Animal Farm Review

When I first started reading Animal Farm by George Orwell I was honestly extremely bored and I didn't really know what was going on. As the book went on I noticed this intense power struggle between the characters. I knew at the beginning that they had over thrown their so called "government" but I saw what seemed to be the new "government", also known as the pigs, slowly start to gain control. At first the pigs seemed harmless but the began to take on new demons as the book continued. I think that the pigs began to feel satisfaction of being in power. For me, I think that power creates greed and that with even the smallest taste of this that people can let it get them and then slowly begin to become corrupted.

At the very beginning of the book I saw that the pigs did want the best for the other animals they had the best intentions. They all began planning things together such as the animal farm commandments. These so called "rules" included things like all animals are equal and four legs good, two legs bad. With these rules it showed that all animals were in agreement. They all began working together on the farm in order to better the farm. They were successfully self sufficient in their endeavors at the beginning, but Napoleon began contact with other farms behind the other animals backs. When they found out they were quite weary of Napoleon because he began to do these things but Squeeler was always there to sweet talk them into believing some piece of crap story to keep them doing their jobs. Squeeler was the best speaker of all and he was very good at persuading or making the animals believe what he said.

Once Napoleon began contact with other farms he began negotiating trade deal that in all reality did benefit their farm. These were only the beginning steps to his tyranny. He began to think of himself and the pigs as higher than that of the other animals. They even began acting more like humans, they designated an office inside as their "headquarters", began sleeping in beds, and to the horrors of the other animals began even walking on two legs. The relationship they established with other farms became more prominent as well as the fact that they used a scapegoat for everything that they did wrong in the eyes of the people. They blamed everything on a pig that ran away because he felt threatened by his fellow animals. His name was Snowball. When the windmill that they all built together was destroyed they blamed it on Snowball, the pigs needed to out fear into that of the other animals because they needed the other animals to need a leader in order for them to succeed in their climb to power.

Once the pigs were able to assume the highest power they could achieve they began to moderate the commandments when the other animals were working, not paying attention, or were sleeping. They changed little things so that the animals would think they were originally written in there. For example, the fact that no animals could sleep in a bed with sheets, so the pigs would just strip the beds of sheets and sleep on bare beds. Another example would be that of the fact that all animals were somewhat equal, but some animals were more equal than others. Those more equal animals were the pigs. When they invited their friends from the neighboring farms over for a game of poker you couldn't notice the difference between them any longer. The pigs were just as bad, just as greedy, and just as corrupt as the government that they had originally overthrown. Therefore all the animals were back to square on. The theme of this whole book is that power really corrupts people and once you get a taste of power you only want more. It is a never ending thirst.