Animal Farm

I can relate with what happened to Snowball and his windmill agenda in the novel, “Animal Farm.” After the animals overthrow Mr. Jones who was their irresponsible master, they are forced to form a government of their own. However, a leadership crisis comes up where Snowball and Napoleon are struggling for the leadership of the empire. Snowball is a potential intelligent leader who proposes to the animals the idea of creating a windmill that would be used for generating electricity which would keep the animals warm and ease their work at the farm. Napoleon, jealous of Snowballs idea uses nine puppies to drive him away from the farm (Orwell, 2003). Napoleon, therefore, takes the leadership of the farm and executes Snowball’s idea where he vehemently fails. I relate with Snowball because I have once head a similar experience which humiliated me in such an effective manner.

It was an extra humiliating moment some years back when I joined a club in high school. The club was a welfare club that sought to help the poor students in the school. I was among those who had formulated the idea of forming the club alongside a few friends. The idea we had was based on the fact that we noted that some of our friends at school were suffering because they could not afford some of the basic necessities that are required by students while they are in school. It, however, came to a time when the club had to elect the leadership. Three of us vied for the position of the chair of the club, and we had to draft a fulfilling manifesto. Though my manifesto was better, my fellow contestant used his influence of having more friends in the club to defeat me.

It was, however, an undue decision that would soon see the club fallout. The leader, who took the position, came and asked for my manifesto which he articulately executed in the very first weeks. The organization was run quite in a reasonable manner in the first few weeks, and we made immense contributions towards the course we had planned to undertake. It was however not until the sixth week that the club began to fall out. The friends of the elected leader wanted some benefits from him for having chosen him. They expected to be paid for having elected him and therefore, despite having my manifesto, he could not run the affairs of the club as effectively. The club was later divided and fell out in the second month. It was a disgrace for all of us, and the humiliation that came about is that the new leader was using my manifesto and still failed. Had I been given a chance, of which I deserved, I could have managed to lead the club to success since I did not have any vested interests.

The story, “Animal Farm,” is quite a story that I can relate with. It is a story of failed leadership just because someone was jealous and thirsty of a leadership position. I connect with Snowball in the film as he is an individual that had a stressful encounter after being chased away by Napoleon just because he had a better ideology. The most hurting thing to Snowball just like me is that even when the leader used his ideology he did not manage and his leadership failed vehemently. 

References

Orwell, G. (2003). Animal farm. Penguin UK.