Power In George Orwell's 'Animal Farm'
Essay
In the novel ‘Animal Farm’, power is what destroys the farm in the end. Although power can be used for good, it can also be used for evil when too much is given. The quote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton) is portrayed in this book. In the beginning of the novel, Old Major uses his power over the animals to carry through his plan of the Rebellion. It could be argued that the way he was using his power was for the good of the farm, but he took advantage of his status at the farm and used it to persuade them into doing what he wanted. “Old Major (so he was always called, though the name under which he had been exhibited was Willingdon Beauty) was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say” (Orwell 25). This was the beginning of the use of power. After Old Major had died, the power had been passed along to the other pigs Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer. This is when we start to see the power turning into evil. In the beginning they wanted to make it a truly equal society and they did this by making the Seven Commandments; one including “All animals are equal”. But throughout the book, we see that the pigs become the ‘leaders’, which …show more content…
The power got to the pigs heads and made them turn the farm into something even worse than it was before. The pigs had turned into exactly what they were fighting to get rid of. The abuse of power is what made the pigs become like humans. “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside 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” (Orwell
In the novel ‘Animal Farm’, power is what destroys the farm in the end. Although power can be used for good, it can also be used for evil when too much is given. The quote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton) is portrayed in this book. In the beginning of the novel, Old Major uses his power over the animals to carry through his plan of the Rebellion. It could be argued that the way he was using his power was for the good of the farm, but he took advantage of his status at the farm and used it to persuade them into doing what he wanted. “Old Major (so he was always called, though the name under which he had been exhibited was Willingdon Beauty) was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say” (Orwell 25). This was the beginning of the use of power. After Old Major had died, the power had been passed along to the other pigs Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer. This is when we start to see the power turning into evil. In the beginning they wanted to make it a truly equal society and they did this by making the Seven Commandments; one including “All animals are equal”. But throughout the book, we see that the pigs become the ‘leaders’, which …show more content…
The power got to the pigs heads and made them turn the farm into something even worse than it was before. The pigs had turned into exactly what they were fighting to get rid of. The abuse of power is what made the pigs become like humans. “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside 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” (Orwell