Thesis In Orwell’s Animal Farm, when one has strong faith in their hard work that will hopefully bring a positive outcome, one is willing to believe anything that brings good news for the future. George Orwell illustrates the example of Communist Russia under Stalin’s high ruling, taking us into a story about an animal farm in Britain, where the animals are taught a song, Beasts of England, by the most respected boar among the animals. The song sparked high hopes for the future of their farm, aiming to make changes that they believed would dramatically change the poor conditions that the animals were in, being under human supervision. Their high hopes soon become lowered when they slowly start going back to where they were, and in worse conditions. When the animals in Animal Farm have this strong faith in what their future may hold, it does not just affect their thinking and their mentality, which is very little, it also blocks their ability to see that what is happening is actually not for their or the farm’s good, but for the pig’s good, and only the pigs. A good example that illustrates this idea is when Boxer overworked himself to the point of collapsing. He would wake up earlier than all the other animals in order to work. He would put all the labor onto himself and not listen to anyone when they told him he needed rest, and he “Made it a point of honor not to let it be seen that he was in pain” (111) when he truly was in pain, when “He would admit privately to Clover that the hoof troubled him a great deal” (111). His faith in Animal Farm was so great that he was willing to do all that, for the good of their future, so that the words from the song “Beasts of England” could come true. He went by the motto “Napoleon is always right”, which is an example of how he trusted in Napoleon so much in whatever he wanted to be done, that he was willing to back up whatever the orders were. He never questioned what those orders were, and when he did, he eventually accepted that whatever is happening is for the best. Of course, Napoleon didn't just easily say what his plans were, but he used Squealer to hide the truth from what his true intentions would be, even blaming Snowball, a former member of Animal Farm who was chased out with the help of Napoleon and his dogs in order to take full control of the farm, for whatever things go wrong. This includes the rebuilding of the windmill, when the animals found the windmill at its destruction. Because of how Napoleon turned the animals against Snowball, making him into a traitor with Squealer’s convincing speeches, it was now ridiculously easy to blame Snowball in the destruction of the windmill, giving the animals a chance to prove how determined they really are to show any enemies that try to steer them off their path to a successful future that there is no way to knock them off balance. If there is a threat to the animal’s belief that what they are doing is for the good of Animal Farm’s future, they will work harder in order to prove that point wrong. For the defense of the farm, Napoleon taught the sheep to bleat “Four legs good, two legs bad”, making sure it appeared that the pigs are serious about the commandments, which gives off the illusion that the pigs truly are aiming for Animal Farm to be clean and pure and promising of a better life in the future. The sheep, following the close directions of Napoleon, obviously also believed that their bleating are good for the farm’s sake. It’s interesting how the sheep would all chant this phrase when there was some kind of disagreement, my guess being that they thought that if they do that, then the problem would be re-solved with this reminder. A part from believing in anything that sounds promising for the good of the farm and the animal's future, is the way that almost each and every single animal is being manipulated with that kind of promise in their minds.
