Different Yet Still the Same

In context of monstrous behavior, the lure of power and the exploitation of such power drives individuals towards the far end of the spectrum of morality to a point where they can no longer separate right from wrong.  Confronted with resistance that proposed an alternative way of life, the officials of the Virginia Company responded by destroying the commoning option and by reasserting class discipline through labor and terror, new ways of life and death. They reorganized work and inflicted capital punishment. (Linebaugh 30).  Those with power will do whatever it takes to keep that power.  In the story Animal Farm the transition to the monstrous occurs in the pigs who lead the rest of the animals after their successful revolution.  As the leaders they receive the best of what the farm produces and do the least work, at least physically.  As their excessive greed increases over time, the less and less animal-like the group acts.  They start to walk on two legs instead of four like the rest of the animals as well as some other things that their followers begin to realize as time goes on.  Then, in the penultimate stage of transformation, the pigs reach a level of monstrosity of behavior to a point where their followers can no longer distinguish them from the humans they revolted against.  Initiating the grim realization that nothing has changed.  Monstrosity born of elitist greed describes behavior of those who care little of what happens to the people they use to obtain more, whether that means wealth, or power, anything desirable.  As the saying goes, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  While analogous of a different government system, the literal pigs in power, just like the Virginia Company in “The Wreck of the Sea-Venture” prevent dissention from the system that gives them power.  The Virginia Company investors by rejecting alternative systems, by execution if necessary, and the pigs by restricting the flow of information and manipulating those easily influenced in order to continue growing in power.  Regardless of the differences however, the linking characteristic between both groups lies in their ability to disregard the well-being and desires of those below them in the social hierarchy.  Though not some large, ugly, and horrifying beast, undoubtedly the acts of such groups place them squarely in the realm of the monstrous.