From what Old Major has said we see that he prevented the other animals of the pigs, but without telling them who they were. When Old Major dies Snowball and Napoleon appear as the new leaders in a society where there weren’t going to be leaders or someone better. They are two pigs that had excellent abilities as leaders, they were persuasive, they had ideas, and they said they wanted what Old Major had proposed. Pigs dedicated to teach and organize the others for the rebellion as for what the new society would be like, this new society would be named animalism.
“There three had elaborated old Major’s teaching into a complete system of thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism.”
In this part of the whole novel, pigs are known as the workers and the most intelligent ones who must direct and organize the rebellion and the system of the society after it, although they said that everyone would be equal that.
When the day of the rebellion came, Snowball and Napoleon organized how it would be so that everyone would have an equal life. They wrote the Seven Commandments after the rebellion that were the seven rules of Animalism.
“They would form an unalterable law by which all the animals on Animal Farm must live for ever after.”
Humans by nature likes always having more and more, and when they have all they still want more. Humans are ambitious by nature. This can’t be changed and when someone has the power or has the opportunity of getting it then they will take it for the reason that I have already told. That is why even if one of the commandments says something they won’t practice it because if one of the animals (that has human nature in them) has the opportunity of having more than the others he would take the risk to get it. Orwell tries to show us how power corrupts people or animals in this case while we read his novel. He put pigs as the leaders, they would be the ones who are heard by all the animals and would be respected and obeyed. Pigs were the leaders of the farm; they were the ones who after the victory of the rebellion took the power. In here pigs are used as a metaphor for saying what humans really are . The power started corrupting pigs, like in the first day of the harvest when Snowball milked the cows and Napoleon took all the milk.
“I shall follow in a few minutes. Forward, comrades! The hay is waiting.
…when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared.”
The milk had disappeared and the last person seen with it was Napoleon. Here is where we see the first signal of a non-equalitarian society. Napoleon wanted the milk just for the pigs and he tells that if the other animals wanted to live prosperouslythey had to give them the milk and apples.
“The mystery of where the milk went to was soon cleared up, it was mixed every day into the pigs mash.”
Snowball, Napoleon and the other pigs however, convinced them by Squealer voice. They manipulated the other animals that believed everything they were told by pigs.
“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? Jones would come back!”
It is obvious that pigs are manipulating the rest of the animals. They make the other animals accept everything they are telling them.
After the victory of the Battle of the Cowshed, winter came. They couldn’t be do anything in the fields because of the cold. So Snowball and Napoleon started debating about what should be done so this situation could be changed but they always disagreed. The theme of the windmill was the worst of all, Snowball wanted to build it, he had done a study about how to build the windmill. But Napoleon was against this. In the final debate, Snowball convinced the majority of the farm so the project of the windmill was accepted. But at then Napoleon called the dogs (that had been the puppies of Jessie ) and these started running towards Snowball. At this point it is we can see how ambition make us do whatever we want. In Napoleon’s case we see that he wanted absolute power, he was the only one who took any decision in the farm.
“He announced that from now on the Sunday morning Meetings would come to an end… In the future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself ”
So the cause of their fight had been lost. The rebellion and the new society that were supposed to benefit everyone in an equal way was doomed by ambition. Animalism was a way of living but that just remained as theory as an utopian theory. The truth was that pigs had had power since the beginning of their freedom from men and the ambition for more power had corrupted everyone. In Napoleon case, he wanted the absolute power. He was a dictator that even though he didn’t accept it because he hided it saying that as a pig he took all the decisions for the benefit of the animals.
“I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do not imagine comrades, that leadership is a pleasure!”
Napoleon also tried to make the windmill idea his, to say that he was the one who really invented it. But as it was his original idea they would do it.
He also started making changes to the seven commandments. He was relating himself with humans. He was acting for his own benefits, pigs started sleeping in beds. What meant a real change in the farm was the fact that Napoleon also changed one of the Seven Commandments.
“No animal shall sleep in a bed”
However, Napoleon changed this commandment:
“It says, “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.’”
This is an example of how he fooled with the rest of the animals because they weren’t as intelligent as pigs. At the beginning animals thought that the pigs were breaking the law however, as it was on the wall of the Seven Commandments, it should be right.
Napoleon is absolutely corrupt because of the absolute power he had. At the start of the fabel the revolution is against the corrupt man that was another kind of pig, at the end the novel is about the corruption in the pigs . We see the development of the pigs, at the start they are the organizers but they didn’t take any decision without consulting all of the animals, then when men were eliminated from “Animal Farm” they started to have some privileges they excused them by saying that they were good. Napoleon ambitions makes him go against Snowball because he was ruining his interests. Then we see that being in the power as the leader, makes you follow your nature, Napoleon becomes a dictator. At the end the animals return to the old regimen, just were a few people govern the rest .
Melissa Vega
IB – One ‘Bath’
(1 556 words)