Corruption In Animal Farm Essay Example

Control and Freedom is something that everyone wants, but if given to the wrong people can be misused. This idea was shown in Geogre Orwell’s novel Animal Farm. George Orwell's novel Animal Farm illustrates this idea with its portrayal of farm animals rebelling against their owners and creating an animal government. The animals focus on this idea of freedom throughout the novel. As a result of most of the farm animals' ignorance, the pigs, who are the intelligent ones, manipulate the farm to gain power and control. As they gain more power, the pigs become increasingly greedy, leading to Animal Farm's corruption. And although ignorance and power hoarding led to the farm’s corruption, the animal’s manipulation was the most influential in the corruption of Animal Farm.

One factor that led to the corruption of Animal Farm was the other animal’s ignorance. This factor was clearly shown after the animals caught Squealer changing the rules. For example,  “None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant,”(108-109). Even after the animals caught Squealer changing the 7 commandments again in order to cover up the fact that by the pigs drinking alcohol they went against them, the animals still couldn’t comprehend what they just saw which allowed the pigs to once again outsmart the animals. Another factor that led to the corruption of Animal Farm was manipulation. Using the animal’s ignorance to their advantage, the pigs manipulated them whenever they caught the pigs doing something wrong, or whenever they needed to cover up something. For instance, “He assured them that the resolution against engaging in trade and using money had never been passed, or even suggested. It was pure imagination, probably traceable in the beginning to lies circulated by Snowball.”(64). Instead of allowing the animals to find fault in their methods, the pigs manipulated the pigs memory making them think that there was no resolution passed against trade and by them trading with humans is perfectly fine. The last factor that contributed to the corruption of Animal Farm is power-hoarding behavior. As the pigs gained more power they became more greedy and selfish, which eventually led them to feel that they were better than the other animals. An example being, “About this time, too, it was laid down as a rule that when a pig and any other animal met on the path, the other animal met on the path the other animal must stand aside”(114). The pigs are showing power-hoarding behavior through them feeling as if they were better than everyone else.

Even though ignorance and power hoarding behavior contributed to Animal Farm’s corruption, manipulation was the most influential factor. Through the pigs' manipulation they were able to convince the other animals that they were most concerned with their well being which allowed them to gain support and therefore more power. An example of this, “Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades,” cried Squealer”(36). In this quote Squealer says multiple things he used to manipulate the animals. First he says “Day and night we are watching over your welfare”, in this part of the quote Squealer is pretending to be concerned about the animals and is only thinking about their best interest which can be extremely helpful when trying to gain someone’s support. Another thing he says “Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones will come back!”, here we see Squealer put fear in the animals making it seem that instead of the pigs getting more food because the pigs are greedy they are getting more food so that they can protect the animals from Jones. Another example of the pigs using manipulation to their advantage was when Napoleon had used the dogs to drive Snowball out and then declared himself leader while the pigs used Squealer to manipulate the animals so they wouldn’t realize what the pigs were actually doing. An example “He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should be?”(55). In this quote Squealer again convinces the animals that by the pigs gaining more they’re main focus and concern is the other animals. This allows him and the other pigs to manipulate the other animals into thinking that they can’t be dependent without the pigs because they may make the wrong decision.

While it is true that the animals' ignorance made them oblivious to clear signs of the pigs becoming dictators and the pigs' power hoarding behavior being the reason the farm never became truly free. Because of the pig’s being able to manipulate the other animals were the factors of ignorance and power hoarding behavior to play a part. As shown in the text,  “If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal”(78). In this quote we see the result of Squealer’s previous time of manipulating the animals into using Snowball as a scapegoat for everything that went wrong with the farm. Here we see that due to the pigs' manipulation the animals became ignorant to the fact that Snowball wasn’t actually doing any of those things on the farm. And because of the pig’s manipulation and the animal’s ignorance the pigs were able to gain more control over the animals, since they went along with everything the pigs had to say.

In conclusion, although ignorance and power hoarding behavior were two major factors in the corruption of Animal Farm manipulation was the most influential since it allowed the pigs to change the animals way of thinking. This idea can be related back to the world today where we see political leaders sort of manipulate people to vote for them by making promises that they know the people would support so that they can gain more power. Which perfectly matches a quote from David Icke where he says “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."