When the two bitches, Jessie and Bluebell, gave birth to nine pups Napoleon took them away from every other animal for ages until they had all forgotten about them. This was ironic because we didn’t realise the importance of this until the dogs re-appeared, even then the animals didn’t pick up on this. When he suddenly brings them back into the story it appears he has trained them to be very aggressive and to protect him. Also to hate snowball, this is when snowball is chased off the farm by the dogs.
Snowball
Once Napoleon has gotten rid of his rival snowball, he is free to use him to his advantage. He tells all the animals that Snowball stole Napoleons idea of the windmill and claimed it as his own, he tells the animals that Snowball was a spy for Jones all along and that in The Battle Of The Cowshed he had been trying to encourage the animals to surrender. He also tells the animals that Snowball is living on a neighbouring farm and is plotting to attack Animal farm. Then later on in the story when the windmill gets knocked down for the first time Napoleon blames it on Snowball. Also the whole way through the story there are always roomers going around the farm about what Snowball might do next. When Napoleon is getting the animals to confess to their treachery and then slaughtering them they animals all say they have been persuaded to do such evil things by Snowball, whether he came to them in a dream, visited them under the cover of night or got them on their own during the day. I could not quite work this out as I thought that Snowball was just a spoken “threat” and that he no longer had anything to do with any of the animals on the farm.
Squealer
Squealer is almost Napoleons sidekick. He does all Napoleon’s dirty work, and he also goes out to talk to the other animals to make sure they don’t say anything bad about him, that they still think he is wonderful, knowledgeable, and always right. Squealer is the messenger. He is the one who is sent, when the commandments have been slightly adapted, to explain the change, or not as the animals think. One example is when the pigs move into the farmhouse and sleep in the beds. The commandment was changed from “no animal shall sleep in a bed” to “no animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.” Squealer is the one who “happens” to be passing with two or three dogs, to set the animals straight about how every animal sleeps in a bed, it is a bed with sheets that is wrong, and they have stripped any sheets off the beds. Amazingly, in their naivety, the animals buy this excuse.
The Physical Side
Gradually, as the story goes on, Napoleon’s appearance changes. From the story you can gather that he continuously gains weight, gets bigger in size, his head gets bigger and the most noticeable change of all was when he started to walk on his hind legs. At the end of the story he weighs about 20stone, is wearing clothes, and walking on his hind legs. The story finishes with the animals finally realising what has changed. They can’t tell the difference between the humans and the pigs!
Conclusion
In this book George Orwell uses irony all the way through to liken the situation in the book to what was going on around him. Most of the story we can have an outside view of what is going on in the story and see exactly what is happening when the animals can’t. Most of the time the pigs have manipulated the whole situation so as they can use it to their advantage.
