3. No animals shall wear clothes.
"the pigs took Mr Jones's clothes out of the wardrobe and put them on Napoleon himself appearing in a black coat, rat-catcher features, and leather leggings" This quote shows how Napoleon came out wearing clothes as he felt like he owned the place and had a lot of power just like when Mr Jones was in charge. As the farm wasn’t equal anymore and the pigs and dogs had higher priority they wanted to show this by acting better and looking different showing how they are higher than them and dismissed the rule of “no animals shall wear clothes”.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed
As well as wearing clothes to make them feel like they had a higher reign around the farm the pigs also decided that they should sleep in the farmhouse, this meant that they must be sleeping in a bed. The other animals were concerned about this Muriel went to check the board of the seven commandments which read “no animals shall sleep on a bed with sheets”. This shows how the law was changed to suite Napoleons needs, if he changed the laws it meant that no other animal could disagree with him.
5. No animals shall drink alcohol
When the pigs won the battle of the windmill, they celebrate another win even though some animals said it was a loss as all their hard work building the windmill which then got blown up, and wasted all the time it took the hard working animals to build it. It is celebrated by everyone drinking alcohol which the pigs found in the cellar of Mr Jones’ house. All the pigs drink and end up drinking so much they got drunk but however over the night Napoleon consumed the most amount of alcohol. So when they woke up – much later than all the animals and much later than usual – napoleon was still sleeping. When squealer went to check on him he thought napoleon was dying and made an announcement to all the animals on the farm. Then later on in the day napoleon makes a recovery which is regarded as a miracle. The rule of no drinking was changed to drinking will be punished by death and then changed to ‘no animal shall drink to excess’, when napoleon was better. Napoleon broke his own commandment here by drinking alcohol in the first place.
6. No animal shall kill any other Animal
This law as we can see is disregarded in two places, the first is when the fifth rule is changed to ‘the drinking of alcohol was to be punished by death’. This shows that napoleon would kill anyone if they drank alcohol even though he said he would not kill any animal. Later on in the book napoleon kills lots of animals starting with the four pigs that claimed to be in contact with snowball ever since he left animal farm. He then goes on and kills all the other animals that confess to any sort of crime they did. Once he finished killing all the animals he changed the law from ‘No animal shall kill any other Animal’ to ‘No animal shall kill any other Animal without a cause’. This was another commandment napoleon made and then broke himself, as well as also dismissing the last commandment that all animals are equal.
7. All animals’ are equal
This is the last commandment broken by napoleon. Throughout the book napoleon disobeys his own rule and treats animals differently. The first step he does to break this is when he takes the dogs into the roof and privately teaches them as they were going to be the next generation – the important one napoleon thought. Napoleon himself sleeps in the farmhouse the whole time and as time progresses so do the rest of the pigs. The pigs later on in the book get to sleep an hour extra and work less, their excuse is “we need to sleep more to keep are brains working” all the animals went on as usual and the pigs got their extra hour of sleep. The pigs also get more food than the other animals and they say “it is scientifically proven that milks helps pigs to think better” and then all the milk produced by the cows, the pigs get. At the end of the book napoleon says “ all animals are equal but some more than other".
On pages 3-7 of the novel, Old Major expresses his vision of a society free of human influence and control. This vision, however, does not come true, as we find out later in the story. First, Old Major blames the humans for all their problems when he says “It is not clear, then, comrades that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings?” What Old Major states here is, that, all the bad things that the animals are suffering are due to the evil rule of humans. Then, Old Major explains how their lives would improve once they get rid of the humans when he says in his speech, “Almost overnight we could become rich and free.”
However, further in the novel, once the pigs have taken control of the farm, the pigs become as evil as the humans and also bring suffering to the farm. This is described page 85 as follows; “The pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters”. From this description we have an image of pigs being evil as whips are brutal and cause pain, which was not part of Old Major’s “vision” as he believed it was humanity which brings evil and suffering.
On Page 22 we see Squealer giving a speech explaining why it is fare that the pigs should be allowed to consume Milk and Apples over all the other animals as it is scientifically proven to maintain the well being of a pig. We see this here as Squealer says “we pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depends on us”. This proves how the pigs think that they are more prior than any other animals on the farm and are already dismissing old majors speech.
When Old Major was saying his speech he describes the work in which the cows do to produce milk for the humans. “Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies” This shows how still over the animals creating a rebellion over the farm animals are still not treated fairly and now with the power of pigs they still have to work. Old major also says “and among us animals let there be perfect unity” this means that everyone has a right in the way of making decisions without having Jones telling them what to do however the animals are fooled by the words of Squealer as he does not follow Old Majors commands.
Squealer continues his speech by saying “It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty?” In the book the word ‘Your’ is emphasized to show how Squealer uses one word to create guilt amongst the other animals and fool them in they way of that it is okay for the pigs to have higher authority than other. Orwell uses the rhetorical question to make the animals feel guilty which gradually allows the pigs to take power over time.
On page 35, Squealer gives another speech. When he says, “Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?” Squealer uses the same argument that Old Major did that the animals’ lives would be a misery if the humans come back. As on page 22, Squealer thus scares the other animals with the idea that the humans will return.
Squealer explains that, “Bravery is not enough” and that “Loyalty and obedience are more important,” when referring to Snowball and Boxer agrees, “Napoleon is always right.” The animals blindly follow Napoleon without thinking therefore the pigs have full control of the animals.
Old Major’s vision of a society free of human influence and control has become true, however, one rule has been replaced by another rule – the pigs, so most animals still do not have freedom and are still suffering. The difference is the animals knew they were suffering under the humans’ control, whereas now due to the pigs’ propaganda, the animals think that they are free and so do not realize they are suffering as before.