Abuse Of Power In Animal Farm By George Orwell

In Animal Farm by George Orwell, farm animals decide that they have had enough and decide to overthrow the humans that own them and the farm. This resulted in the animals making up a way of living called animalism and making the rules of animalism their own set of commandments. The pigs were first and fast to assume power. Over time they abused their power and changed the commandments, the pigs corrupted the power they withheld.

The pigs were first to recognize the power of knowledge and used it to manipulate the other animals. “The work of teaching and organising the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally recognised as being the cleverest of all animals.”(15) The morning of the hay harvest, the pigs secured their leadership by surprisingly revealing to the other animals that “during the past three months they had taught themselves to read and write.”(23) With the education, they intend to gain power and therefore, keep the knowledge to themselves.

Napoleon did this by announcing “From now on the Sunday-morning Meetings would come to an end. ... In future, all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs.”(54) Napoleon finished up by telling the animals that “There would be no more debates.”(54) Napoleon announcing this shows that he is silencing the others in order to keep the power all to himself. This means that Napoleon will be making all of the decisions. Some of the animals noticed that this wasn’t right but because of their lack of education they didn’t know how. “Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.”(54) Their lack of education was keeping them from getting what they wanted to be