Manipulation Animal Farm

Animal Farm (1945) is a short allegorical novel by the British novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic Eric Arthur Blair, better known under the pen name George Orwell. This novel, which is considered as one of Orwell's most prominent works, employs the form of the animal fable to depict the story of a group of barnyard animals that revolt against their human master, Mr. Jones, in an attempt to create a utopian state. With this in mind, Animal Farm was written after World War II as an allegory for the rise and decline of socialism in the Soviet Union, and a warning to the emergence of the totalitarian regime of Joseph Stalin. Although there are many ways to interpret and dissect this tale, this book affected me through how the animals, particularly the pigs, managed to accumulated power through the manipulation of language and the use of rhetoric. Therefore

The manipulation of language and rhetoric to command and extort power is an underlying theme throughout this story. This starts from the very beginning with the powerful speech of Old Major, an ageing and wise boar drawing comparison to Lenin, completed with a song called “Beasts of England,” in which his dream vision is lyrically described. This rouses his fellow animals and influences them make a revolution against their master, Mr. Jones. Furthermore, the pigs (representing the Bolsheviks or bureaucratic power elite), under the command of Snowball (Trotsky) and Napoleon (Stalin) successfully carry out and put in place this revolution much like it’s Russian counterpart.