Rough Draft Final Paper

Becoming the most powerful person is a position that many people want to be in. In the novel Animal Farm and in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, Napoleon and Macbeth do not start out in that position, but gradually work they way into power throughout the novels. Both protagonists want to be in power so badly, they will do anything necessary to acquire it. This is not only true for these novels, but for everyone who wants to become the leader of a group or country. Macbeth and Animal Farm are just two of many novels that revolve around power, how it is obtained and how it can corrupt people into doing things they wouldn’t normally do.
In order to obtain power, people will say or do just about anything to make the people believe them. For example, in the 2008 Presidential Campaign, the candidates are telling the people anything they want to hear, just so they can get the nomination for President. An article from the Chicago Tribune says that Senator Hilary Clinton “took questions from the audience after a short speech that touched on issues such as equal pay for women and balancing work outside the home with family responsibilities,” (Tankersley). To many people, especially women, these two topics touched upon in Clinton’s speech were exactly what they wanted to hear from a candidate. The citizens of our country that are voting in November for a new President need to feel confident in who they are choosing to run our country for the next four years. If the people hear what they want from a certain candidate, they are going to want that candidate in office, so they can execute their plans. Acquisition of power is present not only in this year’s presidential campaign, but also in many novels and plays.
In Macbeth and Animal Farm, both protagonists want power so badly, they resort to violence to get it. For example, Macbeth invites king Duncan over to his house for a party, invites him to spend the night and then kills him in his sleep. Macbeth then framed the king’s guards, covering them with Duncan’s blood and telling everyone that they did it. Macbeth wanted to be king so badly that is was willing to commit a murder and live with the guilt for the rest of his life. In Animal Farm, Napoleon trained the nine puppy dogs to become violent dogs and eventually used them to run Snowball off the farm. He did this because all of the other animals like Snowball’s leadership better, and they wanted him to stay in power with Napoleon helping him from the side. Gaining power is a very bid deal, and once it is acquired, it can corrupt people.
Because of all of the power that he or she has, a leader of a group or country can make his or her people do things they wouldn’t normally do. For example, Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda are making hundreds of people do whatever they say, so they can keep making more and more terrorist attacks on the United States, (Bhutto From The Grave - “Blame Musharraf”). Bin Laden is being hidden somewhere in Pakistan by people who only want to help him and hurt the United States. If they do not help keep Bin Laden protected and do not help them plan and execute their attacks, they will be killed. The same thing happened in Animal Farm. When Napoleon was in power, he made Squealer do all the dirty work for him. Squealer had to give speeches to keep the other animals updated on everything that was going on at the farm. He had to deal with all of the animals’ complaints about how they weren’t getting enough food, etc. The only thing Napoleon did was leading the Sunday morning meetings and deciding to kill the animals when they didn’t respect him as a leader. After Macbeth used violence and murder to become king, he killed everyone that didn’t look up to him as their ruler. For example, he killed Macduff and his entire family. He also killed Banquo, his very close friend, who was always there for him. He killed him because his family was next in line for the throne after Macbeth, and Macbeth didn’t want Banquo to become king. These acts were just some of the things that Macbeth and Napoleon did that did not have a good effect on their people.
Power can make leaders do things for the people they are controlling that aren’t necessarily good for the group as a whole. They could just be beneficial to themselves or to their families. For example, Bush is using his presidency to attack Iraq just because his father did it. He is not using his power to help the country as a whole by doing what is right and invading Pakistan (Power Corrupts…Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely). The United States are suffering greatly from this decision made by the President of our country many years ago. We are fighting an issue that we caused to begin with. If we hadn’t gone into Iraq in the first place, there would not be as much killing and fighting between the two groups of Arabs. Our troops are now caught in the middle of the fight between the Sunnis and the Shiites, and there is no escaping. There is now no way to get out of Iraq safely, so we are stuck fighting a useless war until it is over. If the President had thought through more carefully what he was getting his country into, instead of just thinking about himself, we might not be in this situation. When Macbeth was king, he did whatever he wanted. He didn’t care if it benefited his people, or if it hurt them. If he wanted it, it got done, no matter what is was. This also happened in Animal Farm. For example, Napoleon made all of the other animals build a huge windmill, which did not help them at all. All it did was make them work very hard while Napoleon supervised and ordered them around. Also, Napoleon kept most of the food grown on the farm for himself and the other pigs. He did not give any to the other animals, even though they grew it all. The other animals did not complain about this, because they knew that if they did they would have been killed.
Power corrupts the leaders not only in books, but also around the world. For example, the leaders in Cuba and Zimbabwe are dictators. They do not let their people have any freedom, and they kill people who disrespect them. Also, in Cuba, no one is allowed to leave the country. If you try to escape and get caught, they kill you. Another example is Hitler. Hitler controlled most of Europe for a few years before he was finally defeated. Everyone was afraid of getting killed by him or his followers that they stopped trying to fight him and just gave up. These three examples show that if power is not given to the right people, the world is going to become corrupt because once power is given to a person, it is almost impossible to make them give it up.