Sample Of Expository Essay

Prompt: ‘Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely’ – (Lord John E.E.D. Acton) Topic: Write an expository essay exploring how the prompt relates to the context of power and Animal Farm.

Power is a reality. Almost all societies, developed or primitive, have systems of government in which authority figures direct and shape the structure of their communities. Moreover, these figures may be drawn to government through a genuine wish to enhance the welfare of the people, and assist with important public processes and institutions. Power therefore, needn’t be a negative concept in and of itself – it can be wielded productively and responsibly, so long as it is not without reasonable limits. In ‘absolute power’ however, a single leader or political group exercises power dictatorially over its subjects, with few or no constraints. This, naturally, leads to abuse – if leaders or groups are accountable to no one, they may act unscrupulously, leading to corruption in two forms. First is a kind of philosophical corruption, in which individuals or groups, at first motivated by noble ideals, deviate from their social vision once absolute power is attained. Second is political corruption, in which leaders or groups act dishonestly or fraudulently to service their own interests. As such, absolute power can be said to lead not only to absolute corruption, but to the absolute certainty of injustice, as well as the exploitation and neglect of the powerless.
(1)Drawing inspiration from this idea, George Orwell penned his satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’, which – by depicting the ultimate failure of an ‘animal revolution’ - condemns the absolute power of one group, the Bolsheviks, and one man, Joseph Stalin. Orwell uses an allegorical framework to achieve this; the common animals represent the Russian working classes, while the pigs act as the ruling intelligentsia, the officials of the Bolshevik revolutionary government. On the eve of the revolution, the ageing but stately pig Old Major reflects on the miserable lives of Manor Farm’s animals, but asserts that it need not be so. For Major, the ‘root cause’ of the animals’ hunger and overwork is the tyrant Jones, who represents not only the corruptibility of men, but also that of the Russian Tsars and capitalism. Man produces little, takes all and shares nothing - remove him, Major claims, and the ‘produce of [the animals’] labour would be [their] own’ - almost overnight the animals might gain the ability to distribute their produce equitably, ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ (Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto).
(2)Startlingly (and quite amusingly,) the revolution is achieved very quickly, with the drunkard Jones turned out on his ear in the very next chapter. At first, the newly empowered animals (under the leadership of the ‘Bolshevik’ pigs) seem committed to Old Major’s vision, quickly agreeing upon the seven commandments of Animalism which prohibit participation in human activities (such as drinking alcohol,) and declare that ‘all animals are equal.’ Notably too Orwell shows the animals cooperating in a spirit of comradeship throughout chapter three’s harvest, with ‘every animal down to the humblest work[ing] at turning the hay and gathering it,’ and every animal sharing in its consumption. Further to this, the pig leader Snowball starts a program to educate the animals which meets with some success, and proposes the construction of a Windmill that will bring electricity to the farm and improve living conditions (this may parallel some of the Bolsheviks’ initial successes with delivering modern infrastructure to parts of the Russian countryside.)
(3)But dangers are foreshadowed early. Not only do the more intelligent pigs ‘supervise’ rather than participate in the harvest, they also hoodwink the other animals, stealing the milk at the end of chapter two. Importantly though, by chapter five there are still some checks on the pigs’ power – it is not, yet, absolute. Snowball’s committees are still convened, animal meetings are still regularly held in the barn, and the pigs’ policy decisions, such as the proposed windmill project, still have ‘to be ratified by majority vote.’
(4)But the windmill also symbolises the power struggle between two ‘comrades:’ Snowball (Leon Trotsky) and Napoleon (Stalin). Napoleon of course is against the windmill, which as Snowball’s treasured scheme is the most obvious symbol of his political power. For Napoleon, Snowball simply must go if his power is to be absolute. Predictably then, just as Snowball’s powers of persuasion are about to win the animals over, Napoleon calls on his dogs – his military police, his agents of force – who summarily chase Snowball off the farm until, just like that, he was ‘seen no more.’
(5)Immediately following Snowball’s expulsion, Napoleon’s power becomes absolute, and so accordingly does the corruption of his social ideals. He definitively states that ‘from now on…Sunday-morning meetings would come to an end.’ The animals would engage in ‘no more debates’, decisions on the farm would be made by the pigs ‘in private’ and their decisions would be final. He then states that ‘the animals would still assemble on Sunday mornings to salute the flag, sing 'Beasts of England', and receive their orders for the week.’ Here, what were previously democratic and cooperative meetings are perverted to empty rituals in which the animals sing lip service to socialist ideals that have, in reality, been corrupted and betrayed. As if in response to this, in chapter seven we see some stirrings of opposition to Napoleon’s power, with the hens attempting to withhold their eggs, which they have been told to surrender. Swiftly, Napoleon undertakes a shocking purge of animals, who one by one own up to rebellious actions and are one by one slaughtered. This parallels Stalin’s Great Terror of 1934-39, during which he executed and imprisoned millions of Soviets who posed a real or imagined threat to his power. (6)With all checks on their power now gone, Napoleon’s and the pigs’ fraudulent acts of political corruption become increasingly extreme. In chapter eight for example, the pigs find a crate of whisky and consume it with much revelry; this despite the commandment against drinking alcohol and the fact that such a privilege would be denied to any other animal. Similarly in chapter nine, the animals find that their rations have once again been reduced, ‘except for the pigs and the dogs.’ Squealer explains this with his biased assertion that ‘a too rigid equality in rations would be contrary to the spirit of Animalism,’ and the animals are either too stupid or hungry to contradict him. But it is in chapter ten that the absolute corruption and hypocrisy of the pigs is made most startlingly clear – here the pigs have taken on almost every human attribute; they drink ale, wear clothes, and astonishingly they walk on their hind legs. Their obese faces, ‘some with five chins, some with four and some with three’ represent quite literally the fat of the land that they have stolen from their fellow ‘comrades.’ They share a table with humans, the name of ‘Manor farm’ is revived; the aims of Old Major’s glorious revolution have been entirely corrupted under the pressure of Napoleon’s absolute power.

(7)While Animal Farm contains a sweeping critique of the Russian Revolution’s aftermath and denounces a notorious leader of history, it contains an enduring message about the dangers of absolute power that we can apply to more local contexts. While it may be overstating it to say that the recent Health Services Union scandal revealed the corruptions of absolute power, it certainly revealed the necessity for rigorous oversight of individuals occupying high positions of leadership and responsibility within organisations. Craig Thompson, if not a tyrant, was nonetheless the National Secretary of a union supposedly acting on behalf of its members, whom he exploited and defrauded to the tune of some $270,000. It has also been suggested that this type of corruption may in fact be systemic to the organisation, which has been the subject of an ongoing investigation. This corruption is perhaps not as ‘historic’ as that of Stalin, but it nonetheless points to the pervasive or indeed universal dangers of unchecked power and its inevitable consequence, corruption.