The Role Of Napoleon In George Orwell's Animal Farm

“Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power” (William Gaddis). This quote describes the leadership of Napoleon in Animal Farm because as a leader, he was dishonest to the animals in order to do what he wanted without their consent and was using his power to his advantage. The book Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, is about the Russian Revolution that began on March 8, 1917. It was a revolution in Russia that dismantled Czar Nicholas II and established the Soviet Union. In Animal Farm, it has many references to what occurred in the revolution such as the hens rebelling, the public executions that were led by Napoleon, and the trade between Frederick and Napoleon. In order to know how the events in Animal Farm compare to Russian

Revolution, one must go deeper into the topics.

To begin with, Napoleon wanted to sell four hundred eggs a week in order to buy supplies for the farm.

Earlier in the book, Old Major, a boar who died in his sleep, had a speech in which he complained about the humans focusing on the cruelty of egg selling. After that day, they stopped the selling of eggs until now. The hens thought that Napoleon was not following the rules of a leader, so they rebelled. When they were to lay eggs, they laid them in the rafters in order to smash the eggs on the floor. Napoleon made a rule that said if any animal were to be seen feeding the hens, they would be killed. As a result, nine hens died and the five day strike came to an end. This event is an allegory to when Stalin asked farmers for some crops because they were running out of it. The farmers declined, and Stalin did the same as Napoleon and told everyone to not feed them. Nine farmers died during the protest, and soon enough, the strike ended. In this allegory, the hens were being deceived because Napoleon took their eggs, and the farmers were being deceived because Stalin was taking their crops. Although this seemed as if this was the last animal killing event on the farm, the animals did not know what hit them after many

days.

Another comparison that is used was Napoleon blaming all of the animal’s problems on Snowball, a previous candidate that was running to be leader of the farm against Napoleon, but was forced out by Napoleon’s dogs. Some of the many problems were stealing their corn, milking the cows in their sleep, and stealing their store-shed key and throwing it down a well. Napoleon made animals falsely accuse themselves with working in public and killed them while everyone watched. The purpose of the killing was to instill fear throughout the animals who survived because he thought that that was a way to keep them controlled. Stalin also killed many of his citizens in Soviet Union in order to instill fear into others to make them follow him. Although it may seem like the Russian Revolution and Animal Farm both compare in killing their people, there were other events that took place.

Napoleon wanted to sell some timber from Mr. Jones’s time since the animals were not using it. He wanted to negotiate the sale with either Mr. Pilkington or Mr. Frederick. When the odds of selling the timber was to Mr. Frederick, they were taught to hate Mr. Pilkington. When Mr. Pilkington was ready to buy the timber, they were then taught to hate Mr. Frederick. Soon enough, Mr. Frederick was the one to buy the timber and gave Snowball money exchange for it. When the animals finished the windmill that was going to do their tasks for them, he wanted to buy supplies for it with that money, but figured out it was fake money. Soon enough, Mr. Frederick attacked the animals with armed men. He and his men planted dynamite in the windmill and blew it up. The animals were enraged at the destruction of their hard work, so they started to attack, and the men retreated. This compares to when the Soviet wanted to sign a non-German political alliance with France and German, but turned them down and signed a non-aggression pact to keep peace for 10 years with Hitler instead. After two years occurred, Stalin’s spies told him that Hitler was going to break the peace by attacking them. Stalin did not believe them, but soon enough, millions of German troops were storming Soviet Union.

All-in-all, Animal Farm is a short novel using animals in order to illustrate a picture of the Russian Revolution to the audience. George Orwell explained the importance of it in an authentic way. Through Orwell’s description of the Russian revolution through farm animals, he made many allusions to Stalin through Napoleon. Many events like the hens rebelling, public executions, and the trade between Napoleon and Mr. Frederick were allegories to the main events that occurred in Russia. Although there were many other key events that also occurred, he masterfully elaborated on the most significant events.