Animal Farm Rebellion

Many people have the unrealistic idea of creating a perfect, utopian society, where everything is just and power is distributed evenly to each member of the community. George Orwell, in his novel Animal Farm, recognizes the irrationality of creating a Utopian society and illustrates this opinion. Orwell shows the animals’ original idea for an ideal society through the Rebellion and the creation of Animalism, and demonstrates the destruction of the utopia throughout the novel. The novel begins with two leaders, Snowball and Napoleon, who are both drawn to the original concept of the Rebellion, but Napoleon becomes greedy for power causing him to start a conflict with Snowball and expel him from the farm. Napoleon is also enticed by the dominance

The division of classes first begins with the power barrier that forms between the pigs and the other animals and soon develops into the pigs moving into the farmhouse, as well as receiving more food and milk than the others, showing a difference in classes and the unjust treatment of the other working animals. This social division begins at the start of the Rebellion when the pigs take the milk and apples for themselves, “So it was agreed without further argument that the milk and the windfall apples should be reserved for the pigs”(53). This small development in the social stratum of Animal Farm leads to the final division of the classes when the pigs move into the farmhouse, disobeying one of the commandments and exemplifying their social status. To account for the pigs’ power over the other animals and their humanization, the final commandment is changed, indicating that the transition of the Utopia to a Dystopia had been completed and demonstrating that the animals are divided into the government and the working class. The animals on the farm notice a change made to the barn wall where the Seven Commandments were once written and realize that now there is a single commandment on the wall, “It ran: ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS” (133). This represents a detrimental change in the original idea for the ideal society and the degradation of equality on the farm. The pigs gain all authority over the other animals creating social stratification on the farm, making the pigs the government and the other animals the working class who labor for the approval of the pigs. The pigs continue to receive special treatment due to their superior knowledge and leadership