Animal Farm - Propaganda

George Orwell is warning his readers about the dangers of powerful governing bodies. He is illustrating the social destruction and corruption that is sure to occur when a ruling class is allowed to manipulate the large naïve majority. He warns readers to never be too trusting of authority figures and to always be questioning and on-guard to policies that seem to contradict the best interests of the populace. Orwell warns against giving too much power to leaders. The pigs were given way too much supremacy. Napoleon was so honored that they adopted the phrase "Napoleon is always right." Doing this gave Napoleon the right to do basically whatever he wanted. The pigs were allowed the break all the commandments they had set. They ate all the good food and drink while the other animals went hungry. The laborers like Boxer said things like, "I'll work harder", only so that the pigs could waste more resources and food. Orwell also warns against investing lots of time and effort in foolish schemes. The animals wasted way too much time building windmills when they should have been harvesting crops for food. They toiled and worked to exhaustion on a project that they accepted too eagerly. The animals never questioned the necessity for a windmill, they only jumped at the false promises and the visions of unrealistic conveniences. The windmills were a complete waste of time and did more harm than good. Most importantly, Orwell is warning people against ignorance and credulousness. Education was definitely the real advantage that the pigs had. It makes you feel sorry for the other hard working foolish animals when they can't see through the pigs and realize they are being duped. Squealer is able to change the commandments, feed them phony statistics, and even change events from the Battle of Cowshed.

Shear human nature, or in this case animal nature, causes power to inevitably lead to corruption.

TWO: Bad citizenry can enable bad government to