There are the infamous examples of Stalin and Hitler in history in which someone
takes abuse of power for their own personal gain. George Orwell emphasizes this
idea of the abuse of power through animals in his novel Animal Farm. The
characters of Napoleon, Squealer, the dogs, and Boxer all symbolize important
types of people in the making and breaking of a revolution. Animal Farm contains
the theme that there will always be some group of people who will contaminate an
idealistic revolution for their own gain. The main character in Animal Farm who
takes advantage of the stupider animals and completely ruins the Revolution is
Napoleon, a pig. Napoleon loves power and chases away another pig with power,
Snowball, so he can be the sole ruler. Napoleon symbolizes the people of the
world who will do anything to be in control. One especially famous example of
this type of person is the character Macbeth from William Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Macbeth murdered the king, killed innocent people, and sacrificed his morals in
order to become king. This type of person is needed in order for an idealistic
revolution to be corrupted. Through the character of Napoleon, George Orwell
emphasizes that there will always be someone willing to commit heinous deeds in
order to become leader, dictator, or tyrant The pigs of the farm are much
smarter then the rest of the barn animals and take up the job as the
"thinkers" and "planners." The other animals are the
"workers" and diligently believe anything the pigs tell them. The
abuse of power begins when they notice that the apples and milk start
disappearing. Sqealer, the public speaker pig, explains this to the worker
animals: You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of
selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I
dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our
health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain
substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are
brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us.
Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we
drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs
failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! (p52)
This is only the only the beginning, as the pigs keep taking more for themselves
and leaving less for the rest of the animals. Eventually the worker animals are
worse of then when they were with Mr. Jones. They are worked to death and on the
verge of starvation because of the greed of the pigs. Orwell uses this suffering
as an example of the extent some people will go to for personal gain. As any
reader can see, Squealer had an important part in this process. Squealer
symbolizes the public relations man who will say anything to get what he wants -
kind of like a lawyer. Squealer is the most handy with words and can convince
the worker animals of anything. He is even able to continually convince them
that they remember things wrong. Squealer alters the past to the convenience of
his idol, Napoleon. A "squealer" is needed for any man or animals rise
to power, to brainwash the public into believing their leader is god. Orwell
uses the character of Squealer to prove that there will always be a group of
people who take a Revolution and corrupt it for their own personal gain. And
then there are the dogs. Early in the novel , while Snowball is working on
literacy for the entire farm, Napoleon steals some puppies sand raises them to
be his guard dogs. The dogs symbolizes the "Secret Police" or law
enforces that are needed to force the animal workers, or public, to do as the
leader demands. The dogs are responsible for Napoleons rise to power. They look
up to him as an master: It was noticed that they wagged their tails to him as
the other dogs had been used to do to Mr. Jones. (p68) The dogs are also the
type of people who can be easily brainwashed into believing that their master is
God. They are the ones who do the dirty work. It is partly the terrorism of the
dogs that rule the animals. Orwell uses these dogs to convince the reader that
there are these types of people out there who will use force to work towards the
corruption of an idealistic revolution. Boxer is an important character in the
novel. He is a not very bright old cart horse whose answer to any problem is
"I will work harder." Boxer is known for saying "If Comrade
Napoleon said it, then it must be right." He symbolizes all the people in
the world whose blind faith allow their leader to take advantage of them. Boxer
believed in the "cause" but was innocent at heart. There are always
simple people who know nothing else but to follow a leader. The pigs arrange for
Boxer to be taken to a glue factory once he is no longer of any use. This is
Orwell's example of the abuse of the innocent. Orwell uses the character of
Boxer to emphasize that these types of loyal and self-sacrificing people will
always be willing to follow their leader to the end, making it easier for a
revolution to be corrupted with personal gain. Animal Farm contains many
characters which symbolize the types of people willing to corrupt a revolution
for their own personal gain. This has been proven in many instances throughout
history and other novels. Orwell chose to prove this through the simple story of
barnyard animals, making it easy for everyone to understand his ideas. In
conclusion, there are always going to be the power-hungry, the weak and strong,
the followers and the leaders, and those willing to go to any extreme in order
to be in achieve inner profit.