The Danger of Ignorance free essay sample

The Danger of Ignorance â€Å"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. † (Mandela) Mandela says that education is a best weapon but I also believe that it is the best defense. In George Orwell’s novella â€Å"Animal Farm†, a pig named Napoleon takes over and does as he pleases. There are so many animals that they could easily overthrow him if they were educated and united. Orwell warns his readers of the danger of ignorance and blindly following someone by using allegory in the form of a fable to cleverly hide a dark story of corruption and lies during the Russian Revolution. In the book, Napoleon represents Joseph Stalin. Stalin brutally takes control of Russia after the death of Nicolai Lenin, who led the Bolshevik Revolution to oust the corrupt regime of Czar Nicholas III. The farm animals take the farm from Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones represents Czar Nicholas III: greedy, selfish, and cruel. Czar Nicholas was overthrown by the Bolsheviks after many years of hard life, laborious work, and low wages. Mr. Jones was overthrown by his own animals after years of starvation, cruelty, toiling in the fields, and having their labors stolen from them. Jones, a drunkard, comes home late one night and the animals had not been fed all day. When the animals could stand their hunger no longer, they broke into the feed store where Jones and his men beat them for eating. This was the tipping point for the animals. The animals could no longer stand Jones’ mistreatment, so they rebelled. They drove the humans out of the farm. The animals were finally free. Another pig named Snowball, who was very intelligent, now wrote the seven concepts of animalism on the barn wall. Napoleon first began to lie and deceive the animals by taking the milk and apples. He got Squealer, a pig quite good at convincing others, to convince the animals that the pigs need the milk and apples to better run the farm, saying that they are â€Å"brain workers. † If the animals would have been smarter then they would have realized that the pigs didn’t need the milk and apples, but they just wanted them for themselves. Squealer represents the propaganda of television, newspapers, movies, and radio broadcasts during the Communist reign of Stalin. The media controlled everything that the people heard. When the animals questioned Napoleon, Squealer would ask, â€Å"You don’t want Jones to come back do you? † Every Sunday the animals would have a meeting in the barn to discuss things and vote. There, Snowball and Napoleon would argue their points and let the animals vote on the issues. In all of these debates Snowball and Napoleon seemed to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. If one was for it the other was against it. The worst of all of these arguments was over the windmill. Snowball paints an image of animal farm run more efficiently and with less work. He says that once they finish it that they will have may modern luxuries. Snowball says that it will be hard work but that when they are done it will pay off. Napoleon strongly opposes the windmill and tries to deter any animals from voting for it. When it is almost time for the animals to vote, and almost all animals are planning to vote for Snowball, Napoleon lets out a high pitched squeal and summons up his nine personal bodyguards. They are nine huge vicious dogs and he commands them to case Snowball off the farm. Later Napoleon reveals that they will proceed with building the windmill and that they will no longer have Sunday meetings and that he will make all the decisions. That night when the animals get over their initial shock over what happened, they begin to question why Napoleon ran Snowball off the farm and why they are still building the windmill, Squealer comes to the rescue. He says that the windmill had been Napoleon’s idea from the very start and that Snowball had stolen it from him saying that it was his own. Squealer then goes as far to say that Snowball was a traitor and that he was conspiring with the humans against the other animals. He also says that napoleon does not want to make all the decisions, but that he takes the extra labor so that the animals do not have to worry. Throughout the novella the uneducated animals are tricked, manipulated and hoodwinked into believing whatever napoleon says. If they had been just a little smarter than they would have realized what was really going on. They would have seen the corruption the lies and the manipulation of there minds. They could have put a stop to it. Works cited Orwell , George . Animal Farm. New York : 1946. Print.