Similarities Between Animal Farm And Martin Luther King

Black or White; Right or Wrong; Innocent or Guilty. These frames inevitably fail to address the intricacy of right and wrong due the constantly shifting circumstances that occur in everyday life. Of course the concepts of good and bad still exist, just not in the clearest of forms as displayed in Animal Farm by George Orwell or the Declaration of Independence. Illustrated in both is a call for an immense shift of power though a more controversial approach. On the other hand, Martin Luther King Junior's “I Have A Dream” speech is famous for promoting change through peaceful means; however, he also explains the colossal obstacles that might well require alternative methods. The bottom line is that change will always be a necessary aspect of society, thereby making any tool to achieve it also necessary. Therefore, the form in which change is reached can be considered ethical even if the means of the change cross the standard lines of morality.

For instance Old Major, an insightful pig, inspires animals into a violent rebellion by tempting them with the fantasy of “living in a comfort and a dignity that [is] now almost beyond [their] imagining” (Orwell 7). While on a typical day a normal being wouldn’t agree with such violence, the animals saw that the benefits outweighed the risks. Thereby, they considered themselves acting morally when concerning the circumstance. Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr. passionately remarks: “From every mountainside Let freedom ring”. A universal cause such as this one has the ability to validate a more quarrelsome approach due to its expansive outreach to many people. Therefore each circumstance possesses a unique threshold for the extremes which the cause can