At the beginning of George Orwell's story, Animal Farm, Mr Jones, the general caretaker of the Manor Farm in England, had awkwardly climbed into bed after having downed a couple of beers. The callous farmer had no idea that he had left the buildings unprotected. The farm animals are completely aware of his mistake and quickly begin planning a way to drive Mr. Jones off the farm. The eldest pig, the Major, knows he will die soon, so he takes charge and gives the speech about how to rebel. After Old Major's death, the pigs take over and create a system called "Animalism" and the Seven Commandments, which are rules that all farm animals should follow. The animals work together to form a union against humans. In the middle of Major's speech, he says, "All men are enemies. All animals are companions" (Orwell 31). The two main leader pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, both honor Major's beliefs but want to achieve goals in different ways. Napoleon focuses on the advantages he can gain for himself; Snowball wants to help all the animals on the farm. These different paths of power begin to cause division on the farm. In chapter 5, Snowball finally gives up and flees the farm, leaving Napoleon the leader and motivator of the new Animal Farm. He states that only the pigs have the power to make decisions for the farm and that all other animals will obey them. Napoleon's crime pig, Squealer, provides explanations for all of Napoleon's actions with clever but deceptive revisions of animalist principles. Napoleon continues to strengthen his power by making more and more animals fear him, which in turn gives him fewer enemies. Common animals continue to obey pigs in the hope of a better future. Napoleon begins to ally himself with neighboring farms so that there is no way out for the common animals and now they are unknowingly trapped. At the end of Animal Farm, Orwell describes the pigs many years later and tells us that they are becoming more and more like humans. "There is no doubt now what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and again from pig to man; but already it was impossible to tell which was which." (Orwell 139). The most quietly obvious universal idea in Animal Farm is to criticize the idea of communism that Orwell saw spreading in Russia..
tags