Examples Of Power And Control In Animal Farm By George Orwell

Power and control drives people to do irrational things. Once someone gets a taste of power, they realize the control that they have and they start to abuse power. In the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell, this is shown when Napoleon realizes how easily he can control the farm and how quickly he starts to mistreat the other animals. While Napoleon is wrong for taking control like that, the other animals make it easier on him. They believe that Napoleon is doing the best thing for all of them, when he is serving his own interests. They believe everything that Squealer tells them, without trying to make their own minds up. The pigs, along with Benjamin, are the only animals on the farm that can read well, and this is a huge disadvantage to …show more content…
He often twists stories around to make Napoleon seem like a hero. If Napoleon ever does something that the other animals do not like, all it takes is Squealer to convince them that Napoleon is doing the right thing. The animals accept everything that Squealer tells them without trying to make their own mind up. The first example in the book of this is when the animals find out that the milk and apples are being consumed by the pigs, and Squealer tells his comrades, “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? . . . Milk and apples contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig . . . It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples” (Orwell 35-36). By saying this, it makes the pigs look selfless when they actually only care about themselves. The animals believe everything Squealer says, and do not make up their own …show more content…
Benjamin can also read, but he is too bitter to care most of the time, which leaves the other animals at an unfair disadvantage. Not only were the animals illiterate, they also did not have good memories, which results in the pigs changing the commandments without them noticing. When they do think something is off, they put it aside because they think they are wrong. An example of this is shown in the text when it reads, “But a few days later Muriel, reading over the Seven Commandments to herself, noticed that there was yet another of them which the animals had remembered wrong” (Orwell 109). She, along with the other animals, assumes that they remember it wrong, when in reality, they do not notice the change because the majority cannot read. The other animals being illiterate is one of the several reasons why the pigs are able to take control of the farm so