Role of Greed in Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal Farm, by George Orwell, represents a really interesting and complex satire on communism and the Russian Revolution. It tackles various themes, such as greed, leaders and followers, betrayal, propaganda, appearances, and reality. Greed it self is a commonplace theme in Animal Farm one that needs further research and study.

The writer develops this theme through the characters and the usage of irony. The story contains many symbolic images, particularly because a amount of real characters, some common or powerful people, are portrayed through allegorical farm animals. Greed gift ideas different faces, such as of alcohol, food, and power (Bloom 2009).

Mr. Jones drinks to excess, so that he ends up losing his power over the farm, enabling the animals to take charge. In his speech, Old Major the pig accuses him of taking sets from animals and never offering such a thing in exchange, “yet he is god of animals” (Orwell 4). After visiting power, Napoleon the pig did the same: as his power increased, so did his greed. The moral philosophy of the story shows there have been no visible differences between men and pigs: “the creatures looked from pig to man, and from man to pig … but already it was impossible to say that has been which” (Orwell 88).

Ostensibly, the greed transformed Napoleon into Mr. Jones and worse, because he became like a man: a greedy, selfish dictator. The dogs had very nearly the same behavior, taking all the power for themselves (Mills 2011).

To conclude, the greed of power corrupted the leaders, they turned on their fellow animals. This scenario refers, needless to say, to the truth that communism implies no equity, being the mask of another type of dictatorship.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Chelsea House Publications, 2009.
Mills, Catriona. George’s Orwell Animal Farm. Insight Publications, 2011.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.