A good example
ofis the juxtaposition of living conditions on the farm both before and after the Revolution.
While 's philosophy is based on a general sense of exploitation by the humans, the animals are
generally well-kept and only occasionally mistreated by Jones, who is regarded as a
below-average farmer. However, in the spirit of rebellion, they see this treatment as inhumane,
resulting in the expulsion of Jones. After the Revolution, and afterhas fulfilled his destiny as
the Dictator of the , the animals are actually worse-off than before, since Napoleon is
deliberately squeezing them for work without care for their well-being.
...their life, so far as they knew, was as it had always been. They
were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they laboured in the
fields; in winter they were troubled by the cold, and in summer by the flies. Sometimes the
older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days
of the Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than
now. They could not remember.
(, Animal Farm,
msxnet.org)
The irony is that although the animals
believed that their new philosophy would result in a Utopia, it resulted in a Dictatorship. They
would have been better-off accepting Jones and the farm status quo, as it was simply a working
farm instead of a work camp. Their noble ideals led directly, and inevitably, to Napoleon's rise
and rulership, just as Orwell perceived in reality.
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