Power Corrupts

10/27/10

Animal Farm - Power Corrupts

“You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again” (Aleksander Solzhenitsyn). This quote is saying that people gain power by taking almost all of it and leaving people with just a little bit, so that they are still in power. If you took everything from someone you wouldn’t be able to control him or her because they would feel free. In Animal Farm Napoleon takes away almost everything from the animals, but leaves them with just a little bit of hope to keep them going. This keeps Napoleon with all the power. George Orwell’s purpose for writing Animal Farm was to demonstrate how the use of power could be very positive in the beginning but that too much power in the hands of few can gradually devastate a community.

Old Major had a lot of power in the beginning of Animal Farm but used it in a positive way. Old major had given a speech to turn the animal’s emotions into a rebellion. “Old Major was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say” (Orwell 15). This shows that he used his power of respect and trust to persuade the animals to follow the vision in his dream. His vision was for the Earth to be ruled by animals. Old major said, “Man is the only enemy we have” (Orwell 19). Old Major thinks that if humans didn’t rule animals they would be free, happy, fed well, and treated with dignity. Everything Old Major had been saying inspired the animals into taking action. Unfortunately old Major had died and new leaders would come in, which led to a negative downfall of Animal farm.

Towards the middle of the book Snowball and Napoleon shared power that had positive and negative effects. A positive effect was that they still treated the animals fairly good. Snowball and Napoleon were busy focusing on settling...