Animal Farm Essay

                                          

                                           December 2, 1996

                                           Period 5

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.