Overview of Animal Farm by George Orwell
Mr. Jones and Napoleon are very similar and very different depending on where in the book you are reading. Mr. Jones is a very angry, unpleasant man throughout the book. He is a drunk, doesn’t treat his animals well, and only does enough work to buy his next drink. His farm is unkempt, and so are his animals. This combination of actions sets up a rebellion of his animals against him (assuming that animals can think for themselves). Old Major, a wise, old pig on the farm, suggests to the other animals that they need to triumph over Mr. Jones and rule the farm themselves. This is where Napoleon steps in, because after a while, Old Major dies and there is a place for a leader to take over. Napoleon is a kind, wise pig who at first, treats the animals with the utmost respect and leads them to a victory over Mr. Jones. He honors what the other animals think, and leads for the betterment of the entire farm. At this point, Napoleon is very much unlike Mr. Jones. This would change in time.
After overthrowing Mr. Jones, Napoleon makes quick work to gain his position as the supreme leader of the farm. Another pig, Snowball was vying for the position. At one point, when Napoleon thought that his status was being threatened, he chased Snowball out of the farm with a pack of dogs he raised to be his bullies. Napoleon was a smart pig; he surrounded himself with the other pigs and secluded himself and the pigs from the other animals. This way, he could get the animals to assume that the pigs were better than them and pigs were better help for the farm if they worked on intangible problems all day. They would think up concepts and other ways to brainwash the animals to better their positions. At this point in the story, Napoleon is slowly becoming more like Mr. Jones. He is no longer respecting the animals and changes some of the rules that the farm put together after the rebellion. Some of the rules had to do with drinking alcohol and sleeping in beds, and other activities deemed bad, because humans did them. Each time the other animals saw the pigs breaking these rules, the pigs found clever ways of changing the minds of the animals and thinking what the pigs wanted them to think. Napoleon was always having poems written about his great deeds, and all the animals were to respect him like a king. One such time that the animals saw the pigs breaking the rules, was when the pigs got drunk and stumbled about making all kinds of noise inside the house. The clever pigs convinced the animals that they did not like drinking the alcohol, but that it increased their mental capacity to make the farm better. There were many other occasions where the same type of thing would happen. The animals would find the pigs doing some outrageous thing, then the pigs would end up smoothing it over and telling the animals what they wanted.
Towards the end, Napoleon was more and more like Mr. Jones. He even talked with other humans and drank with them, which was considered a very mortal sin. The pigs were doing everything that humans did by the end of the story. They even walked on their two hind legs, like humans. The other animals came to recognize this and when they were being starved, the pigs were getting fat, something would have had to be done. I think that if the book had gone on another 50 pages, it would tell the tale of the animals rebelling against the pigs. I believe the animals would win, but who knows what would happen after that. This book curtails communism in its most basic form. A people are being oppressed, and when the most able of those oppressed rise up with the people to destroy this mighty oppressor, they ultimately take their spot in leadership. Communism is not meant for human use. The human traits that we all assume of other humans don’t fit into the government of Communism. It gives too much leniency to what eventually happens in most governments, which are corruption, crime and murder. Until humans learn to deal with their own making, we will continue to have problems within our race, which will ultimately hurtle us to our doom.