Animal Farm, a novel written by George Orwell, countless themes are used skillfully throughout the novel to show character development and express abstract ideas. A particularly memorable theme is that of power. Whilst reading Animal Farm, the theme of power stuck out for me as it has such an effect on the farm. What makes it memorable is how it abused in the novel, how it changes the farm and how closely it reflects the events of the Russian revolution. These factors combine to make power an extremely important and memorable theme.
Animal Farm had a strong presence of power and with this, it could be easily abused. The farm wasn’t hard to manipulate if you had the power to do it. When Napolean, an intelligent and cunning pig, realised this, he set to achieve this in a very memorable way. Seeing what he could do with ultimate power over the farm, he begins working towards seizing power. He steals dogs and raises them as his personal task force and uses them to banish Snowball, his partner of sorts for leading Animal Farm, resulting in him having total control over the farm. With all this power, he begins exerting it to benefit himself. He breaks the seven commandments but uses his power to simply change the laws before the animals notice. He continues to manipulate the farm population feeding them lies. He tells them lies about the battle of the cowshed to twist their minds to believe that it was he who showed courage and bravery and not snowball. What makes all these actions memorable is how easily he does it. He doesn’t think twice about anything as long as it benefits him. The scale and evil of his actions make it extremely memorable for the reader as we can’t imagine ever doing something so evil. Orwell skillfully indents Napoleans brutal and merciless action in our mind. He also makes it memorable by so closely linking it to the events of the Russian Revolution which makes it that much more shocking. Napoleans abuse of power is a very meaningful and memorable aspect of Animal Farm for me.
Through Napoleans rule, his use of power significantly changes the farm in countless aspects.
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1 Comment
Add Yours →Hi Toby,
You have a great start to your essay.
Remember to follow the SEXY structure. Statement at the beginning saying what the paragraph is about. Explain what your statement means. Provide an eXample that relates to your explanation. Discuss Your opinion talking about the author’s purpose, connections to outside the novel and link back to your statement.
This essay is asking you to discuss HOW and WHY the idea (power) is so memorable. What does Orwell do specifically to help make it memorable. Try to think about some of his writing techniques he uses to enhance and reveal this idea.
Avoid using personal pronouns. Words like I and Me are informal language and are inappropriate for essay writing. Try restating the same idea as though it is fact. This will also enhance your idea and strengthen your essay.
You are doing a good job at describing your memorable idea. Now you need to focus on answering the second half of the question. HOW and WHY is it memorable?
Good work so far!