Free Animal Farm Essays: The Manipulation Of A Small Nation

The Manipulation of a Small Nation Propaganda, or the manipulation and control of language, is an essential element when creating a successful totalitarian government. In Animal Farm, George Orwell illustrates just how crucial propaganda really is for these regimes. He illustrates how the pigs, through the use of propaganda, could control information on the farm as well as justify their own questionable actions to thus assume and maintain power on Animal Farm. Propaganda allowed the pigs to control the information communicated on the farm. In controlling what the animals learned, the pigs were by extension controlling the other animals’ thoughts giving them power over the animals. The first example of this control is demonstrated when Old
The pigs, throughout Animal Farm, would break farm rules to establish themselves in a place of superiority. Then, to keep the animals from questioning the pigs’ rise in power, the pigs would use propaganda to justify their unjust actions. For example, the pigs used faulty-cause-and-effect reasoning to justify receiving better food. Early in the novella, the animals discovered the pigs were the only ones to receive milk and apples. This discovery brought dismay to the other animals, until Squealer was quick to say, “milk and apples (…proved by Science…) contain substances… necessary to the well-being of a pig [and]… the whole management … of this farm depend on [the pigs, so]… we [the pigs] drink that milk and eat those apples” (36). By saying that milk and apples were essentially brain-food for the pigs, Squealer made it seem the pigs needed these foods. Yet, all he was doing was using faulty-cause-and-effect reasoning. Squealer had no actual proof the pigs needed milk and apples, however propaganda allowed Squealer to convince the other animals that superiority in the pigs’ diet over the other animals’ individual diets was necessary. The pigs also used propaganda to justify Napoleon, the leader of all the pigs, in becoming the commander of the farm. At the beginning of the novella, the pigs stated “all animals are equal” (25). However, Napoleon decided he wanted
By utilizing the propaganda techniques of oversimplification, euphemism, faulty-cause-and-effect reasoning, and sheer basic manipulation of language, the pigs controlled the information presented to the animals and justified their own questionable actions. By controlling information and justifying actions, the pigs established agreement, trust, and false understandings that allowed the pigs to assume and maintain power on Animal