Animal Farm: Representation Of Napoleon

Animal farm – Napoleon

Cruelty, tyranny, deception, hypocrisy. All these terms define Napoleon. Wait, who is Napoleon? Well Napoleon is a pig, a pig in George Orwell’s very famous “Animal Farm”. ‘Napoleon is a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way’ this quotation is the first description Orwell presented before his readers in chapter 2, Page 10 to be exact. in this essay I hope to explain who Napoleon was, both outside and inside.

First of all, I would like to state the positive, even though in my view there aren’t quite a number. Anyways, Napoleon is a determined pig and I say this because after the rebellion (that is in chapter 2 page 13-14) from all the animals, Napoleon had the courage and confidence to step up as a leader for a guide to all animal kind. This of course was a very positive thing because it takes a lot to be a leader and Napoleon actually had animal farm running smoothly for a while. Obviously, that also shows his braveness, leadership qualities, respect etc.

“The pigs then reveal that they have taught themselves to read and write”, this quote from chapter 2 of the book shows that napoleon was also very intelligent due to the fact that he and the other pigs taught themselves how to read and write, late they also learnt how to milk the cows which is very clever isn’t it?

Here is a very spot-on quote: ‘everyone is a moon and has dark sides that they don’t plan to show’ except for the fact that Napoleon’s dark side was very evident therefore I’ll now expand on napoleon’s shady side…

If you have read the book animal farm you probably know that napoleon doesn’t need to talk, because he has Squealer (another pig) do his speaking for him. He doesn’t need to worry about disapproval, because he gets rid of public meetings. He doesn’t need to worry about sharing his rule, because he makes himself head of every committee. He doesn’t need to worry about being popular because he already manipulated people into thinking he is great. Taking these facts into consideration, you simply cannot say that he is not tyrannical and dictatorial, I mean linking Napoleon and democracy is simply not possible because he does it his way and gets it done his way, with force or not!

Napoleon is also a callous leader, who does not appreciate the animals and their sacrifices. Evidence is that he completely dismisses the fact that the animals are malnourished and exhausted and continues to force them to work long hours. he crushes the hen revolution by cutting off their food supplies (chapter 7), causing a number of hens to die of starvation, isn’t that not being stone-hearted? Basically, he is very cruel and uncaring when it comes to the trouble of his fellow animals, thus making food and other supplies for himself without concern for others.

This brings me to my next statement: Napoleon was ruthless, brutal, merciless, you name it. Key fact: Napoleon’s ideal way of execution is to have his guard dogs tear out throats. Aside from being totally brutal and vicious, Napoleon forces the animals to tell lies about themselves before they die and he makes them afraid to speak the truth—he takes their freedom of speech. Napoleon got rid of whoever disagreed with him, he forced animals to make false confessions and then sent his guard dogs to “tear their throats out” as the text says. Killing goes on until there’s a pile of corpses lying on animal farm and the air’s polluted with the smell of blood and all this was because of one and only, Napoleon! This also shows his power, but in a negative way!

Furthermore, In chapter 3, Napoleon squirrels away the cows’ milk all for himself. Then in chapter 2, the commandment he made says “no animal shall sleep on a bed” yet he starts sleeping in the humans’ beds, in fact he also forbiddens animals to wear clothes but guess what? he wears human clothes and towards the end he even starts walking on two legs, doesn’t this purely speak of Napoleon’s hypocrisy? I think it does! I mean, Napoleon keeps altering the Commandments to make them say what he wants them to say. For instance, Squealer explains on behalf of him (in chapter 6 page 50) that the commandment didn’t say that you couldn’t sleep in a bed, only that you couldn’t sleep in a bed with sheets. And it’s not that you can’t drink alcohol—you just can’t drink it to excess. But only if you’re a pig, which is very hypocritical. As you can see, this also shows how cunning he is …

Moreover, Napoleon is a secretive plotter that works behind the scenes. For example, he secretly trained the puppies in secret, keeping them completely hidden from view. Napoleon was also very good at supporting his ideas, after the Sunday meetings he would talk to the other animals one by one and emotionally brainwash them. For example, in chapter 6 when he convinces the animals that snowball is a traitor however this is pure lies. He is very conniving in his ways to get more power and is always trying to discredit and undermine the other animals. Once again this explains his cunningness as well. Yes, napoleon keeps the animal farm running and work happening but let me tell you, he keeps the animals busy for one reason, so they don’t think about what is happening to them and their lives. Which is indeed very cunning.

Napoleon is a criminal. And you have to 100% agree to this. In fact, the many crimes he commits against his own comrades range from seizing nine puppies to ‘educate’ them as his band of killer guard dogs to forcing confessions from innocent animals and then having them killed before all the animals’ eyes to his complete transformation into Jones, I mean you read above that Napoleon is sleeping in Jones’ bed, eating from Jones’ plate, drinking alcohol, wearing a derby hat, walking on two legs, trading with humans, and sharing a toast with Mr. Pilkington. His final act of propaganda — changing the Seventh Commandment to ‘all animals are equal but some are more equal than others’ truly shows pure criminalism, am I right?

In addition, He is also incompetent and not very smart. He does a bad job overseeing the windmill construction project and gets cheated by a neighbouring farmer in chapter 8. When he gets a hangover after drinking too much whiskey, he believes he is dying and orders that alcohol be banned as poison, you decide is that not complete foolishness? Let me tell you it sure is!

Napoleon is cowardly, shrewd, calculating, and selfish. While he fully supports the revolution against Mr. Jones, he cares more about his own power than he does about the ideals of the revolution. this also makes him power hungry- which he totally is, His selfishness leads him to build a totalitarian government based on terror and lies that gives him more power over the other animals than Mr. Jones ever had. He uses violence, intimidation, and outright deceit to seize and hold onto power on the farm.

Napoleon is careless, as soon as he seizes power, we realize that he has very little interest in Old Major’s ideas. Napoleon doesn’t care much if all animals are equal or if they control the means of production. But the animals still dance to his tunes because of his dictatorship qualities… Note that as soon as the revolution is won (in chapter 2), Napoleon’s first action is to steal the cows’ milk for the pigs. Clearly, the words of old Major inspired Napoleon not to fight against tyranny, but to seize the opportunity to establish himself as a dictator, which also proves he is dictatorial and ruling.

In conclusion, as long as napoleon took the seat of power, he made everyone dance to his tunes, he was ruthless and had everyone to suffer under his regime. His greed could not be satisfied, he always wanted more and more. He exploited the other animals for his own needs and showed no compassion. He also didn’t take responsibility for his mistakes. Every time something went wrong, he blamed Snowball for it. He said Snowball would sabotage the Animal Farm. But this wasn’t true.

He was a liar as he spread lies about Snowball, so the other animals wouldn’t remember what a good pig he was and how good the life on the farm had been when he was still in charge. Napoleon was power hungry, he didn’t take any interest in the rebellion and rarely did anything however took power immediately after Mr jones was chased out, and he, as you know, sent his guard dogs to chase and kill snowball, his rival. Despite the fact that napoleon had absolutely no good intentions and thoughts, he still stayed in power because he knew how to manipulate the animals and he indeed did so. So after all, was Napoleon good or bad? Well that I leave for you to decide even though I think it is more than obvious…