Orwell uses the pigs to surround and support Napoleon. They represent the communist party loyalists and the friends of Stalin. The pigs, unlike other animals, live in luxury and enjoy the benefits of the society they help to control. Such as Stalin and all the other communist party loyalists did while the rest of the country was thrown into starvation, they continued to live like kings.
One of the central themes of the novel seems to be the pursuit of power and how that power once established is then abused. Such as in the case where the pigs take power over the farm and they stick with the view that Old Major gave in the beginning.
“All animals are equal”
The ultimate example of the pigs' systematic abuse of power to control their underlings is this final reduction of the Seven Commandments, which appears in Chapter 10, when the commandment is changed from “All animals are equal” to “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” this just shows how power can corrupt and the pigs felt them selves higher than the other animals.
The animals on the farm gather before old Major in Chapter one to hear what he has to say. The animals crave a change because their lives are “miserable, laborious, and short." Old Major states that animals are born into the world as slaves, worked incessantly from the time they can walk, fed only enough to keep breath in their bodies, and then slaughtered mercilessly when they are no longer useful. Old Major relates a dream that he had the previous night, of a world in which animals live without the “tyranny of men”. He asks them to rebel against man and then every thing will be fine because then the animals will become “rich and free”.
“Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our labour would be our own. Almost over night we come become rich and free.”
This dream can be described as idealistic and it paints a picture of utopia. Old Majors dream is not with out irony though, for when he says:
“What ever goes upon two legs, is an enemy. What ever goes upon for legs, or has wings is a friend.”
This can be seen as ironic because later in the novel when the sheep come up with their own version of the saying which is:
"Four legs good, two legs bad."
Napoleon when he gains power changes the sheep’s saying to:
“Four legs good. Two legs better.”
Another instance of irony in old Majors dream is when he is talking about how the ways of man are completely corrupt: once the humans have been defeated, the animals must never take on any of their habits; they must not live in a house, sleep in a bed, wear clothes, drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, touch money, engage in trade, or tyrannize another animal and no animal must ever kill any other animal. This is hugely ironic because later in the novel we see how the pigs go against all the teachings that old Major gave them which leads to their down fall. They adopt many of the vices that old Major himself said were “Evil”.
“Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, of drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are evil.”
Lines from chapter one show the first verse of the song that Old Major hears in his dream and which he teaches to the rest of the animals during the fateful meeting in the barn. Like the communist anthem ‘Internationale’, on which it is based, "Beasts of England" it stirs the emotions of the animals and fires their revolutionary idealism. As it spreads rapidly across the region, the song gives the beasts both courage and solace on many occasions.
“Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tiding
Of the golden future time.”
The optimism of the words "golden future time," serves to keep the animals focused on the Rebellion's goals so that they will ignore the suffering along the way.
The pigs use a philosophy called ‘Animalism’ which was a system on thought, which had been brought about by old Major’s teachings. The way in which the pigs managed to enforce the thought of animalism on to the animals is by breaking them down into what they called the “ 7 commandments”
“The 7 commandments
- Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy
- Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
- No animal shall wear clothes.
- No animal shall sleep in a bed
- No animal shall drink alcohol
- No animal shall kill any other animal
- All animals are equal.”
The pigs state that these rules must be followed of otherwise they would be breaking they spirit of animalism. In Chapter the animals spend a laborious summer harvesting in the fields. The pigs think of cleaver ways for the animals to use the humans' tools, and every animal participates in the work, each according to his capacity. The resulting harvest exceeds any that the farm has ever known. There are seeds of unrest with in the farm for the apples and milk are going missing. The pigs claim that they need them for brainpower. This is the first instant of the corruption that the pigs are suffering from their power.
“Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary for the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brain-workers.”
The animals are living the utopian dream but there are essence of unease in the air especially between Snowball and Napoleon.
In “The Battle of the Cowshed” it was Snowball who had masterminded the victory and put together the battle plans so that the farm could defend itself, but Napoleon took credit for it and Snowball was sent in to exile.
“At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws.”
These words from Chapter five describe Napoleon's violent expulsion of Snowball from Animal Farm, which parallels the falling-out between Stalin and Trotsky. Napoleon, who is clearly losing the contest for the hearts and minds of the lower animals to his rival Snowball, turns to his private police force of dogs to enforce his supremacy. As Stalin did, Napoleon prefers to work behind the scenes to build his power by secrecy and deception, while Snowball, as Trotsky did, devotes himself to winning popular support through his ideas and his eloquence. Which shows the thirst for power between Stalin and Trotsky to become leader and how power was corrupting them both. This shows that there was only room for one leader.
This almost marks the end of the dream and the beginning of a new reign of terror that is going to create a viscous cycle. So often this happened after revolutions in history. Now there is the formation of a central power base – a totalitarian dictatorship is being formed with all its corruptions of the truth and insistence on law-enforcement. For at the end of Chapter Five we learn that Napoleon plans to go ahead with Snowball’s plans for a windmill but he claims the idea as his own and claims that Snowball stole the idea from him.
“The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon’s own creation. Why, then asked somebody, has he spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon’s cunning. He had seemed to oppose the windmill simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of Snowball.”
A lot of changes on the farm were taking place, which creates a lot of unfairness and inequality for the other animals. The pigs changed the 7 commandments to suit them selves. Such as the commandment which states, “No animal shall sleep in a bed” is changed to “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets”. In Chapter eight at the beginning of the chapter it tells of how any animal caught working in association with Snowball will be killed. Some of the animals remember the commandment that had stated
“No animal shall kill any other animal” they found that it had been changed to “No animal shall kill any other animal with out cause”.
The power that Napoleon claims begins to corrupt him, this becomes evident in Chapter seven where we see Napoleon order the dogs to kill a younger pig because he claims to be working with Snowball.
“They added that Snowball had privately admitted to them that he had been Jones’s secret agent for the years past. When they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out,”
This is a prime example of that power corrupts. In Chapter eight we see that he begins to cut himself off with the other animals and he eats alone, also he is living in luxury while the other animals are living in poverty and they are starving, this shows how Napoleon delights in his position as leader.
“it was said, Napoleon inhabited separate apartments from the others. He took his meals alone, with two dogs to wait upon him, and always ate from the Crown Derby dinner device which has been in the glass cupboard in the drawing-room.”
It is evident that the claims against Snowball being a traitor with very little evidence to back up the claims. The animals were too afraid to speak out against Napoleon so they just went along with the claims.
“If a window was broken or a drain blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key if the store shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball has thrown it down the well.”
It has become apparent that Snowball had just become a thing in which if anything went wrong on the farm Snowball could be blamed for it and no one would as questions.
Anybody who stepped out of line on the farm or spoke out again anything that Napoleon said they were immediately executed.
“In the middle of the summer the animals were alarmed to hear that three hens had come forward and confessed that, inspired by Snowball, they has entered into a plot to murder Napoleon. They were executed immediately”
Another case in which we see that the utopian dream is ended and that a reign of terror has taken over the farm is when Napoleon decides that the farm is going to engage in trade and the animals get no say in the matter at all even though it is against old Majors rules.
“Napoleon announced that ha had decided upon a new policy. From now onwards Animal Farm would engage in trade with neighbouring farms.”
This shows that the pigs had taken full power of the farm.
One day, Boxer's strength fails; he collapses while pulling stone for the windmill. The other animals rush to tell Squealer, while and Clover stay near their friend. The pigs announce that they will arrange to bring Boxer to a human hospital to get better, but when the cart arrives, Benjamin reads the writing on the cart's sideboards and announces that Boxer is being sent to a glue maker to be slaughtered. The animals panic and begin crying out to Boxer that he must escape. They hear him kicking feebly inside the cart, but he is unable to get out.
Contact with humans has becomes acceptable. An example of this is when; announces that he has hired a human solicitor, , to assist him in conducting trade on behalf of Animal Farm.
“A Mr. Whymper, a solicitor living in Whillingdon, had agreed to act as intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside world”
At the end of the novel, they cycle of corruption is complete and the story ends as it began with drunkenness and a picture of what can happen when power corrupts. Perhaps you find the ending unsatisfactory, but, if read as a political satire, it is an uncomfortable and frightening look at what could happen and possibly already happened in history. A bleak book, with not exactly a happy ending, a fairy tale with a sting!
