Animal Farm

Political power always finds a way to corrupt those who get the opportunity to attain it. People who fight for what they believe in take extreme measures to obtain what it is that they are rebelling for. In the end, those rebels become the leaders that are just like their old dictator or even worse. Everyone, even without admitting it know that if they were handed over the power to control something, they would not even have to think about it; before we know it, they will become tyrants.

This does not always happen, only to certain people. When democracy gives the people the right to vote for whom they want as their leader, they should pick wisely. Whomever it is that gets handed power over their people either choose to be tyrannical or not.

There was a quote that mentioned how even when the animals take over the farm for themselves, they should never become anything like their tyrant: the humans.

"And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices...And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannies over his own kind. Weak of strong, cleaver or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal." (31).  

Although the animals say that they will not become anything like the human and that they will not adopt the humans ways, it is impossible to believe that they won't.


I think George Orwell would answer this question by saying yes, political power does corrupt people. In the first chapters of Animal Farm, we can already tell of who will become the dictators of the new animal farm: the pigs.  Since the pigs were the ones who actually followed through with the plan of taking over the farm for themselves, they automatically became the superior ones above all the rest of the animals. The rest of the animals on the farm think of the pigs as the most intellectual ones out of all of them and for that reason, they are the leaders of their newly formed democracy. Most likely, later on in the book, we will see how this power will turn into a dictatorship.

Political power should be taken very seriously, but not in a way where the leader becomes one who was just as bad as the old leader.