An Analysis Of Absolute Power In George Orwell's 'Animal Farm'

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In “Animal Farm,” Gorge Orwell shows how “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He demonstrations this by showing that greed for power can change a person and their community.

Animal farm starts with Old Major, a respected pig, giving a speech about how life could be. He believed that if the animals rebelled against the humans they would be able to live a life of freedom. Soon after Old Major’s speech he died in his sleep, although he was gone the rebellion didn’t die with him. Three of the pigs, Snowball, Squealer and Napoleon, took to developing a new way to live; animalism which had one main commandment “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad.” The first year, the rebellion was successful with the increased food and some of the smarter animals learning to read and write. The animals were living quite harmoniously but then Napoleon …show more content…
He only looked out for himself and tried to make his life better. Napoleon spent a lot of time behind closed doors making other people do his hard work becoming less of a leader and more of a boss of slaves. Napoleon was willing to order, threaten and kill animals to get his sought outcome, this is apparent all throughout the book but can be seen in this quote from chapter 7, “Nevertheless, towards the end of January it became obvious that it would be necessary to procure some more grain from somewhere. In these days Napoleon rarely appeared in public, but spent all his time in the farmhouse, which was guarded at each door by fierce-looking dogs. When he did emerge, it was in a ceremonial manner, with an escort of six dogs who closely surrounded him and growled if anyone came too near. Frequently he did not even appear on Sunday mornings, but issued his orders through one of the other pigs, usually Squealer.” Evidently Napoleon became corrupt by his need for authority and power, doing whatever he needed to do to stay in
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