Animal Farm by George Orwell Essay

The book covers the life of animals on a farm called Manor farm owned by Mr. Jones. One of the farm animals Old Major has a dream where all the animals are free of oppression from the human beings and the constant control. He tells the animals that they must work together to defeat the humans and make the farm such a paradise for all the animals to live. Unfortunately, he dies, but his dream does not die with him, three nights later three young pigs Snowball, Napoleon and Squealer formulate the late Old Majors dreams into a philosophy called Animalism and late one night they defeat the human and evict them from the farm (Orwell). The animals are left in control of the farm renaming it Animal Farm. This does not last long, after a while the farm falls back under the same control and oppression but this time under their fellow animal the pig, Napoleon who treats all the animals just like the humans did. Attaining freedom is not the hard part in most cases but retaining this newly acquired freedom is the main problem. There were different reasons behind this turn of events in the animal farm after the defeat of humans as the controllers of the farm. These reasons led to the loss of power by the other animals to the Pigs

One of the main reason for the fall of the animal farm was the greed for power. Between the competing pigs Snowball and Napoleon, they got so caught up in the greed for power and forgot to see the harm it brought the other animals (Orwell). Opposing of the electricity generating windmill project by snowball which targeted the generation of energy in the land was one colossal fail on the leadership position. As leaders, it is important to value the lives of the followers, and in this case, the animals that had trusted the pigs to guide them the falling apart of leadership within the farm was the major cause of the fall of the kingdom. This left the animals in a confused state of which animal to stand behind as their leader.

The other major reason that resulted to the fall of the animal farm back to oppression was lack of an advisor who would have helped Napoleon make right decisions. After Snowball was chased from the farm, Napoleon was left alone with no one to correct him from making wrong decisions (Orwell). This meant that he had no one to audit his powers which leaves the farm in a dictatorship form of leadership. This meant that all that Napoleon said passed with no analysis on the impact it had on the other animals. This resulted to too much power on the hands of Napoleon that he started abusing. In most cases too much power is risky. This means that one has the ability to do what they feel with no restrictions by anyone. In the process, the subjects suffer the consequences of their leaders' actions. In the Animal farm, due to the unchecked powers of Napoleon other animals were forced to work hard so as to trade with other farms for the benefit of Napoleon. This was against the animalism philosophy of the animal farm. This took the kingdom back to oppression and control just like when the animals were under the humans.

Intimidation and fear were instilled into the other animals by the pigs. Napoleon had his trained puppies which had been turned into hunt dogs and feared by all the other animals on the farm. The pigs used to fear so as to assert dominance in the farm (Orwell). The other animals had to operate in fear of the pigs since they felt the lack of enough strength to resist the pigs. Napoleon went to the extent of having the pigs whips which commanded fear. Old Majors dream had nothing to do with other animals taking up the humans' position, but the animals were to be free to roam all over the farm with no fear of the humans. The pigs had managed to instill fear among the animals just as the humans had and then controlled and oppressed the other animals.

All this had also been contributed by greed, the pigs were too greedy and wanted the farm under their control. They started trading with other farms so as to gain more income for the farm but not to share with the other animals in the farm this is also seen from Napoleon's actions Boxer cart house in the farm had been such a loyal subject in the farm and had devoted his energy in developing the farm but from an attack on the farm by the humans Boxer was hurt, and this slowed him down. We find out later that Napoleon sold his most loyal and long-serving worker to a glue maker so as to get money for whiskey (Orwell). This is one of the greediest deeds from the farm that leaves the reader surprised. All these actions led to the animal farm falling back to oppression and control by the pigs.

Conclusion

Conclusively it is evident that attaining freedom by the animals was not the hard part but sustain the freedom was the main problem. Power at the wrong hands brought down the animal kingdom back to its original state but under a different form of a dictator who happened to be Napoleon but with the same actions as the humans. The Pigs laid out a solid plan to attain this power and implemented it successfully with the other animals left to suffer under them.

Work Cited

Orwell, George. Animal farm. Vol. 31. Random House, 2010.