Human Equality as an Impossible Ideal in Animal Farm :: Animal Farm Essays

How do the events in Animal Farm show human equality to be an impossible ideal, not a practical reality? One of the main themes of the book is the effect of power on leaders and how it leads to corruption, propaganda and most of all inequality, and in this book, inequality is shown through out and there are many different examples of it. The main event in the beginning of the book is old major’s speech, where he starts it by mentioning how unequal human are to the animals and how they don’t do any work as they are the leaders of all creatures. He implied that the other animals should get rid of man so that his dream can be fulfilled and create a society where all animals are created equal. Just as Old major dies, the pigs create â€Å"Animalism† and the seven commandments under the intention of equality, even as they have just automatically chose themselves as leaders of the revolution and the other animals. The rebellion wasn’t really led by the pigs; it occurred when the animals got mad after a long day without food, the pigs unequally became leaders without actually taking a huge part in it. After Mr. Jones is kicked out and the animals’ hope of an equal society rose, they started working hard while the pigs didn’t do any work under the excuse of the need of supervision. Another example of the inequality of the pigs is after the apple harvest where they took it for themselves claiming that they need fuel while the other animals are the ones who need it as they work harder. During the successful defensive fight against Mr. Jones, all the animals fight equally, Snowball and boxer did an excellent job, except napoleon who didn’t turn up for the fight. Napoleon is becoming increasingly corrupt and unjust. After the effective speech by snowball which made snowball more popular and was going to divert the votes to him, Napoleon â€Å"uttered a high-pitched whimper† and the dogs chased snowball of the farm, which confirmed the untrustworthiness of napoleon. And subsequently the inequality began to increase at a more severe rate. The animals gradually become like slaves doing napoleon’s plans and doing whatever he likes, moreover they are forced to work on Sundays but Napoleon rests like he does all over the week. Yet he starts trading and starts progressively breaking the commandments. What is more, he horrifies the hens after their refusal of giving the pigs their eggs for money by cutting the food supply on them and starving them until 9 of them died, so that they agree on giving the