Megan Williams
Mrs. Yorganson
Honors English 9
1 March 2023
Who to Blame?
Life in a corrupt society, it is easy to blame the leader. However, on Animal Farm, the corruption runs much deeper than that. The novel Animal Farm by George Orwell frames the Russian Revolution as farm animals. The leaders are the pigs, and all the other animals on the farm do what they say. Everyone is afraid to take anything from them because of Squealer and Napoleon. Squealer is an amazing speaker, but Napoleon is the pig everyone is afraid of. Napoleon is often blamed for the downfall of Animal Farm but Squealer is truly responsible.
Towards the middle of the book, Squealer excuses the broken rules. When the animals took over Jones’s farm, they laid out the
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When Napoleon had to convince the other animals to do something his way, he would do it in a short amount of words. “Napoleon produced no schemes of his own, but said quietly that Snowball’s would come to nothing,” (Orwell, 48) This is when Snowball and Napoleon were talking to everyone about building a windmill. Napoleon was against the idea, but didn’t represent it well. When Squealer is talking to the animals, he chooses convincing tones and words so he can influence everyone. With this in mind, Animal Farm’s government wouldn’t be corrupt without …show more content…
Napoleon took puppies and raised them to be aggressive. “Silent and terrified, the animals crept into the barn. In a moment the dogs came bounding back.” (Orwell, 53) The dogs would scare the animals into doing anything by the will of Napoleon. He ruled on brute force but he didn’t change the rules. Napoleon would have followed the rules by reinforcing them, but Squealer convinced everyone, including Napoleon, to change the commandments and that is the origin of the downfall of Animal Farm. At the beginning, the animals recognized Squealer’s ability to speak. They said that “he could turn black into white.” (Orwell, 16) This implies that Squealer could conceive an image in someone’s mind even if they can see it, making them see what he wants them to. If it wasn’t for Squealer, the rules wouldn’t have become so blurry and the animals would live on a farm where the rules would be