In my opinion, the story A good man is hard to find by Flannery O'Connor connects to Animal Farm. A good man is hard to find showed that a person can have good and bad in them but can never be completely good or completely bad. It is impossible to be 100% good or 100% bad, there must be something else there, even if you can't see it. That's why a good man is so hard to find.
I think the same is true for leaders. There can never be a perfectly good or bad leader. In Animal Farm by George Orwell, Napoleon is the leader for most of the book. He is far from being a perfect leader, he is very selfish. A good leader acts for the people, not for their self. But he isn't a purely bad leader either. He is smart and manipulative, he could have been a better leader if he put his intelligence to use helping the animals, instead of just helping himself.
So Napoleon isn't a perfect leader. But could any of the other animals on the farm have done better? The dogs Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher are all followers, they do not have their own opinions. Clover the horse, is compassionate to a fault. Benjamin the donkey is old and not very ambitious. The mare, Mollie, is very selfish. And Boxer the horse, though very hardworking, is not extremely smart. So, every animal has a different kind of flaw. A good leader is hard to find, none of these animals, at least on this farm could be a perfect leader.
Throughout the book the animals work very hard to build a windmill for the farm. I kept wondering why this windmill was so important to the animals.
"(The windmill) could be made to operate a dynamo and supply the farm with electrical power.This would light the stalls and warm them in winter."
The Windmill was going to be used to generate electricity. This goes against the general thinking that man-made inventions are bad and shouldn't be used. If wearing mens clothes and sleeping in beds is such a bad thing, shouldn't using their electricity also be bad? Anyway, the animals lived without electricity for a long time and I don't see a great reason why they needed it now.
I don't think that building the windmill would have been such a big deal and a high priority. I think that the windmill could have been a distraction. Napoleon didn't want the animals to figure out how badly he was treating them so he made the animals work even harder. Every second they weren't farming seemed to be taken up by the building of the windmill. If the animals were working they had no time to think about rebelling.
If the animals knew about the real purpose of the windmill, it didn't show. The animals were all very protective of it. I think that another theme in the book is pride. When the windmill was knocked down, the animals were very disappointed.
"They had just noticed this when a cry of despair broke from every animal's throat. A terrible sight had met their eyes. The windmill was in ruins. With one accord they dashed down to the spot. Napoleon, who seldom moved out of a walk, raced ahead of them all. Yes, there it lay, the fruit of all their struggles, levelled to its foundations, the stones they had broken and carried so laboriously scattered all around. Unable at first to speak, they stood gazing mournfully at the littler of fallen stone."
Besides the fact that they worked really hard on the windmill, I think they were also sad because the windmill was a symbol of Animal Farm and what it could accomplish. No matter how bad the farm was doing, they would still be proud because that was their home, and it was probably the first of its kind. The Beasts of England song was another way they showed pride for their farm, like their anthem to be sung at special occasions. Just like we have pride for our towns or schools, the animals have pride for their farm. I think that pride was a major factor in keeping the farm going and uniting the animals.
So, Animal Farm held messages about leaders. That a good leader is hard to find, and that there are no perfect leaders. It also showed how important pride is, and how that alone can keep people (or animals) close.
