In Animal Farm, the pigs obtain power by ousting Mr. Jones from the farm, but just like their predecessor, the power corrupts the pigs and they slowly create inequality in the farm until the farm becomes a mirror of what it once was under Mr. Jones. This cause and effect reaction becomes an endless cycle of power and corruption. A great example of this in Animal Farm is when the pigs replace all of the seven commandments of the animals with, “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” (Orwell 85). The pigs in Animal Farm replace the seven commandments with this phrase to fool the other animals of the farm into thinking that it is okay for the pigs to have more power than them. The quote is self-contradictory because while it uses the word “equal”, the meaning of the message implies the opposite, a case of verbal irony. The use of the verbal irony in this situation shows how the power slowly corrupted the pigs and in the end, they were just as corrupt as Mr. Jones. While verbal irony is a significant aspect found in Animal Farm, the situational irony that is also present validates how the power the pigs held slowly corrupted their initial ideals and destroyed the equality they had strived for. Charles May, a notable literary scholar specializing in short story critique, claims “the central irony of the fable is that although the animals initially rebel against the humans because of behavior which humans usually call ‘beastly,’ the animals themselves, as the work progresses, become more and more like humans — that is, more and more base and beastly” (May 11). May supports the importance of irony in Animal Farm by explaining how the whole story develops layers of irony due to how the pigs took power away from the humans only to become worse than them.