Freedom In George Orwell's Animal Farm

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Recommended: Brief explanation of animal farm by George Orwell

For many Americans, freedom is the most important aspect of our nation’s foundation. Freedom is the principle that our country was founded on. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animal’s quest for freedom ultimately leads them to their demise. For someone to really be free there is a thin line that must not be crossed. Freedom requires a delicate balance although that balance can be easily upset by many things, such as power hungry leaders, blind and uneducated followers, and overpowered controlling governments. One factor that can endanger freedom is a power hungry leader being in control of a nation. Leaders like this will do anything to have things the way they desire them to be. An example of this from Animal Farm would be, when Napoleon …show more content…

In Animal Farm Napoleon and the pigs make up the government over the animals. Towards the end of the novel, the pigs become overpowered and self privileged. The pigs even start picking up human habits such as wearing clothes, walking on two legs, and drinking. They also become more overpowering towards the animals, “Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally”(Orwell 61). Napoleon tells the animal that they should not have luxuries, while he and the other pigs live in the farmhouse with electricity and heat, wear clothes, and drink alcohol. This shows that an overpowered government not only takes away the freedoms of their citizens, but continues to enjoy the freedoms themselves. In Russia today the same thing is going on, “In 2008, Putin found a way around the term-limit law that prevented him from running again when his second term expired. He hand picked Dmitri Medvedev as his successor, and after he won, Medvedev appointed Putin as his Prime Minister”(Smith 1). Even though Putin could no longer legally be leader of Russia, he found a loophole that allowed him to stay in power. By staying in power Putin can continue to repress the freedoms of his people, pushing Russia back in time to the “Soviet

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