Seven Commandments In George Orwell's Animal Farm

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Seven Commandments Analysis
The effectiveness of the Seven Commandments in giving a simple and understandable version of the founding principles of Animalism in George Orwell’s Animal Farm is undermined by three major obstacles. Their incompletion of noting all of Old Major’s ideals ,the animals’ illiteracy and lack of memory, and the pig’s power hungry, manipulative, underhanded tactics all make the Seven Commandments not as effective as they should be. All of these things present themselves in the form of Squealer and Napoleon's speeches and actions, and eventually lead to absolute control by the pigs.
One major thing that renders the Seven Commandments nearly useless is the fact that they lack some fundamental parts of Old Major’s vision …show more content…
Whymper. Immediately, the reader can tell that something is wrong with this. Old Major said in his speech states that, “No animal must… touch money, or engage in trade,”(Orwell 21). However, nothing about this was stated in the
Seven Commandments. When the animals begin to feel a glimmer of doubt about trading with humans, “Squealer asked them shrewdly, ‘Are you certain that this is not something that you have dreamed, comrades?... Have you any record of such a resolution? Is it written down anywhere?’” (Orwell 67). The pigs took advantage of the fact that the rule wasn’t written down and pull yet another fast one on their “comrades”.
The Seven Commandments were supposed to give the animals an understandable and simplified breakdown of Animalism, but another problem lies in the fact that they are written, as
“... the pigs… could read and write perfectly. The dogs learned to read fairly well…. Muriel, the goat, could read somewhat… Benjamin could read as well as any pig... None of the other animals on the farm could get much further than the letter A.” (Orwell 3940).
This means that practically all of the animals are illiterate, and nearly all of the literate animals are either pigs …show more content…
Finally,the pigs’ tactics of manipulating the rules to suit their needs only serves to deceive the other animals and completely defeats the purpose of the Commandments. The pigs, when presented with something in the Commandments that they don’t agree with, simply change it. When the pigs move into the farmhouse, some animals heard that the pigs slept in the beds.
Clover thought that she remembered a rule against beds, and has Muriel read her the Fourth
Commandment, which now says, “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets ,” (Orwell 69).
However, the reader can surely recall that the original Commandment says nothing about sheets.
Clearly, the pigs are changing the Commandments and using the animals’ ignorance to their own advantage. Ultimately, the Seven Commandments, a seemingly flawless idea, is sabotaged due to the animals’ ignorance, the pigs cheating the rules, and an incompletion of Old Major’s ideas. These three main factors, as well as many others, all add up to the demise of a free animal
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