Stereotypes In George Orwell's Animal Farm

413 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role of satire essays

Husnea Neloy
October 13, 2015
ENG 1 Honors
Sixth Period George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm, based the animals in the book off of stereotypes. When composing such a satirical and allegorical story, not only is it common to use stereotypes but useful as well. To a certain degree the author must employ stereotypes to make the characters fit into a symbolic molds. Stereotypes are universal. Meaning, they exist in every community, society, and culture. This means that they are socially significant and reflect something about human traits and character. Stereotypes are often seen as a negative, but author George Orwell took advantage of stereotypes and with them he created the satirical book Animal Farm; the characters in his book …show more content…

It is a testament to Orwell’s acute political intelligence and to the universality of his fable that Napoleon can easily stand for any great dictators and political schemers in world history, even those who arose after Animal Farm was written. Another example would be, these following stereotypes.
Pigs - Represents selfishness and gluttony. Can’t tell humans and pigs apart.
Horses - Slow-witted, strong, and loyal.
Sheep - Brainless and behaves as a flock, without individual initiative.
In the book these stereotypes are frequently conveyed in through book, especially in chapter 10. To finally conclude this essay, I’ll go over my opinion once again. I think that employing stereotypes is indeed useful in this book. Using stereotypes is common and useful, and to a certain degree stereotypes are employed to many stories similar too Animal Farm. Using stereotypes in stories like these makes reading a little more interesting and not boring. And it also very rare to see satire without some type of stereotype

Show More
Related

  • Misconceive?o By John Leo

    751 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mr. Leo uses several analogies and examples in his presentation, and they are all tied to his thesis. He points out some images that strikingly resemble stereotypes that are commonly found in society today. He uses movie characters from Star Wars, such as Watto to support his claim.

    Read More

  • Figurative Language In Dave Barry's Lost In The Kitchen

    667 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Dave Barry's story, Lost in the Kitchen, he's shows a humorous story about two men's ineptness at helping to prepare for their Thanksgiving dinner. However, as you look closer at the essay you find that the actual message the author is trying to convey is one of stereotypes, and how they appear everyday in our lives, even during the preparations for a simple Thanksgiving dinner. In order to convey this message he uses several strategies and techniques to draw our attention to the use of stereotypes in our lives and to help us better understand the point that he is trying to get across.

    Read More

  • Tom Robinson Stereotypes

    978 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, we are presented with various representations of stereotypes involving numerous characters of all ages. Due to specific encounters, we are faced with repeated stereotypical situations. For example, Walter Cunningham is a poor, misunderstood boy who comes from an underestimated family name. Along with the main character Scout, who narrates the story from a young age and finds herself constantly reminded to be the lady she is not. In like manner, Tom Robinson is familiar with the ways of Maycomb, Alabama who easily loses hope with his case of an alleged rape. Walter, Scout and Tom all validate as victims of stereotyping, but from the goodwill within and taking the time to understand someone beforehand,

    Read More

  • Boo Radley Stereotypes

    512 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stereotypes still happen in today’s time but thankfully not nearly as bad is back then. This novel showed so many ways of it, and sadly people still get treated like that and are judged for how they act, their race, what they believe in ect.. It will never be tolerated and people do react and stick up when they see it

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In Seedfolks, By Paul Fleischman

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    For example, Ana was one of the characters that was guilty of stereotyping others, but there are also characters like Amir, who were the victims of stereotyping. All of the characters had very similar problems though. None of them had a clear understanding of each other, because they had just been going off of stereotypes. Amir, who is from India, explains on pages 63 and 64, “Many people spoke to me that day. Several asked me where I was from. I wondered if they knew as little about Indians as I had known about Poles.” Amir realizes that he is guilty of assuming he knows things about others just based on their race. Fleischman includes this to show that this is the problem with stereotyping. If people who make assumptions based on looks or race actually take time to get to know others, they could find out that they’re different than all of the stereotypes say they

    Read More

  • Examples Of Diction In To Kill A Mockingbird

    990 Words  | 2 Pages

    There is no doubt that Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a famous novel known for its themes, most of them containing wise life lessons, racial inequality being an obvious and important one. Firstly, racism illustrates the lack of justice and people’s views on prejudice in Tom Robinson’s case. Secondly, the novel touches base on diction notably the racial slurs used. Finally, with racism being a theme of the novel, it affects the characters’ personalities. Harper Lee uses life lessons, diction and characters throughout the novel because it develops the main theme of racism in To Kill a Mockingbird.

    Read More

  • Stereotyping in the World is the Universal Message of 12 Angry Men

    516 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through history people have tended to judge the lives of other by what they see on the outside, and completely disregard their actually character. “Stereotyping in the World” today has become a greater and greater problem has history moves on. Some have been known to look past these cases such as Reginald Rose’s book Twelve Angry Men. The play has been shown that one voice can change the thoughts of many by getting past the first layer and breaking it down to their inner person. Twelve Angry Men has showed the theme of “Stereotyping in the World” through the characters’ proper reasoning, communicating, and believing in good faith.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Stereotypes In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

    528 Words  | 2 Pages

    “People are always going to stereotype others… it may be without conscious thought, but it still has the same negative effects.”- Author Unknown. In the book “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, he includes many stereotypes; for example, Lennie was mean and dumb and Curley had small man syndrome. Other characters were stereotyped as hot headed, a tart, and a leader.

    Read More

  • The Strength of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    For instance many of the characters in the book have become the stereotypes of slavery in the South.  An example of this is Uncle Tom himself, whose name was eventually degraded into a nickname for blacks who were too subservient to whites.  He became the stereotype of the passive slave who would do anything his master told him, because it was his duty as a slave.  However few remember how the strength of his faith was what allowed him to tolerate the horrors that were enacted upon him.

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    552 Words  | 2 Pages

    The saying “history repeats itself” is used quite often, but how many times have you actually seen it happen? The book Animal Farm portrays the idea of history repeating itself. The character Benjamin and the pigs in the story show history repeating itself throughout the book. In addition to these characters within the book, North Korea displays history's repetition outside the book.

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Animal Farm

    584 Words  | 2 Pages

    There is a substantial amount of conflicts that occur in this satirical story. Often these conflicts are between the pigs and the rest of the animals. Only a minute portion of the animals didn’t really have some sort of conflict with Snowball, Napoleon, Squealer, or the rest of the dominating pigs. Overall, Snowball was a better leader than Napoleon, yet the animals reacted differently to Napoleon than to Snowball.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes in Things Fall Apart and The Lover

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Oxford Dictionary, stereotype is a preconceived and oversimplified idea of the characteristics which typify a person or situation (Oxford). But in reality it is more like a subtle form of bias, such as those based on people's gender, race or occupation. For example, Americans are generally considered to be arrogant and materialistic while Asians, on the other hand, are expected to be shrewd but reserved. Obviously, not all Americans are arrogant and not all Asians are shrewd. So, if one just assumes what a person is like and don't look at each person as an individual, he or she is likely to make errors in estimates of a person's character. Such biases are easily ignored, yet are a fact of life. These biases can affect how people see others, as well as themselves, which may lead to unexpected consequences. Thus, stereotyping can influence the communication and understanding between people, usually in a negative way. To examine the side effect brought by stereotyping, I will go through Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Duras’ The Lover and analyze the roles played by stereotype. The protagonists of both books are set in a background, to which they do not originally belong or where is colonized by foreign invaders. Therefore, stereotype becomes a mutual theme and plays an important role in these two books.

    Read More

  • The Setting of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    2328 Words  | 5 Pages

    The ideas of the stereotypical male and female were around at this time. Several characters in the book refusing to conform to the stereotype are put under pressure by members of the community to do so. Racism is an important theme in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. Even those who are not racist accept racism as part of everyday life. ' Everybody says Nigger.'

    Read More

  • Minstrel Show Archetypes

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    The most troubling element of stereotypes are typically their alleged roots in reality. We’ve all heard it said at some time that stereotypes of race, social cliques and economic classes are based on truth. This is what I find to be so dangerous about the archetypical characters found in early 20th century minstrel shows, many of which continue to be seen in modern media.

    Read More

  • Animal Farm: An Allegory of Russian History

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the main characters of Animal Farm is an allegorical parallel of Joseph Stalin. Napoleon is the pig that emerges as the leader of Animal Farm after the Rebellion. He represents the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Animal Farm, but can easily stand for any of the great dictators in world history. Napoleon seems at first to be a good leader, but he is eventually overcome by greed and becomes power-hungry. Stalin was the same in Russia, leaving the original equality of socialism behind, giving himself all the power and living in luxury while the peasants suffered. While Stalin’s national and international status flourished, the welfare of Russia remained unchanged. In Animal Farm, Orwell writes a similar thing: “Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves richer – except of course the pigs and the dogs.” In the novel, Napoleon openly seizes power for himself by using the dogs he trained to chase Snowball off Animal Farm. He banishes Snowball with no justification and rewrites history in order to further his own ends. Similarly, Stalin forced Trotsky from Russia and seized control of Russia. Stalin used his secret police ...

    Read More

More about Stereotypes In George Orwell's Animal Farm

Open Document