3 main lessons in Animal Farm :-)

1. Dear Students,
This novel has many different lessons and morals behind it. Like respect and
treating people or “animals” equally even when you are in power; stand by your
choice and don’t be afraid to say what’s right and what’s wrong; and absolute power
corrupts absolutely. These are the three most important and relevant lessons that
you can learn from reading this satire filled book.
 Respecting and treating people or “animals” equally even when you are in
control: The tyrant Napoleon had all the power after Snowball was chased out of
Animal Farm. He didn’t treat every animal with respect and he wasn’t a very
gratifying leader. An example of this is clearly shown on pages 57 to 62. On those
pages, Napoleon brutally kills many of the animals that mentioned Snowball in any
good way.
Napoleon also didn’t treat everyone equally. He put himself in the highest
position, and then he put the pigs after him and then the rest of the animals. The
pigs were treated with higher quality than the rest of the animals, which was not
very fair to them. Napoleon also changed the commandments without asking
anyone else. He thought about what he wanted and changed them in that way. This
is another piece of evidence that tells us that he wasn’t a very equal leader. These
manners exhibit that Napoleon was not an exemplary leader at following that
lesson, which led to disaster at the end of the novel.
 Stand by your choice and don’t be afraid to say what’s right and what’s
wrong: Lots of people or “animals” did not do what they thought was right and were
always afraid to confront their beloved Leader, Comrade Napoleon. The beginning of

2. chapter 8 (pg 63) embarks upon the sixth commandment. Some of the animals
remembered that the sixth commandment stated, “No animal shall kill any other
animal”. This wasn’t followed in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, which meant
that they just disobeyed one of the seven commandments.
Clover asked Benjamin to read him the sixth commandment, but Benjamin
refused because he didn’t want to meddle in such matters. This means that he knew
that something was up, but he was too afraid to face Napoleon. Clover asked Muriel
to read him the sixth commandment and it was different than what he had
remembered. Someone had changed it to “No animal shall kill any other animal
without cause”. Clover and some other animals thought that the last few words must
have slipped out of their memory and didn’t bring it up for consideration. They all
knew that the commandments were being violated, but they were too afraid to say
anything about that. The animals in the farm were not very brave and they just went
along with everything Napoleon did and said, which led them to having an
unsatisfactory life.
 Absolute power corrupts absolutely is the last, but not least important lesson
that is learnt from this novel. The tyrant Napoleon always made decisions without
asking the rest of the animals on the farm about there opinion on it. For example, he
was strongly against the whole windmill idea when Snowball bought it up, but then
after Snowball wasn’t on the farm anymore, he decided to bring the windmill idea
up again. This idea was good for the farm, but he didn’t ask the rest of the animals
on what they thought about it. When the windmill was demolished, Napoleon put all
the animals back to work straight away. He didn’t even bother asking the animals

3. when they would prefer to start making the windmill. Also, Napoleon made them
work during winter, which meant that they were working through immensely cold
weather. Napoleon also didn’t bother giving them more food and giving them more
time to rest. All he did was think about him and the benefits that would come to him,
and proceeded with that in mind. In this novel, Napoleon had too much power,
which led to him making decisions for himself without considering what others
thought, but thanks to that, we learnt another valuable lesson.
Animal Farm is a satire filled novel that has very intense meanings behind it.
It emphasizes on the people from the Russian Revolution and he uses the animals in
the novel to give messages to everyone who reads it. Three important lessons that
this novel has taught me is that you should respect and treat your people/animals
equally even in power; stand by your choice and don’t be afraid to say what’s right
and what’s wrong; and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The autocrat Napoleon
has been the one who has been teaching us most of these lessons by not following
them. He didn’t follow them, which led to the rest of the animals not knowing the
difference between the pigs and the humans. This novel has indubitably made us
learn some important lessons affectively.
This book may not be up to your standards of literature, but it pretty much
covers everything about communism if you truly read it and pay attention to the
lessons behind it. This being said I would suggest that you read it and PAY
ATTENTION to the book as you read it; not because I’m giving quizzes or anything
like that.

4. Sincerely,
Ms. Cobb