ESSAY:
In the Novel Animal Farm by George Orwell, A Character I admire and viewed as an impressive individual was Snowball. My feelings towards Snowball is that he was a passionate and intelligent character that always seemed to value everyone’s opinion and had a vision for the future of Animal Farm. His ideas on the future gave me a particular insight and perception on the rest of the story, causing me to interpret the text with a bias towards his ideals. Due to this connection I felt inspired by Snowballs speeches and disgusted by the lies and acts of deception committed by Napoleon and Squealer towards the other animals on the Farm and overall this connection gave me a deeper understanding of the text as a whole, including a deeper understanding of themes such as leadership and eloquent persuasion.
From the beginning of the story, Snowball’s personality was a compassionate pig that wished to put a stop to the neglect of animals by their owners across England, beginning with his own farm. Snowball is a motivating leader throughout the novella. He continually encourages the animals to work together to attain goals and promotes the tenets of Animalism. On the first day of the harvest without Mr. Jones, Snowball offers a challenge to the animals on the farm. Snowball motivates them by saying,
“Now, comrades…to the hay field! Let us make it a point of honour to get in the harvest more quickly than Jones and his men could do”. Snowball is also a very intelligent pig who has the animals’ best interests in mind. He works day and night developing plans to build a windmill that will make the animals’ lives easier. Snowball captures everyone’s attention whenever he tells them about his plans for the windmill. The animals are captivated by Snowball’s speeches, and Orwell writes, “They listened in astonishment while Snowball conjured up pictures of fantastic machines which would do their work for them while they grazed at their ease in the fields or improved their minds with reading and conversation”.
The first main idea I got from Snowball was Leadership. Snowball predominantly shared his ideas and plans with the all the animals and used democratic votes to include everyone in the decisions made on the farm. When He and Napoleon were almost instantly assumed the leaders of animal farm, Snowball chooses to speak publicly, and wished to spread animalism to farms across the country. During the meetings, he took a major part in the debating process but always seemed to argue with Napoleon. Even still, he was very popular with the all the animals on the farm aside from of course the sheep who had taken to bleating, “Four legs good, two legs bad” in the middle of all his substantial speeches. These are examples of great leader qualities and further my opinion that Snowball is a great leader.
Secondly, I learned a lot about persuasive speaking from him. Snowball often uses the animals’ hatred of humans to his advantage, like any brilliant military leader. After the Battle of the Cowshed, in which the animals drive back Jones’s attack, Snowball offers his line of comfort: ‘War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.’ Snowball truly believes this, and needs the animals to feel no remorse; he needs them to believe, as he does, that killing humans is completely necessary. This tactic works, and the animals continue to fight the attacks that come their way, even after Snowball is no longer with them. This shows that Snowball had such an elegance to his way of speaking and lecturing so that that his message would continue to echo in the minds of all the animals far after he had been banished. He often uses his acute skills in persuasion to incite the animals not only to rebel, but to give their lives to the cause, as well as their hard work. He hates humans with a passion and ignites this hatred in other animals, in order to further the cause of Animalism, but unlike Napoleon, he still seems to genuinely want a better life for the other animals, though it does get him run off the farm.
In conclusion, I admired snowball because he was a very charismatic, passionate and intelligent character which had characteristics of a great leader. He always seemed to value everyone’s opinion and had a vision for the future of Animal Farm. He helped me understand the novella and many of its main topics. it was notable that he knew how to acquire the trust in his comrades, how to think logically and how to lead a community of people. He did whatever he could to help others and ease their workload and due to this I think that if at the start of the story Napoleon hadn’t been so power hungry, allowing Snowball to lead the farm then the story could have had a far more positive ending. I’m thankful for the particular insight and perception he gave me on the rest of the story, and i can proudly walk away from this experience with a deeper understanding of ideas like leadership and eloquent persuasion.
