Power Corruption In Animal Farm

Examples of Power Corruption in Animal Farm

Power corrupt is shown in the book Animal Farm by George Orwell in the ways that the pigs govern the farm; by putting themselves in a higher social class than the other animals, shaping the rules in their favor, and using fear as means of control. A famous quote by famous British historian Lord Acton states "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely", meaning someone's morals decrease as they gain more power. This is shown as the pigs' treatment and control of the animals grew more corrupt and gruesome as the story progressed. The pigs practically placed themselves on a pedestal above the other animals on the farm; they insist they deserve more than the others simply because

The text says, "'Comrades!' [Squealer] cried. 'You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in spite 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 proven 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 depends on us.'" (Orwell, 1946, p. 35) They placed themselves at the top of the hierarchy because they knew the animals would blindly follow their reasoning (science, as Squealer said) and used this to their advantage to get better conditions, in this case, food, for themselves. Another example is when the pigs gave their excuse for not doing any work on the farm- claiming they had their own responsibilities that the other animals were not smart enough to understand. The text says, "There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organization of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant

This is shown multiple times throughout the story, mainly with the commandments being changed. A good example is when Napoleon changed the sixth commandment to justify his previous public executions. The text says, "A few days later, when the terror caused by the executions had died down, some of the animals remembered-or they thought they remembered-that the Sixth Commandment decreed "No animal shall kill any other animal." And though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it felt that the killings which had taken place did not square with this. [...] Muriel read the commandment for [them.] It ran: "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause." (Orwell, 1946, p. 91) The commandment had originally read simply "No animal shall kill any other animal." After the words "without cause" were added, the animals had reluctantly decided to silence their opposition, since technically, no rules were being broken. The pigs knew that the other animals, with few exceptions, would not remember the original commandments, and would have no way to speak against it. The next example also shows the pigs' manipulation of the commandments, but this time, all of them had been scrubbed away and replaced with one sentence, which offered an excuse for their behavior. The text reads, "For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written