Animal Farm Propaganda Analysis

To take control, leaders use false information to persuade the others into doing what they want. This is called using propaganda. Propaganda was used to effectively rule the other animals in Animal Farm. The Pigs manipulated the uneducated. As did Napoleon used this to his advantage. There was use of fear by violence. They inflicted fear by using hypothetical situations to get the other animals to do as told. The leaders in Animal Farm show numerous types of propaganda to effectively take control of all the other animals.

In Animal Farm, the leaders were manipulating the animals and taking advantage of the fact that they were uneducated . The pigs were given larger amounts of food, and lived in better conditions than

the other animals. They were able to do this because squealer told all the animals that "The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake....". Out of all the animals on the farm, Squealer was the most frequent user of propaganda, and he prospered from it. He became Napoleon’s right hand man by making everyone believe they remembered wrongly about the commandments, and ensured that everyone always believed Napoleon was a good leader. He knew that the animals would listen to whatever he said because they couldn't speak their own mind.
Being so clueless as to what was going on, they were so entrusting of Napoleon that they believed everything he said. This shows in what boxer said ,"Ah that's different, if comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right". Also, when Napoleon first drove out Snowball, he told the animals that the windmill was his idea and he just pretended not to like it. This was only for the sake of getting rid of Snowball. It was obviously not true, snowball created all the plans and all evidence shows that Napoleon was against it from the start. But the animals all believed him because they were ignorant. Finally, when the windmill was first destroyed, Napoleon used propaganda to make all the animals believe that Snowball had destroyed the windmill himself and was a traitor from the beginning. He even convinced them that Snowball had actually tried to sabotage the Battle of Cowshed. The animals being ignorant and uneducated created ease for them to be manipulated by Napoleon, which is why it was so effective.
The first reference to the use of fear by Napoleon is in chapter 5.

In this chapter, Napoleon, right after Snowball finished speaking for the Windmill project. " Uttered a high pitched whimper…and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn”. The dogs created fear in all of the animals and made it very easy for Napoleon to ascend to the position of the leader of Animal Farm. The dogs’ fear also prevented rebellion against Napoleon or any questioning of his authority. Another use of fear is shown when Squealer explains to everyone that Napoleon had restarted the Windmill project. Here the three dogs growled threateningly so no animal could question any further. One of the most prominent and gory examples of fear is in chapter 7 when Napoleon ordered his dogs to slaughter the four pigs that were at times rebellious toward him. Then a series of bloody trails followed. Many others were slain until “there was a pile of corpses lying Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood”. This filled the rest of the animals on the farm with more fear and terror than ever before. This effectively controlled them because everyone knew that the punishment of disobedience to Napoleon would simply result in

death.
Besides physical fear there was also a large amount of hypothetical fear used by Napoleon and Squealer.

The constantly used phrase “Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?” is a use of fear in the book to effectively control the animals. For whenever they were presented with the fact that Jones can indeed come back, they would just accept whatever the idea. In addition to the use of fear through jones coming back, they also turned Snowball into a fear weapon. Napoleon convinced the animals that snowball was against them and animalism from the start. It was said that snowball was the cause for everything that went wrong. Napoleon said he snuck on the farm at night. This caused them to hate snowball and fear him coming back to the farm just as they do Jones. So, this use of fear was used directly to throw rules upon the animals, prevent an uprising and to make sure that everything effectively went according to the wish of the

pigs.
In conclusion, propaganda was a very important part of Animal Farm. The Pigs manipulated the uneducated by making the animals believe whatever they want. Napoleon used this to them to blindly get the animals to follow him. There was use of fear by violence, and death. They inflicted fear by using hypothetical situations to get the other animals to do as told, like Jones and Snowball coming back. Numerous types of propaganda were used by leaders in Animal Farm to effectively take control.