Essay about Animal Farm Q1

Q1: “Mr Jones is not the enemy in ‘Animal Farm’. The real enemy is the animal themselves.” Discuss

‘Animal Farm’ written by George Orwell explores the idea that the animals are just as responsible of their oppression just as much as Mr Jones. It unveils how the events escalated from one pig’s dream of an idealistic world without man, to a dystopia full of corruption. This dream that led to the revolution was struck from fear and injustice from Mr Jones. Mr Jones played the obvious enemy as he was so cruel to the animals, but throughout the course of the novel, we see the animals pick up these traits and come the enemy themselves.

Old Major’s dream is what inspired the animals to rebel against Man. Old Major, who was “highly regarded” by the animals, proposed an idealistic plan for “all animals” to be “equal”, and for that to happen they would have to “get rid of Man”. Mr Jones restricted the animals, resulting in them to living “miserable lives.” Once Major told his ideas and principles to lead them to revolt, “there was a tremendous uproar” as who wouldn’t want to live in a Utopia where “all animals are equal”. Old Major had planned out for the revolution to be a great success, however it was set up wrong from the beginning of the novel; we see foreshadowing of these ideas corrupting which led to the animal’s unhappiness.

Napoleon and Snowball leads the animals to rebel against Mr Jones, as Old Major dies – although his ideas were still passed on. Once Mr Jones and his men left Manor Farm, the Seven Commandments that were chosen by Snowball were written on the barn wall, but throughout the novel they are changed constantly for the desires of the pigs; however the other animals don’t take much notice of this as most of them are incapable of remembering. The pigs used this as an advantage; they abused the loyalty of the other animals by claiming the roles as leaders and privileges like apples and milk. The pigs did not do any manual labour work even though they said that all animals should be treated equal. The pigs play a role as an enemy as they used their power as an advantage and turned Animal Farm into a dictatorship.

The dogs and the cockerel played a part to showing Napoleon’s authority to also intimidate the other animals The cockerel was a symbol of Napoleon's authority; it made him feel important, whereas the dogs were a symbol of the power behind the power. There was a time where Napoleon was not seen in public for a long period of time but when he did his “retinue of dogs and the black cockerel” made a loud noise to announce the arrival of Napoleon. The dogs were used also because of their natural aggression, which allowed them to live comfortably as they were loyal to the pigs. These characters played a role as an enemy as they kept the animals in line with violence and intimidation.

Squealer and the sheep used propaganda to the other animals to follow Napoleon’s dictatorship, convincing them that his ideas were improving their lifestyle when it clearly wasn’t, which makes these characters enemies in the novel. The sheep were

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