Power In George Orwell's Animal Farm

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What do your family members, teachers, friends, and national leaders all have in common? All of these people have some type of power over you and your life. Power is the ability to make change happen and can be used in either a positive or negative way, which is a theme thoroughly explored in George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, a clever allegory of the Russian Revolution that started in 1917. One quote from Animal Farm that lends to this claim is “Is it not crystal clear, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings?” (Orwell, 9). This is said by Old Major. He is an older pig that has lived with Farmer Jones on the Manor Farm for his entire life and represents Karl Marx, the founder of communism.…show more content…
Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint (....). They had thought the 5th commandment was “No animal shall drink alcohol,” but there were 2 words that they had forgotten. Actually the commandment read: “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.” (Orwell, 108-109) Here, Squealer is found to be changing the original 7 commandments (the ones that the animals agreed to never break) so that Napoleon and the pigs can do whatever they want without consequence. At this point in Animal Farm, the pigs make all of the changes on the farm, including secret changes to the commandments. This ability to cause change is power, but in this scenario it is being used negatively. It takes advantage of the less intelligent animals and lets the pigs have all of the control over the farm. Squealer is used to satirize how the communist government in Russia controlled the information the citizens receive, which made it easier for them to be controlled. Control of information is something that shows up in our lives, as
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