Napoleon's Abuse Of Power In Animal Farm

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the animals of a farm took over the farm and run it by themselves. Well in the book animal farm, that is exactly what happens. After the animals kick out the farmer and his employees, they create seven commandments to live by. Unfortunately, the proclaimed leader of the farm, a pig named Napoleon, and the other pigs and the dogs abuse their power and break the seven commandments. If the farm had set up a system of checks and balances to limit the pigs power like in the US constitution, they could have stopped Napoleon from using his power to kill other animals, drinking alcohol, and from changing the commandments. One of the worst things that Napoleon does in the book is he has other animals on the farm …show more content…
Whenever the pigs or dogs break a commandment, Napoleon has Squealer the pig slightly change one of the commandments written on the end of the barn. For example, when the pigs start to drink alcohol, the fifth commandment that originally stated that “No animal shall drink alcohol” (George Orwell, 25) is changed so that it states “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess” (George Orwell, 109). In this instance and many others, Napoleon uses the other animals bad memory and the pig's ability to write to change the law so that the pigs never break it, even though they actually do. The worst part is that at the end of the book, all the commandments are erased and replaced with the sentence “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (George Orwell, 134). This means that Napoleon got rid of all the laws and made it so that the other animals cannot question his actions with factual evidence that he did anything wrong. If the animals had created checks to Napoleon's power, they could have, once again, impeached him for changing the law without permission from the legislative