The first commandment that is broken is ‘No animal shall sleep in a bed’ which is broken when the pigs moved into the farmhouse as they felt it was better than the barn they slept in. the animals took this as a shock, as the animals decided that the farmhouse isn’t to be entered and was off limits to all animals deciding it will be left as a preserved site. But then they remembered the fourth commandment and were very angry but Squealer, Napoleon’s sideman told the animals that the fourth commandment reads ‘No animals shall sleep in a bed with sheets’ and Squealer explained how they thrown out the sheets and slept in between the blankets. Squealer who is cleverer than some of the animals knew some of the animals couldn’t read and used this against them and then he said that if the pigs don’t live in the farmhouse and get their rest and comfort then they wouldn’t be able to think straight and everything will go wrong and Jones would come back. This shows that the pigs use the threat of Jones would come back if the pigs are not fully comfortable and also the pigs know that the animals are afraid of Jones and that they don’t want to see him back forever.
The second commandment that the pigs broke and changed to their comfort is ‘No animal shall kill another animal’ and this was changed because Napoleon suspected that there were traitors amongst the animals who would secretly meet with Snowball at night and give Snowball all of Animal Farm weaknesses. The pigs made this change to the commandment to their own reputation and show the animals that you should never cross side from Napoleon. The change to the commandment is justified to the animals when they read the commandment again but this time it read ‘No animal shall kill another animal without cause’. The animals were confused and dumb stroked as they forgot about the last two words but then later believed that the commandment wasn’t violated and that the traitors got what they deserved and this is shown in the book where it quotes ‘Somehow or other, the last two words has slipped out of the animals’ memory. But they saw now that the commandment had not been violated; for clearly there was good reason for killing the traitors who had leagued themselves with Snowball’. This shows that the pigs being the clever ones quickly changed the commandment knowing that the other animals would not spot the difference as they were in different leagues in the education standard.
The third commandment to be broken and changed was ‘No animal shall drink alcohol’ and this was changed when all the pigs and animals thought that their great leader Napoleon was going to die, when in fact he just had a big hangover from drinking too much the night before. The commandment then was changed to ‘No animal shall drink alcohol to excess’. This was shown in the book that the pigs took advantage of this commandment where it says “a grocer’s van drove up from Willingdon and delivered a large wooden crate at the farmhouse. This shows that the pigs again change another commandment to their comfort, not thinking of the other animals and that now they behave like they are more superior, they can change whatever they want.
The fourth commandment that the pigs broke but didn’t change is ‘Whatever goes on four legs, or has wings, is a friend’ where they traded Boxer with the horse slaughtering company for making glue for cases of alcohol and after trick the animals into believing that the horse slaughtering van was actually the vets who brought the van recently. This shows that the pigs are greedy and care only about themselves and this is what really happens in real life as alcohol can make you greedy and drunk also making you wanting more where in ‘Animal Farm’ the alcohol symbolises greed and Boxer’s life symbolises greed. The pigs took away Boxer’s life for greed of the need for alcohol and also made the commandment ‘Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend’ mean nothing to them.
The fifth commandment to be broken was ‘Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy’ and this is broken when all the pigs come out of the farmhouse on their hinds legs with Napoleon at the end with a whip in his trotter and this shows that the pigs are becoming more human like and change the line “Four legs good, two legs bad’ to ‘Four legs good, two legs better’. This also shows that the pigs are changing all the hate for two legs that they made in the beginning of the revolution to actually reversing it making it sound that two legged person or animal is better than four legged. Also after this they changed the commandment ‘All animals are equal’ to ‘All animals are equal but some are more equal than others’. This shows that the pigs are now trying to say that they are more superior than the other animals on the farm.
To conclude, as the pigs gained and retained power, they slowly let the power get the best of them which led to the changes to the commandments and the changes to the animals lives and this is where the pigs abused their power and I quote Lord Acton’s words “Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Also Evolution was a big part of this as at first it was ape to man but as the pigs used and abused their powers they were slowly forming themselves into humans where I finish with the quote “the creatures looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which”.
