What Are The Similarities Between 1984 And Animal Farm

How would you feel if you had no freedom of thought? No ability to do what you please? Being constantly watched? Consistently being lied to? Well, for the people of Oceania and the animals on Animal Farm, this is their reality. In Orwell’s novels Animal Farm and 1984 the heads of their societies, Napoleon and Big Brother, both strive for totalitarian control in order to feed their hunger for power. The two novels have authoritarian leaders who enlist similar techniques to maintain their statuses, however; Big Brother is more of a force than an actual being like Napoleon.
Characters whom the problems or wrongdoings of society can be blamed on are present in both novels. “Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball.”(Animal

This is more present in 1984, where there is an entire ministry dedicated to the purification of information so that the government can control exactly what everyone believes. They destroy every record that may contradict what is currently true, leaving not even a shred of doubt that what the members of the party may be reading, hearing or seeing is true, . “There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy.” (1984 184). This helps to explain the power of the government and the ignorance of the people and how they just abandon their thoughts whenever instructed. “He accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past never had been altered.” (1984 287). Even though Winston’s job is to transform the past, with the mental deterioration that occurred in the ministry of love he was broken down into accepting that it had never happened, let alone that he had ever done it. These events carry over into Animal Farm when the Seven Commandments are being changed by the pigs, which flies right over the heads of the other animals. “They had thought the Fifth Commandment was “No animal shall drink alcohol,” but there were two words that they had forgotten. Actually the Commandment read: “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.”(Animal Farm 109). The pigs

1984 practices the use of the Thought Police and the Ministry of Love. “How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.”(1984 3). In Oceania, one is in constant danger of being vaporized from existence, the Thought Police do not need proof to annihilate someone, regardless of their ranking in society. “Never again will you be capable or ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”(1984 265). This demonstrates what goes on in the Ministry of Love and the cruelty of their goals by keeping prisoners there. They want to dehumanize all of the party members into making them instill all of their focus in helping the prosperity of Oceania, however; they are ignorant of the truth that their lives will never improve. Related to the rashness of the police-like method in Animal Farm, “When they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out,” (Animal Farm 84). The Dogs are also very vicious in their way of taking out the criminalized animals, having been trained by Napoleon since they were first born they have known no other way. The