Napoleon initially seemed like he would be a good ruler, but ultimately turned out to be bad after he was driven mad with power. Though originally Napoleon had proposed equality and freedom, he eventually started to show his power madness when he threw Snowball out and denied that he had done anything good for the farm. He continued to impose more rules until eventually no one could object to any rules on the farm or they would be punished with exile or death, Though Napoleon was an initially good ruler, he turned out to be bad and brought nothing but trouble to the post revolution farms One example of when Napoleon started showing his corruption was when he changed the law of the farm from “all animals are equal” to “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”
This shows corruption because Napoleon was allowing the rules of the farm where are animals were supposed to be equal to be changed so that he and the other pigs could have an advantage over the other animals This was just the farm starting to degrade, after this the rule “no animal shall sleep in a bed” was changed to “no animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
” (page 79) The seven commandments became degraded and disregarded, which ultimately greatly contributed to the terrible, dictator rule Napoleon eventually imposed over the farm.
Another example of Napoleon’s overall degradation of the farm was him changing “four legs good, two legs bad” to “four legs good, two legs betteri” (page 132) This really degraded the entire zero tolerance anti human idea that Napoleon originally stood for when the revolution happened Napoleon’s change in his policy should have been a sign to the animals that he was an unfit ruler and that he could not stay solid on his positions.
Napoleon only changed this because the humans would trade with them and he wanted to trade for things that would benefit him more than they would the other animals When Napoleon did this, he was making the farm no longer self sufficient and more dependent on humans like it had been before the revolution, This was essentially a step backwards from the self sufficiency that the farm had achieved, and did not do anything to help the farm. A third example of how Napoleon allowed the ideals of the farm to become degraded was when the sixth commandment, “no animal shall kill any other animal,” was changed to “no animal shall kill any other animal without cause” (page 98)h so that he could execute animals. This allowed for moral degradation because it caused the animals to believe that killing was okay as long as there was cause, This could also raise question as to what was reasonable cause to kill another animal. Because of Napoleons power madness, he did not see what was best for the farm, only what was best for him.
This is why he allowed the pigs to be executed and the changing of the commandments. Napoleon only wanted to be the ruler for personal gain by the end, and his policies could easily be compared to dictators such as Josef Stalint Napoleon could claim that it was reasonable cause to kill another animal because he believed they were going to try to take his position of power, and if anyone questioned that he could kill them too In the end, Napoleon turned out to be a terrible ruler, and the farm was back to how it had been before, It was order through enforcement, and all the power was given to one person. The farm was ruled through dictatorship and that was exactly how the pre revolution farm had been. Napoleon was terrible at ruling the farm even though he had seemed good at first, Though things looked promisin immediately after the revolution, everything turned terrible by the end and was almost exactly how it was pre revolutiont.
The Examples of Napoleon's Corruption in George Orwell's Novel Animal Farm. (2022, Nov 18). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/the-examples-of-napoleon-s-corruption-in-george-orwell-s-novel-animal-farm/