.g. take the dogs to act as his secret police), and we saw him gradually widen the class gaps between the pigs and dogs, and the other animals.
MS: He seized his opportunities to a lesser extent, by exploiting what was happening on the farm to his advantage (e.g. earning money from Boxer being sick). However, we think he relied more upon what he planned, to ensure that by the end of the book, he had absolute power over the other animals.