Essay/Term paper: Animal farm essay

Essay, term paper, research paper:  George Orwell

December 2, 1996
Period 5

Animal Farm Essay
The name of the book is Animal Farm, which is written by George
Orwell. This book is about a farm with animals who dislike the treatment, and
overtake the farm and overthrow the humans of the farm. As the revolution
took place, two leaders came about. Their names were Snowball and
Napoleon, whose main goal was to have nothing to do with humans, and bring
communism into their society.
"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 with a reputation
for getting his own way" (Ch.2, P. 25).
"Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech
and more inventive but did not have the character depth that Napoleon did"
(Ch.2, Pgs. 24-25.) Snowball was the one with the ideas like the committees
and the windmill. He was a better thinker than Napoleon.
When all the animals helped kick Mr. Jones off the farm, Snowball led
the animals to the store-shed and served out a double ration of corn to
everybody with two biscuits going to each of the dogs.
Napoleon on the other hand was very selfish. He stole milk that was
meant for everybody and drank it all, and he stole apples. He doesn't care
about the work the animals do, just what would benefit him.
For example, Napoleon comes up with the building of the windmill that
would supply electricity so they would not have to work as hard. Napoleon
was against this because he didn't come up with the idea. When Napoleon
sees that Snowball is gaining more power with the speech of the windmill,
Napoleon sends his dogs to chase Snowball out of the farm. After Snowball
was chased out of the farm, Napoleon gains more power by saying Snowball
was a bad person. He told the animals that Snowball was with Mr. Jones
from the starting. (Ch 6. P. 72) "We will teach this miserable traitor that he
cannot undo our work so easily." He is now saying that Snowball was the
one who ruined the windmill, even though it was his idea. He called him a
traitor. And when Napoleon couldn't do the trash talking, he sent squealer.
"For we know now, it is all written down in the secret documents that
we have found-that in reality he was trying to lure us to our doom" (Ch. 7 P.
80). He was telling all the animals that Snowball was a traitor and was with
Mr. Jones, because of the Battle of the Cowshed. He told them that it was all
set up for them to be slaughtered. One animal shouted that he was shot. But
squealer was a smart one. He told them that the shot only grazed him, and
Napoleon was the good guy. He was the one that sank his teeth into Jones'
leg.
To me at least, it seemed that Snowball was always trying to do what
was best for the farm and all the other animals. Snowball came up with the
ideas for the committees, the windmill, helped with the commandments. He
was the courageous leader because the fact is that he was the one who led the
animals at the Battle of the Cowshed. he was the one who was supplying the
animals with food during the rebellion. Napoleon was stealing food.
Napoleon, since, has been changing the commandments that would
best suit him. He has basically changed all the commandments with a few
words. The seventh commandment has been changed to (Ch.10 P. 123) "All
Animals are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others," meaning
of course, the pigs are more equal. The commandments are being changed to
benefit them. The alcohol commandment has changed with an addition of
two words. "No Animal Shall drink Alcohol To Excess). The bed
commandment has changed to where they can now sleep in beds, but without
sheets, but the only animals that sleep in the beds are the pigs.
Since the leader of the farm is a pig, none of the pigs have to follow the
commandments because when they break one, they just change it to what they
did. I think that the animals are starting to act like humans more and more,
which they hated the most. The chant that was four legs good, two legs bad,
had been changed to four legs good, two legs better, just because the pigs
wanted to walk like humans and have started walking like humans (Ch. 10 P.
122).
From this book, we learned that communism is very hard to bring to a
society where every person thinks that they are better then another.