Animal Farm Essay, Research Paper

Animal Farm

The book, Animal Farm, by George Orwell is a quite an extravagant book with many twists and turns which parallel today s society. Although the book deals with animals given human traits and characteristics, it is much the same as our everyday problems and scandals which we hear about on the news.

In the beginning of the book there is an old boar, name Old Major, who is pretty much the leader of the animals while they are still controlled by Jones. Major tells the animal that a day will come when animals are no longer oppressed by humans and live life on there own and do as they wish. Major tells them that there will soon be a revolution within the animals on the farm. Major didn t live too much longer, but was correct in foreseeing the future of the farm, which Jones owned and operated.

In the beginning the dreams of the animals was to create a society of animals in which all of the animals are created equal. There dreams which they felt were possible to accomplish were not that far off in the future. Weeks later the animals revolted and chased Jones from the farm along with his wife. Now that they had Jones out of the house they were free to run the farm the way the animals see fit. They had a motto in the early days of the revolution that was started on animal farm; four legs good, two legs bad. The animals decided that all of them would have to come together to help one another and create a list of commandments. The animals created a list of seven commandments in which all the animals on the farm were to obey. The most important of these commandments were that all animals are created equal and in short, no animal was to act as a human. In the beginning of their occupation of animal farm everyone on the farm did their fair share of work and everyone got along with one another. All of the animals still did most the work that they used to do, except now they were working for themselves instead of Jones. The animals worked harder than ever since the fate of themselves depended on how much they harvested and the fields they plowed.

At one point Jones decided that he was going to try to take the farm back by storm. Jones and some men came through the front gate wielding a gun and some of the men carried sticks. The group of men decided that they would head straight for the cow shed and starts from there taking the farm back. When they got to the cowshed there was a great ambush that was planned by the animals. All the animals, great and small, began to attack the men in any way they could. Boxer, who was a mighty horse that kicked and jumped all over the men, headed the brunt of the onslaught. When the men knew that their efforts were useless they fled back the way they had originally come.

Later on a division started to occur, the pigs began to see themselves being above the other animals in intelligence. This really didn t affect any animals at this time. The main animals in this were Napoleon and Snowball who each had different ideas of what should be done on the farm, and how to go about doing it. Snowball, a small boar, had an idea to build a windmill that would help cut the animals work down to three days a week. Napoleon said that it was an absurd idea and would never work. Napoleon, who was a rather cunning little pig, said that the animals needed to work as hard as possible so that they would have enough food for the winter. When Napoleon realized that Snowball was gonna oppose him, he knew he had to do something about that. Napoleon had been teaching puppies, whom he had taken away from their mother at an early age. At the next weekly meeting that all the animals had Napoleon set the dogs loose which he had trained to be his bodyguard. The dogs chased Snowball out the front gate, and Snowball was never seen again. At this point Napoleon begins to take control of the farm.

After Snowball s dismissal, Napoleon decides that he wants to build the windmill that Snowball had already drawn up plans for. He steals Snowball s plans and begins immediate construction on the windmill. At this point, Napoleon begins to distance himself from the rest of the animals and begins to take up quarters inside Jones house, which was strictly forbidden at the beginning of the rebellion. All the animals don t know quite what to make of this new event. The other animals are told by another pig that it s all right that he stays in the house and that he is breaking no rules, and the animals agree. Napoleon throughout the book brainwashes the other animals into being servants for him and the other pigs on the farm. All the animals, except for the pigs, work harder than ever on the farm.

The windmill is finally built, which takes close to two years. Not long after it is built it is said that Snowball sabotaged it and tore it down. The other animals go along with this, because they think Napoleon is always right and never lies. The real muscle on the farm, Boxer, never seems to quit and always works as hard as he can only stopping to say two things; Napoleon is always right and I will work harder . The pigs decide that another windmill must be built and that now the animals must work harder than ever if they want to get all their daily chores done along with getting the windmill completed.

Napoleon and the rest of the pigs are now acting stranger and stranger. The pigs, which have now secluded themselves inside the house from the rest of the animals, do no work at all. The pigs begin giving daily assignments as to what is expected from every animal on the farm. Now almost all of the rules that were first set out in the early days of the rebellion have been broken or changed to suit the pigs fancy. The commandments, which used to be on the wall, were now changed to different words so that the pigs could do no wrong. In the animal farm now there was drinking, killing, and outside contact with humans.

Towards the end of the book, Napoleon becomes a dictator who runs the farm with an iron fist. Anyone who goes against Napoleon is dealt with by death. The animals though still don t see what is happening, they think that it is all for the good of the farm. All the other animals believe anything that comes out of the pig s mouth. Because now the pigs know that they can lie and manipulate words to suit whatever the moment might be. Napoleon even sold Boxer to the slaughterhouse just to be able to get money for the farm. The pigs become to act the exact way that Jones had acted, which was the reason for the rebellion. They start to have human contacts, which they trade and do business, which was unheard of in the early days.

At the end of the book, the animals begin to see the ways of pigs and the deception that they were doing. The animals catch the pigs and the humans inside the house with alcohol and they were playing cards. The pigs had on clothes, and were dressed like humans. At this point the animals begin to look back and fourth between the humans and the pigs, and start to see that there is no difference in the two.