The novel “Animal Farm” allegorically represents the Russian Revolution.
The theme of the novella is how did Napoleon and the pigs used persuasion and propaganda to control all the animals. Joseph Stalin went crazy with all the power he had and he was the reason for the revolution. The novella is about how animals revolt with their master and go against him and throw him out of his own farm. The pigs take advantage of this situation and take control over the farm and make the Manor Farm worse than it used to be before.
Old Major, allegorically representing Karl Marx, is the main pig that makes the animals realize what pathetic lives they have. In chapter 1, Orwell briefly describes how ill-treating and uncaring Mr. Jones, allegorically representing Tsar Nicolas 2,is. Old Major makes the animals realize all the brutality done to them. It was his speech that made the animals rebel against Mr. Jones.
He used quotes like “…our lives are miserable, laborious and short. ” He used the List of three to bring in the persuasion in his speech. He used the Narrative style of language in his speech, fast, emotional and direct.He tells the animals”…we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty”. He has used an emotive verb here to represent his point of view.
He also uses a lot of repetition in his speech like “No animal in England knows the …England is free. ” This is also a Persuasive Technique used by Old Major. He used all these techniques to indicate their common enemy, Man. He used a Hyperbole in the quote “No, comrades, a thousand times no! ” He uses this Persuasion Technique to change the mindset of the animals for Mr. Jones.
He wanted the animals to forget about the loyalty for Mr.Jones and see what he is giving in return for that, which was nothing but hard work. He also used a lot of slogans like “All men are enemies. All animals are comrades”. He also made all the animals sing a song, Beats of England. It was easy to remember and made the animals feel united against the Humans.
These are the Persuasion Techniques used by Old Major in his speech to unite the animals and make them rebel against Man. The same thing happened in Russia. Karl Marx wanted the people to raise their voice and go against the Bourgeoisie’s.The other aspect that helped Napoleon in his schemes of ruling over Animal Farm was Squealer.
He was actually the mouthpiece of his regime. He is a very witty pig who gives brilliant speeches and can easily manipulate anyone’s thoughts. Squealer’s logic of manipulating the animals is to confuse them so much that they give up and don’t take decisions for themselves. We can see this in the quote by Squealer “No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal.
He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves.But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? ” Squealer is making the animals confused and trying to break their confidence. Squealer also uses the Propaganda technique of terror. He often uses the quote “Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back? ”. He creates a sense of fear in the animals that if they take a wrong step Mr.
Jones will return and their life would become hectic like before. While they think all this they don’t see the fact that their life has become worse than it used to be.We can also the how intelligent Squealer is when he manipulates the whole Milk and Apple incident. He quoted “You do not imagine,….
preserve our health. ” He twisted all the facts up. We could see that he was indirectly blackmailing the animals. The fear of Mr.
Jones returning makes the animals give anything and they can be easily carried away. As a reader I can see that the use of Persuasion and Propaganda helped Napoleon take over the Manor farm. Napoleon completely changed the meaning of the Old Major’s Speech.Old Major may of thought that the animals would lives equally and happily.
But Napoleon took full advantage of that thought and changed the complete meaning of it in his favor. Squealer was his asset in his reign over the farm. His brilliant way of manipulating the animal’s thought helped the Napoleon in several ways. He created the sense that he was Superior than them all and can never make wrong decisions.
So we can conclude that Napoleon and the pigs were successful in achieving their goal of creating Socialism in the Manor farm by taking control over it.
