Animal Farm Analysis
| Subject: | 📚 Literature |
| Type: | Analytical Essay |
| Pages: | 3 |
| Word count: | 884 |
| Topics: | Animal Farm, ✔️ Political Science, Donald Trump, French Revolution, 📗 Book |
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Animal Farm is a political satire written by George Orwell about animals living on a farm where they go through hardship under the owners watch. They later get the idea to start a rebellion from their old friend Major who wanted a better life for the animals. This paper discusses the characters in the book comparing them to modern day political figures in Trumps administration.
In the book, Napoleon is enlightened by the wise words of old Major and agrees to take part in the rebellion becoming one of its leaders. After a successful rebellion, he then starts to take over the running of the farm. He is power hungry and gets what he wants by controlling others and instilling fear in them until they agree to his needs. He is a tyrant and will stop at nothing to get what he wants and because of this he commits many crimes against the other animals on the farm stealing form them and killing some in the process. His actions seem no different from those of the farm owner Mr. Jones who they ran off the farm during the rebellion. In the book, Napoleon can be likened to President Donald Trump. During the election campaign, Trump convinces the people that he is ready to make many changes in the government that people will applaud to and be satisfied with. Since he joined office, he has demonstrated that he is only after his own interests and what he thinks America should look like. He imposed a ban on Muslim immigration in the country; he has gone on to enter into a disagreement with Rex Tillerson, who was initially appointed as the Secretary of State, about key issues relating to nuclear energy, and climate change. Later they have even called each other names in front of the media which led to the replacement of Tillerson by Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director. He has also made remarks in public about Africa and other countries and has refused to apologize, showing that he does not care and respect people from other nations.
Snowball is also a leader during the rebellion and later becomes one of Napoleon’s partners in running the farm. He understands old Major’s wish to have the animals living peacefully and practicing equality on the farm and due to this he devotes much of his time to helping around in the farm to make it a better place. He helps the animals become literate so they could be in a position to understand the philosophies of the farm on equality. He helps in the drawing of complicated plans intended for the construction of a windmill but he too is chased away from the farm where he is accused of being a thief. He can be compared to Rex Tillerson, the former Secretary of State of the United States. Tilerson got into a disagreement with Trump about key issues that needed proper governance so as not to trigger more problems in the future, such as nuclear weapons and climate change. He also opposed the ban introduced by Trump and this, amongst many other matters, indicated that he wanted better lives for the people but he could not see eye to eye with the president and was later removed from the team just like Snowball was chased away by the use of power. Comparing Tilerson to Snowball, we find that he was not at fault but since Trump could not have his way, he thought it better to remove him from office and add someone else who was more agreeable to his line of thought and actions.
Squealer is Napoleon’s right hand man. He is able to manipulate other animals to do Napoleon’s bidding by convincing them through rhetorics (Fukuyama, 2011). Every time Napoleon does something that the animals start to question, he is always there to convince them that it is in their best interests and that they should believe in him, since he is trying to make the farm a better place. An example of it is when the animals ask why their apples and milk are being stolen and in return Squealer explains to them that the food contains substances that are essential to the survival of the pigs and hence only they must consume these items. He can be likened to President Trump’s right hand man who is always there to explain some of Trumps actions and convince the people that he is looking after their interests.
Comparing these three animals we see that each has their own role to play but the dominating characters use power to coerce others into doing their will. Some are eager to help the farm change for the better and put in a lot of work to assist while some forget about the purpose of the rebellion and take matters into their own hands. These characters are alike in that they all wanted to bring about change in the beginning but later own their own philosophies were corrupted by others on the farm who wanted to have power at the expense of their fellow animals.
- Fukuyama, F. (2011). The origins of political order: From prehuman times to the French Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Orwell, G. (2010). Animal farm (Vol. 31). Random House.
Offered for reference purposes only.