Power In George Orwell's Animal Farm

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Animal Farm is quite simply, a tale of rebellion and the corruption of authority. The story takes place on a farm which remains the principal backdrop for the entirety of this mockery of a fairy tale. The rebellion and its consequences serve as the main conflict as the animals contentedly suffer through the corruption of their leaders and push away their suspicions. The author does a marvelous job of showing the reader what power can do to someone even if their intentions were once honourable. In his novel Animal Farm, Orwell develops the idea that the influence of power can twist an individual's beliefs and corrupt their intentions until they are utterly inimical and unrecognizable from what they once were. To remain uncorrupted and pure…show more content…
It can inspire people, give them hope and a leader to follow in the darkest of times, giving them the courage to do what’s right because in the end they will have no doubt that they’ll be safe once it’s over. However it will also, more often than not, instill fear in people, making them despair in their own incapacity to do anything of note and bringing their own terrible weakness into the light for all to see, ingraining a deep resentment in them for the culpable. Power brings out the best or worst in someone, testing their morals, will and determination to take what they have and use it for good. In the story Animal Farm, Napoleon is intoxicated by it, taking advantage of the trust his people have in him and abusing it, manipulating the laws and his people for his own gain. The pigs fall prey to it after seeing the apples, clothes, beds, milk and countless little that gifts that were bestowed upon them as a supposed reward and believing it to be their right to receive such gifts while the rest of society suffers. Power can have an enormous amount of influence over someone, persuading them to give in and bask in its glorious rays of delusional strength and once-noble
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