ShmoopTube

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Animal Farm, a la Shmoop. The name’s Napoleon – leader of the free

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animal world, defender of animal justice, chief enlightener of the unenlightened, kisser

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of babies, and overall good guy. My rise to glory begins with the death of

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Old Major, a sort of “God pig” to whom I was always the “prophet of justice pig.”

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When Old Major died, he told us animals to revolt against our owner and take rightful

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ownership over the farm as Leader Pig of All the Universe….

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…ahem, I mean as equals in an animal utopia. And being equal is great and everything, but

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let’s be honest here.

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I mean, have you seen the horses? Those guys couldn’t lead a carrot into their own mouths,

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let alone a revolution!

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So we pigs took over, naturally.

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We created seven commandments…

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….which turned into a chant:

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Four legs good. Two legs bad. Four legs good. Two legs bad. Four legs good. Two legs BAAAAAAAD!

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Now, being a leader isn’t always smooth sailing. Sometimes, you have to fight for

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what’s right.

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Like when a whole bunch of farmers got together and tried to quash our rebellion. But we showed

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them…

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Especially me. But I didn’t get an “Animal Hero, first class” medal. Snowball did.

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Snowball.

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Sure, he was kind of smart. Between you and me, it was his idea to build a windmill. But

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he never could have executed it as well as I could.

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Which, you see, is why I peed on his plans and sic’ed my dogs on him when it came time

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to vote for a leader. Because it was clear to everyone that I was meant to be lead.

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Voting is silly! Why voice your opinion when the natural leader already knows what you

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want?

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…which is why I banned voting.

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…and then built that windmill. Well, eventually the windmill collapsed because…

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somebody might have missed a detail in the plan here or there. Whatever, that’s not

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important.

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What’s important is that animals started complaining, as though Animal Farm wasn’t

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the best place ever!

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…And when animals complain, that really puts a damper on my day. It’s like they

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don’t even care how hard we worked to get here.

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And when I find out they’re in cahoots with Snowball, or talking about the “good old

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days” – when I find out they think that their ruler isn’t doing a good enough job….

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…accidents happen.

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So it was one of the rules of Animal Farm that you couldn’t kill another animal…so

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what?

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Sure, we’re all equal here, but I’m a natural-born leader. And you know how you

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get to be a leader? Not by following rules, that’s for sure!

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So when we pigs led the animals to victory against the humans yet again, I think we had

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a right to celebrate.

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We put on some clothes and got a little sloshed, because we deserved it.

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…and because we had to keep leading Animal Farm, even in the hardest of times, we kept

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having to drink and bundle up and live in the farmhouse. For the good of everyone.

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So really, the moral of the story is: two legs good. Two legs best, for the good of

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everyone.

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