How Does Orwell Use Satire In Animal Farm

Satirical texts critique the fundamental nature of tyrants in a communist society, and their foundation lies at their satirical techniques. A satire is a text which uses humour, irony or exaggeration in order to highlight the vices, flaws and pretensions of individuals, societies and ideals. The cartoonist’s impression of North Korean society, followed by Orwell’s novella Animal Farm uses satire to its pinnacle in emphasising a totalitarian state overriding an apparently communist society. As a result, communism is a valid form of societal order yet it is the nature of tyrannical leadership that eventually corrupts it, and satire is an effective way to express this.

The cartoon Smart Phone is an allusive representation of Kim Jong Un’s tyrannical

reign over a communist society, revealed through the underlying element of satire. A caricature of the dictator of North Korea is depicted through his distinguishable hairstyle and stature, in contrast to the figure opposite. The cartoonist uses juxtaposition and an extreme difference in height and physique to symbolise and satirise their contrasting levels of authority. The inferior figure is portrayed in a substandard manner, emphasised by her trembling at the knees, battered face, overburden and dehumanisation as Kim Jong Un intentionally refers to her as a “Smart Phone!” In accordance, Kim Jong Un also poses a question that reveals his self-obsession and tyranny as it is structured in such a way that any inappropriate response would foster persecution. As a result, she is forced to respond in accordance with the dictator’s wishes, satirising the indoctrination and exploitation of North Korea’s working class. Furthermore, the “NEWS ITEM:” is a symbol ridiculing the actual production of North Korea’s first smart phone, where national media affirmed the phone to be entirely domestically produced. However, claims were dismissed simply as propaganda, and so is symbolic of the cartoon, satirising the pretensions of tyrannical leadership and the use of propaganda.
Orwell’s novella Animal Farm satirises the events of the Russian Revolution in the form of an effective animal allegory, yet its relevance inspires a powerful judgement on the nature of tyrannical leadership. In the ingenious form of a beast fable, the major characters are animals, yet their fatal flaws are all too recognisably human. They begin with an idealistic attempt to form a new society, liberated from the tyranny of humans and founded on the principle of freedom and equality. However, that such ideal which begins as utopia is doomed to failure due to the inevitable corruption of human nature. Orwell’s symbolism of the pigs solely representing the human tyrants they replaced is emphasised through the impossibility to distinguish between the two, of which Orwell writes “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.” (X. 102). Thus, the novel exposes and satirises the perversion of political ideas and the corruption of power which all inevitably occur in human societies.

A parallel exists between the contextual aspects of both texts, as with the purpose of the cartoon Smart Phone, it exists to satirise the nature of Kim Jong Un’s leadership and the exploitation of communism in North Korean society.

However, Orwell’s Animal Farm also functions as a satirical attack on Stalinist Russia, where the original Communist Revolution degenerated into internal power struggles and the emergence of a grim totalitarian regime under Stalin. Therefore, Stalin can be likened to Kim Jong Un as both are tyrannical rulers whose communist societies are intertwined. Critique in the form of satire common to both texts focuses on the inequality within a society that promotes equality, the misuse of power and exploitation, the pretensions of tyrannical leadership and the breakdown of communism reliant on human nature itself. However, the satirical techniques primarily used by the composers differ significantly between both texts. Most prominently, the cartoonist uses exaggeration and symbolism in highlighting the vices within a communist society. In a symbolic aspect, the inferior figure wears a typical North-Korean uniform embellished by a red communist star on the hat, indicating her to be the embodiment of the working class and a representation of the elements of communism itself. However, her degraded and undignified condition is synonymous of communism’s breakdown in North Korea, in which the circumstances of her exploitation symbolises the failure of communism solely based upon exploitation by a tyrannical leader. Orwell, on the other hand, directs his satirical attack on the nature of a revolutionary leader through the extensive use of irony. Before his death, Old Major warns the animals against mankind, stating “No animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind … All animals are equal.” (I.9). In contrast however, the reader begins to observe the pigs undergo a gradual change. Napoleon’s insistence on the windmill being rebuilt several times is

synonymous of his tyrannical reign, where eventually, Napoleon outright exploits the working class. By the end, the irony has reached its peak – these animals that played the leading role during the revolution now replaced those human masters under whose oppression the animals suffered, and Old Major’s doctrines have essentially been reversed.

Ultimately, the ability of the composers to use the contrasting satirical techniques to satirise the same subject is a testimony to the universal concept of a tyrannical leader within a communist society, where lust for power is an inevitable flaw of human nature. The critique of inequality within a society that promotes equality within the two texts has its foundation in their underlying satirical techniques, where in theory, communism is a justifiable ideal, yet it is the corruption of human nature that simultaneously corrupts the concept of communism, and as such, satire is a powerful way to express this.