Animal Farm Rhetorical Analysis

Rebellion was made to escape from people and their cruel ways, but what happened in this book was quite ironic. The name of this book is Animal Farm, by George Orwell. In this book, the animals of the farm try to rebel from their owner Farmer Jones, creating equality among all animals. The farm turns into a nightmare when the pigs become the autocrats. In order to achieve power over the other animals, Squealer persuades the animals through guilt, glittering generality, and rhetorical question.

Persuasion can be used to manipulate ones thoughts through many things. The first persuasion technique Squealer chose was guilt. During his rant about the aftermath of the Battle of Cowshed, Squealer said “I trust that every animal here appreciates

the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself” (40). Being that Squealer is a close apprentice to Napoleon, he attempts to talk up his reputation by saying that Napoleon has done a lot extra labor than the other animals. The animals interpret “extra labor” as toil, while Squealers knows that Napoleon exerted more mental labor than physical. With this “extra labor” image of Napoleon in the animals minds, guilty emotions arise. This technique is devious because the animals will now work harder in order to be equal to Napoleons work ethic.
To evoke positive feelings in an audience, glittering generality would be put into use.

This is Squealers second propaganda technique that he uses. In Squealers speech, he makes a very opinionated quote that says, “Bravery is not enough, loyalty and obedience are more important” (40). Squealer uses words like bravery, loyalty, and obedience to evoke positive feelings in the animals he’s speaking too. Now that positivity is present in the animals, they’re now more susceptable to agreeing with anything that Squealer says. Squealers power infused brain secretely manipulates the minds of the animals by saying that loyalty and obedience are more important than being brave. His point here is to make the animals think that loyalty and obedience towards their leaders, Squealer and Napoleon, would be of utmost importance. Squealer would rather have the animals be spectators instead of the hero’s because it’s just another way he can maintain power. If an animal tries to be brave and saves the day, some of Napoleons power will shift towards that

animal.
The last technique Squealer uses is rhetorical questions.

In Squealers pursuasive speech, he said, “One false step, and our enemies would be upon us. Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back” (40)? This rhetorical question is used to evoke fear in the animals by threatening them that Farmer Jones will return, making them rely on the leadership of Squealer. Farmer Jones was their previous owner who treated them unfairly, which is the reason the animals rebelled. Squealer knows that the animals are terrified of Farmer Jones, so he uses that to his advantage. Furthermore, Squealer already knows that the animals don’t want Farmer Jones back. By threatening the animals with this rhetorical question, it motivates them to work to their best extent with no false steps along the way, and also helps Squealer maintain power. If the animals work hard and make no mistakes, Squealers wins because he was able to cheat more work out of them. Although, if they do make one false step and Farmer Jones returns, then Squealer will lose all of his power to their previous

leader.
Squealer persuades the animals through guilt, glittering generality, and rhetorical question to achieve power over them. Squealer used guilt to manipulate the animals thoughts, glittering generality to evoke positive feelings, and a rhetorical question to make the animals rely on Squealer to keep them safe. Now ponder on this, if you were given an opportunity to take advantage of doltish people, would you?