Vulnerable Characters In Animal Farm

To commence, the characters in both novels represent vulnerability in a similar fashion through characters in two different ways, the first of which is vulnerability through gullibility. In Animal Farm, Orwell uses the characters Boxer and Clover to embody this characteristic; this is especially clear when Orwell writes, “Having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other animals” (Orwell 37). Without using reason to analyze the pigs intentions and motifs, the horses are unable to realize that they are being manipulated into helping the pigs complete their plans to enslave the other animals. Their ignorance thus leaves them vulnerable to the malices of the real world.
Orwell accomplishes this task when he writes that the tyrannical Napoleon sent four large dogs to seize “four of the pigs by the ear and [drag] them, squealing with pain and terror” (Orwell 92). The author’s choice in choosing to use four defenseless pigs as the victims is no coincidence, he does so because it demonstrates how vulnerable they are and it symbolizes just how vulnerable certain members in society can be. Twain uses the character Huckleberry Finn to display vulnerability in a similar manner when he has him trapped in Pap’s shed without a way out or a means to fight back. Huck is a young boy who hasn’t developed his strength and he is in lack of a responsible legal guardian which leaves him defenseless against his abusive father; this can easily be interpreted as a symbolism of how vulnerable children are in society. By incorporating characters that are viewed as easily convinced and defenseless, Twain and Orwell are satirizing and criticizing how easily persuaded and deceived society and its individuals can be as well as criticizing how tyrannical individuals have no honour and will attack anyone to fulfil their personal