Animal Farm Novel Essay

1. Animal Farm Essay
As a satire and allegory of Russian Revolution, Animal Farm helps us determine
and reflect all the different lessons learnt in different parts of the book. The
lessons that I could pick out were politics, corruption due to power/absolute
power, equality- more equal when the system is corrupted, propaganda used for
convincing and also when someone receives absolute power, it is not going to
the good of the people but to oneself only. The 3 lessons I am going to focus on in
this essay is when power is given, then that power is only used to defend oneself
only and not to the good of the public, absolute power creates absolute
corruption and propaganda is used to help cover up. These 3 lessons most
affecting the scenes happening in the book, because after Napoleon gets absolute
power, he gets corrupted which leads him to changing everything to back
himself up. So all these lessons have connection with each other.
The first lesson gives us a detailed idea that when absolute power is given to one
only then that power is not used for the public’s good but for oneself only. This is
normally is to give oneself luxury and strength over others. It relates to when
Napoleon gains the authority over the farm after driving Snowball out and only
looks out for his own benefits. Another example is when the Squealer is
convincing the animals that pigs have to eat apples and drink milk is for
everyone’s good, because its scientifically proven that it contains substances
absolute necessary for the well-being of a pig. So in this case the pigs/Napoleon
are misusing the power they are given to make sure they have all their desired
substance and are treated and fed like Kings. This lesson is important because its
true when a person gains too much power, its first use it to make sure he is
happy and satisfied. His desire can never stop and can do things, which would be
harmful for the people in order to get what he wants. For example when
Napoleon took away those dogs from Jessie and Bluebell, it could have been for
the sake of protection from humans but instead those dogs were trained and
used to help out Napoleon get his way. While on the other side Squealer on was
one of Napoleon’s treasured tools to get animals to believe that he is right and to
obey his orders.
As absolute power creates absolute corruption, Napoleon and his pigs got
corrupted as they held the title of supremacy in the farm. To maintain their
popularity with the other animals in the farm they had to change some of the
rules so they wouldn’t be accused of breaking the Seven Commandments, but
this was done with secrecy with the help of Squealer who was intelligent and
good with words. The new modified version of Seven Commandments is “No
animal shall drink alcohol to excess”, “No animals shall sleep in bed with sheets”,
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. But then
the most important of all “Four legs good and two legs better!” stated that the
pigs have gotten to become more like humans than they were before. This lesson
is considered to be important because looking at Napoleon after he had gotten
absolute power started to change everything around to get to his own way and

2. become “the” one who controls everything, whereas the animals are treated like
slaves because of their incapability to understand and change Napoleon’s plans.
Squealer as Napoleon’s right hand and minister has power over rhetoric and
convincing the animals to believe in Napoleon’s corrupted plans.
Squealer who is the “back-up” pig for Napoleon uses rhetoric to convince
animals that Napoleon is always right. He uses propaganda to cover up all holes
in their plan for example in the beginning Squealer uses propaganda to explain
to animals that if pigs don’t consume apple and milk then who would think for
their safety and then Mr. Jones would come back. In this propaganda was used so
the pigs would have apples and milk instead of other animals and again was used
for ones selfishness. This is another important lesson learned in Animal Farm,
because propaganda’s aim is to make someone believe something in particular, it
can be in both good and bad ways. But in Animal Farm propaganda is only used
to back Napoleon up so his reputation is still maintained.
In conclusion, those lessons are most important lessons because they shape the
story and also because if those lessons were not followed then every politics
would not be politics and it would be all clean. Again if that were possible then
there wouldn’t need to be a person titled as President and etc. The 3 lessons
focused on were when power is given, then that power is only used for oneself
only and not to the good of the public, absolute power creates absolute
corruption and propaganda is used to help cover up.If these lessons weren’t
there then Russian Revolution wouldn’t have shaped up.