Dictatorship In Animal Farm

The 1946 novel Animal Farm by George Orwell is famous for its metaphorical critiques on dictatorships, and is specifically comparable to the events in Russia after the rebellion against the Romanov empire thirty years prior. However, another dictatorship could also be easily compared to Orwell’s book; modern-day North Korea shares many common traits of dictatorship with Animal Farm. In the story of Animal Farm, the animals of the Manor Farm lived under the care of the alcoholic farmer, Mr. Jones, until an old pig prophesies rebellion against the farmer, whom he convinces the other farm animals to be a slaveholder who gives no products in return. After the old pig dies, the philosophy of Rebellion is preached by two pigs: Snowball, the idealist, and Napoleon, the dictator. From early on, it is foreshadowed that Snowball is attempting to innovate for the better of the farm, with ideas such as the windmill and the three-day work week, and Napoleon is blatantly attempting only to better conditions for himself. Eventually, Napoleon raises a fierce brigade of ferocious dogs, and chases Snowball off of the farm. With Napoleon being the only pig …show more content…
As shown in both the film and the novel, the two dictators have taken the time to rewrite their respective histories. In Animal Farm, Napoleon has his propaganda-spreading yes-man, Squealer, proclaim several lies, even if the animals had been at the event in question. For example, in Chapter 7, Squealer had released “new information” that Snowball had been a spy for Jones since the very beginning at Animal Farm. Similarly, in “Life Inside the North Korean Bubble”, Kim Jong-Il had denied access to the World Wide Web, and instead had a secure “Intranet” in place of a small collection of articles that verified false history, as well as convinced his entire military of a bloody, yet victorious, battle against the United