Animal Farm
Animal Farm by George Orwell is an animalistic adaptation of the struggle between Tolstoy and Stalin in the early 20th Century within the Soviet Union. Power and authority can be gained, maintained and lost all of these three things happen in the novel.
The pigs on the farm Snowball, Napoleon & Squealer gained power by using persuasion techniques and being the smartest animals on the farm. At the start of the novel Old-Major gave a very persuading speech about how all the animals should rise up against the humans and how good life would be if they were freed from the humans. This gave the Snowball, Napoleon and Squealer a head start in gaining power. The pigs also used manipulation others to gain power; they used this on all the animals on the farm besides them selves. Propaganda was also used to gain power through out Animal Farm.
The pigs maintained power and authority over most of the rebellion and they achieved this by teaching and helping the other animals on the farm. Even though the pigs never worked. The pigs made up the “Seven Commandants” which acted like the rules of the farm. Some of the commandants are: Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend, No animal shall drink alcohol, No animal shall kill any other animal. The pigs could not maintain power for long though.
The pigs lost power and authority when they disobeyed all of the seven commandants such as when the changed “all animals are equal” to “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others” and when they changed “No animal shall drink alcohol” to “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess” which resulted in Snowball, Napoleon and Squealer getting drunk most weekends and making the pigs the most important animals on the farm. They also lost power and authority when they lied to hide the fact they turned boxer into glue when he broke his leg.
Overall, Animal Farm is power struggle, likened to the soviet unions power struggle between Tolstoy and Stalin. By using persuasion techniques the pigs gained power and authority. The pigs maintained power and authority by using the seven commandants to enforce rules. The pigs lost power for a short time for misusing their power by disobeying the seven commandants.
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