After reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the class was given the assignment to analyze and write about an aspect of Animal Farm. I chose to focus on the main antagonist, Napoleon, and a conversation we had in class about corruption and power. In my paragraph, I question if Napoleon’s corruption was caused by the power he gained or if he had been corrupt back when the farm was ruled by humans.
Earlier in the semester, we had done some work on synthesizing and analyzing, so I had the techniques and format from that to follow. In years before, I had been taught the importance of paragraph formatting, using an introduction and conclusion and evidence to support my information. Both of these skills played a large roll in the writing of this paragraph. During a novel study, I had been asked to look at human nature, and part of that was looking at corruption, so when I got to writing the paragraph I already had an idea of where I wanted it to go and what to focus on.
The real challenge with this assignment was deciding what to write about and what the main idea should be. I considered focusing on the cycle of dictators and other topics for hours. I asked my English teacher for help and some of my peers before settling on corruption. I’d say I restarted the paragraph three times before I got into the flow of it, but once I did, the paragraph itself only took 10 minutes or so to write.
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Does Power Corrupt? By Nicole Barry
Despite how prominent the topics of corruption, power, and manipulation are in Animal Farm, the question of whether power corrupted Napoleon is still a mystery. Animal Farm, a novel by George Orwell, is about farm animals who rebel against their cruel human master, hoping to achieve freedom and happiness. From the time Jones was expelled from the farm to the end of the novel, the leadership and conditions on the farm seem to have come full circle. By the last page, Napoleon the pig had the animals working harder with less food than any other farm in England and had broken all 7 of the original commandments. In fact, Napoleon had become so much like the humans the animals once rebelled against, that the narrator says, “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.” (Orwell, 1945, Pg. 93) Napoleon had become completely corrupt, abandoning the animal’s values and abusing his power. A question I did not feel was answered in Animal Farm was whether Napoleon had been corrupted after he reached a position of power or if he was like that before the rebellion had even begun. “Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker but with a reputation for getting how own way.” (Orwell, 1945, Pg. 9) If Napoleon had a reputation for getting his own way before the rebellion, perhaps his greed, selfishness, and ambition always lay under the surface, and were simply inflated when he saw the chance to seize control. Or maybe Napoleon had just been clever and once he got a taste of power, he changed and was eventually completely corrupt. “And finally, there was a tremendous baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gamboling around him. He carried a whip in his trotter.” (Pg. 87) Whether Napoleon’s greed for power started before or after he made himself a figure of authority, Napoleon became a dictator using manipulation and fear. He abandoned the commandments, practically becoming human. The time of Jones was something Napoleon used to keep the animal in line, but by the end, Jones’s era may have in fact been the same, if not better. It may even be that Napoleon’s reign is worse because his betrayal of animal kind.