In the second season of House of Cards the main character Frank Underwood makes an excellent comment on hypocrisy; “The road to power is paved with hypocrisy… and victims.” In this quote Frank Underwood states that in order to gain power he must have been, at some point, hypocritical; in his eyes there could be no other way to become vice president of the United States without becoming a hypocrite once. Just like Frank Underwood, the pigs in Animal Farm were hypocrites. Snowball, Squealer and Napoleon are perfect examples of how hypocrisy is essential when you want to gain power. Following the theory that to become powerful one must be a hypocrite, Snowball, having power over all animals, must be a hypocrite. Snowball can be described as a hypocrite in that he reads human books; there is evidence of this throughout the book: "The pigs now revealed that during the last three months they had taught themselves to read and write from an old spelling book which had belonged to Jones's children and which had been thrown into the pile of waste." (15) and "Snowball, who had studied an old book about Julius Caesar's campaigns that he had found on the farm" (26). These show that for months after the rebellion the pigs and Snowball mostly use human resources to advance their knowledge. Even though humans are seen as evil beings who tyrannize over their own kind, he still uses the knowledge to gain more power by completely getting rid of humans so that they can no longer influence animals. Another reason why Snowball can be considered a hypocrite is that he writes and plans using human knowledge. You can see it in the lines: "Then Snowball (for Snowball was the best at writing) took a brus... in the middle of the paper... it is extremely hypocritical as he himself is not there" supporting his side, which shows he can't even be bothered to do that, let alone do any actual work. He ultimately breaks the unspoken rule of not harming any other animals, which he does several times; on page 56 Napoleon orders the execution of any animal that confesses to treachery and on page 89 when the pigs walk on their hind legs Napoleon comes out last with a whip in his hand and with the intention of using it. In these scenes Napoleon has finally become indistinguishable from a human being and has begun to tyrannize over his fellow man, which is exactly what Old Major was warning them about in his speech: "And remember also that in fighting Man, we must not come to resemble him" (6).Works CitedOrwell, George. Animal farm. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1954. Print."Chapter 22." House of cards. Nd Television.