Ignorance And Corruption In George Orwell's Animal Farm

The Russian Revolution was a political and social revolt. To the Russian citizens, it was a gander of hope and innovation towards a civilization of parity, but the extent of this revolution was nothing more than a horrendous nightmare full of totalitarianism, genocide, and corruption. Animal Farm is an allegory to the revolution, its characters are parallels to people from the revolution, like Joseph Stalin, and Czar Nicholas II. Orwell’s analogies to the revolution are easily interpreted, and indisputably well put together. While reading Animal Farm, an audience can learn to view partisanship, and corruption as individuals and societies. In the preface of Animal farm Russel Baker says, “Orwell left us a lesson about the human contribution

Napoleon is able to stay on top and keep his power by keeping the animals uneducated. When the animals did have the chance to gain an education some of them just didn’t care enough to try. A corrupt leader will keep their citizens uneducated, and as the philosopher Plato has said, “Ignorance is the root and stem of all evil.” In chapter three it says that none of the animals with a few exceptions, knew any letters after the letter A, and the stupider animals didn’t even remember the commandments by heart (Orwell 33). The ignorance to not even bother to learn how to read or write, or remember the law, allows Napoleon to manipulate the animals further in the story when he makes changes to the commandments. The Napoleon-trained dogs are also a clear prognostic to his corruption. They’re the equivalent of the secret police, in this allegory, they’re the equivalent of the KGB. In chapter nine, Napoleon has chased out Snowball, and has abolished the Sunday meeting, and enforced new rules onto the animals, this arouses confusion, and just when the pigs where going to argue Napoleon's dogs let out frightening growls, which shut the pigs up (Orwell 54). Napoleon uses his dogs to assert his authority and incite fear and stop any further questioning. If the animals together were strong enough to overthrow a human, and scare off a group of them in The Battle Of The Cowshed, why couldn’t they overthrow Napoleon? Because they feared him, the animal's disquietude and ignorance allowed such horrendous things to happen. Since the animals weren’t as educated as the pigs or the dogs, they could never gain an argument big enough to speak out and counteract