Power to Animal Farm

an essay response to Animal Farm

You try to escape but something is holding you there. Everyone seems fine, but you really know that this was not intended for you or everyone else. Your leader has just been transformed into the complete opposite of what they wanted to be. Power is something so strong that it can people from superior to cruel. George Orwell demonstrated the evil that lies within the power throughout his novel Animal Farm. Limitless power may sound good, but it can change us into our worse nightmare.


“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” meaning if someone were to have a ton of power not only would they be harming themselves they would be hurting others as well. They would change into exactly what they didn’t want to be. The animals on Manor Farm did this exact thing.

The Rebellion was the new idea to talk about with their fellow comrades as Old Major would've said. To put this plan into action the animals wrote the Seven Commandments, but over time these commandments would evolve into a totally different meaning so that the pigs could break them. Pigs, is a symbol of disgust and greed, in Animal Farm Orwell compare us, humans to pigs he does this because when humans receive so much power we change our actions to resemble pigs, because power can easily warp our minds.

A government or leader who has a great amount of power can change citizen’s minds in a blink of an eye, especially young children, because they don’t know better. The evil corrupt pig, Napoleon, changed people’s minds starting with the young puppies who were the building blocks of this new and defiantly not improved farm. The new dystopic vision of the farm is the total opposite of the Rebellion. This world is the world that no one wanted to be in but everyone wanted to live so they didn’t rebel against Napoleon. Napoleon resembles Stalin and Stalin is a strong leader with powerful armies.

Besides just Napoleon many animals played huge parts in Animal Farm or the Russian Revolution, although Napoleon was a big part Snowball also resembled Trotsky because he was intelligent, a good speaker, and was deported like Snowball. The animals in Animal farm changed the way history was written, Squealer especially would tell lies and rewrite history, which made him Pravda. Also Squealer acted as if he was under Napoleon which he was the one organizing events and such which means he was also Lenin. All of these animals had one thing that changed the farm tremendously--power.

Having absolute power can really change someone. Napoleon not only changed himself but he changed the whole Rebellion plan that Old Major created. Now instead of getting rid of humans they are working with them hand in hand. When we get a hold of limitless power we are truly going to create a mess. "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to tell which from which."(Animal Farm, Pg.139)