Essay on Animal Farm: Snowball and Napoleon

Animals in the Manor farm were miserable and had to take action, the owner of the Farm called Mr. Jones was a mean and cruel man who slaughtered pigs and drowned dogs when they are too old. Due to this dissatisfaction, a boar called Old Major encouraged the animals to rebel against Mr. Jones and other human beings; he, however, died after three days of starting the rebellion and three young pigs named Snowball, Squealer and Napoleon took over the leadership. They manage to chase away Mr. Jones and his people and renamed the place Animal Farm (Orwell, 1).

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The pigs were rational and educated animals while other animals were foolish and could not read or write, pigs, therefore, worked together to write the Seven Commandments of Animalism and a new philosophy that acknowledged all animals to be equal. The animals worked hard under the leadership of pigs to set up a peaceful society.

Napoleon and Snowball fought for the control of the farm; they were both pigs with political aspiration and similar in some ways. One of them was their intelligence. After the death of Old Major, they were able to lead the animals in the rebellion and ended up winning. They could read and write perfectly and were actively involved in giving speeches and planning what to be done at the farm. They both wanted to establish a community with social and economic systems. They used their impressive ability to get what they wanted, for example, confusing other animals and using the same excuse about Mr. Jones coming back (Orwell, 24).

Snowball was a planner, and he wrote a plan for building a windmill after a lot of thinking and consideration, convinced everyone that upon completion there would be electricity. He was able to strategize a winning battle better known as the Cowshed battle where Mr. Jones was once again defeated and chased away of from the farm. Snowball implemented a lot of ideas which either succeeded or failed (Orwell, 31).

On the other hand, Napoleon used his knowledge to write a fake letter accusing Snowball of being a secret agent to the Foxwoods farm and that he was helping Mr. Jones, he knew that other animals were unable to prove the authenticity of the letter and Snowball will be hated. He also used his intelligence to skillfully train nine dogs who later came and chased Snowball away; Napoleon used the dogs to instill fear on other animals by letting them eat those who oppose him. He used all his knowledge and wisdom to rise to power (Orwell, 34).

Napoleon and Snowball also differed in some ways, Napoleon was larger in size than Snowball and was cunning and secretive. They differed in the way they strained to gain power whereby Snowball was busy seeking support and public votes by keeping no secrets and using his intelligence to plan and implement strategies useful to all the animal kingdom. Good examples being the project to build the windmill to generate electricity and the Battle of the Cowshed whereby the animals used Snowballs strategies to successfully win against Mr. Jones attack in attempt to reclaim the farm hence defending their territory

Napoleon, on the other hand, was busy with manipulation and secrecy, he wrote a fake letter accusing Snowball and made other animals hate him, and he then used trained dogs which he had kept the secret to chase Snowball away so as to gain the power. He goes ahead and makes false promises about prosperity to the animals, but life got worse on the farm with pigs taking over the role of humans at the Farm (Orwell, 38).

Another difference between Snowball and Napoleon was the way they handled the system. Despite both being intelligent enough to get what they want, Snowball worked inside the system. He treated all the animals equal, and all his political plans were for the wellness of the farm. He was honest to the system and worked hard until Napoleon chased him away bleeding from dog bite wounds (Orwell, 44).

Napoleon, unlike Snowball, abused power, He used dogs to chase away Snowball, and after ascending to the power, he became corrupt and favored only pigs while mistreating other animals. His dogs ate any animal who complained. Due to his power, the pigs started to abuse other animals, and Napoleon even ordered the slaughter of Boxer, the strongest horse after his strength was gone due to old age. Napoleon and the pigs assumed the role earlier played by the humans; they took advantage of other animals folly to exploit them and broke the set rules of never coming in contact with a person. He had no pity for the animals and did trade with humans. Napoleon and other pigs changed the constitution to suit them and even started walking using only hind limbs like humans. They altered an old saying with a new one Four legs good, two legs better (Orwell, 58).

Work Cited

Orwell, George. "Animal Farm. 1945." Online edition: http://www. msxnet. org/orwell/print/animal_farm. Pdf.