Napoleon vs. Snowball
In the novel Animal Farm, written in 1945 by George Orwell it is about a group of farm animals that live in England, and belong to a man named Mr. Jones. After years of being mistreated, shortage in food and very hard work the animals decide to take action and start a revolution in the farm.
It all started when the oldest pig on the farm Old Major, had a dream about a rebellion against the farm owner. Three nights later, Old Major died, but his dream inspired some of the intelligent animals on the farm, the pigs, were known as the intelligent ones. (Orwell, p.15) There are two main pig leaders in this rebellion. One of them is Napoleon, and the other one is Snowball. In this essay, I will compare and contrast about Napoleon and Snowball. The benefits of doing so are that any comparison or contrast is to clarify and explain and point out the superiority of one thing by contrasting it with another. In my opinion, I believe Snowball is a better leader than Napoleon. Snowball and Napoleon are both similar because they are both pigs, and they both have an ambition of leadership, but they differ in many ways as well.
One way in which Napoleon and Snowball are similar is that both of these pigs are active in spreading the message of Animalism. For example, in chapter 2 they both have aspirations of leadership when they assume the preparations for the forthcoming rebellion. Those preparations also demonstrate their intelligence, as shown by their work on the development of animalism. They both believe that humans are the enemy, and so they try to plan and have control over everything that goes on in animal farm. They both wanted rebellion to happen. (Orwell, p.15)
The first difference between Napoleon and Snowball is that their personalities are different. Napoleon tends to be more vicious, not much of a talker, and has a reputation for getting his way. Whereas Snowball is known to be a great talker, and more vivacious than Napoleon. Snowball is also persuasive, and a crowd winner, unlike Napoleon. Napoleon shows favoritism, and his most important concern isn’t all the animals. Meanwhile, Snowball is passionate about strengthening the farm, Napoleon is only focused on strengthening his power on the farm. For example, Napoleon is able to control others. First, he gains the animal’s trust to become their leader and then plots to physically manipulate them. (Orwell, p. 16)
The second difference between Napoleon and Snowball is that their leadership style is different. They both have different visions of how the farm should be run. Snowball wants something close to Old Major’s original goal, while Napoleon envisions something closer to a dictatorship. Napoleon shows this as he grows greedier and corrupt throughout the story. An example of this is when he first takes Jessie and Bluebells newborn puppies away from them, saying that he would make himself responsible for their education. He secretly trained the dogs to be guard dogs. Napoleon uses Snowball as his scapegoat after he runs him off the farm using the dogs he trained. (Orwell, p. 35, 53).
Overall even though they share both similarities and difference of opinions they seem to be more different than alike due to their characteristic’s tone. However, in my opinion, Snowball would have not become a tyrannical ruler as Napoleon did. Since Snowball got chased away, we may never know if he would grow to be precisely as horrible as Napoleon was, but he seemed like the ideal leader for Animal Farm.
