Animal Farm Essay 108

Knowledge is power. While freedom is priceless. Many people go to great lengths to defend freedom because of their knowledge of a better life that awaits them. This knowledge is fueled into power which has lead great historical revolutions and movements. Some are peaceful and other go by the motto "any means necessary". People go to great lengths and even lay down their lives to get freedom or reach that promise land which so many people among us talk about. One of the most famous revolutions is The Russian Revolution. The animals in George Orwell's "Animal Farm" portray different historical figures and parties that reflect The Russian Revolution. The animals in his book were willing to go to great lengths to over throw the humans off their farm to get what they thought would lead to a happy ending, but this is just where their troubles began.

With all revolutions; failures or successes, there has to be someone leading the revolution. And in "Animal Farm" this someone was a prize winning boar by the name of Old Major. One night Old Major request that all the animals gather in the barn for an extremely important meeting regarding everyone's well being. With all of the animals on Manor Farm in his presence he began to tell them of his dreams and hopes of a better life for all animals no matter how big or small. And the answer to all there problems was simple, just get rid of humans. In his speech he stated this: "Man is the only creature that

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consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plow, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals." (p.19) Before Old Major could even finish his speech, it was silenced by the sound of Mr. Jones Shotgun. Which ended up resulting in the death of Old Major. But hope was not lost.

Mr. Jones was the man who ran Manor farm. He was not your sweet country farm boy either, he was a low life. He mistreated all of his animals on the farm except for

his pet raven names Moses. He over worked his field horse named Boxer also. Mr. Jones would take Boxer out and attempt to plow farm fields while he is drunk and it just didn't work out because he couldn't guide his horse in a straight line for the fields. And when he looked and saw his work was not even satisfactory he would take his anger along with frustration out on Boxer and the rest of the farm animals. Instead of taking the time to feed and water his animals, he would rather go out and drink with some of his buddies. And he was drunk the night he accidentally dropped his shotgun; that let out the round, that killed Old Major.

Even though it had seemed like the animals revolution had been put to a halt before it could even begin, hope was still alive. And this hope that they had, fell into the hooves of the pigs on the farm named Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer. The three of

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them helped organize their revolution. They had gone some time without receiving food and water because Mr. Jones was to drunk to care for his animals. The animals stormed into the food storage where they feasted on an abundance of food. And when Mr. Jones and his field hand herd all of the hullabaloo taking place, they went to go investigate. Not being prepared for what lied ahead of them they walk right into a trap! The animals began chasing the humans around ; releasing years of anger and oppression, out onto the humans. Mr. Jones, Mrs. Jones and all of his field hands grabbed what they could and fled from Manor Farm for safety.

All of the animals were thrilled about their success with storming the humans off of Manor Farm. They thought everything would be great because they no longer had humans on the farm. But they knew work would still be hard. And all of the animals wanted to live Old Majors dream out to the fullest. So they thought it would be best if the pigs ran the farm them being the smartest of creatures. And their new leader would be Napoleon with the rest of the pigs at his side to help him.

"Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only one of those on the farm. He was not much of a talker, but had a reputation for getting his own way" .. Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive but did not have the character depth that Napoleon did" (25). And the last of the pigs was Squealer. "Squealer could turn black into white" (11). So under Napoleon the regime of order went Squealer then snowball. No one had a problem with this because they had a

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different image of there leader than what was really true.

Napoleon was one of the smartest and most ruthless of all the farm animals. Unfortunately they did not know this because he was always in Old Majors shadow. But now with Old Major being dead it presented him with the perfect opportunity to gain complete control. And he most certainly did gain this. But he did not live by Old Majors Seven Commandments, which form the tenets of their "Animalism".

*Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

*Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

*No animal shall wear clothes.

*No animal shall sleep in a bed.

*No animal shall drink alcohol.

*No animal shall kill another