Animal

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Sean Prager

Mrs. Harshman

English Honors 1 Period 0

15 November 2012

Animalistic Brainwashing

When people are given the chance to assume the throne or take power over others, they often

become frightening, manipulative, and power hungry. When a leader is gone, there is opportunity; this

creates a blank canvas in which the criminally insane minds may make a masterpiece of chaos and

destruction. In 1945, George Orwell portrays these ideas through his novel, Animal Farm, creating an

allegory of the Russian Revolution. A pig on this farm named Napoleon symbolizes a conniving, power

hungry leaders of the Russian Revolution, Stalin. Orwell uses satire to target the way corrupt, immoral

leaders use propaganda, violence, and manipulative words. Orwell's satire targets the propaganda

techniques of logos, blind faith, and scare tactics, conveying the message that leaders, though their ideas

may sound convincing and true, try to manipulate and exploit their audience's mind to the leader's own

benefit.

Under tyrannical leaders, Orwell uses satire to target the way leaders will use scare tactics

frighten their citizens, making them too scared to attempt to do anything else. As Squealer, the main

propagandist, defends his side of the argument and accusations, of the farm animals, he gets a very

effective reaction from asking whether "there is … [any]one … who wants to see Jones come back?"

(Orwell 36). This is followed by mutters of disbelief and proves that Squealer is taking the animals'

ignorance to his advantage by scaring them into believing that his methods are correct. In history,

Squealer is the media (televisions, radios etc.), watched constantly by the people of the USSR. The

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media often used tactics such as this to make people too scared to attempt anything else besides what

they are told to do, crippling the...