Animal_Farm

Satire is primarily a literary genre, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision or ridicule. Propaganda is the spreading of ideas, information, or rumour for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person. Squealer, like the newspaper, is the link between Napoleon and other animals, justifying his actions and policies. He represents the chief minister of propaganda under Stalin’s dictatorship, who uses trickery, and deception to persuade the masses. Squealer’s charismatic intelligence and unwavering loyalty to “Comrade” Napoleon makes him the ideal propagandist for any tyranny. Squealer employs techniques from the entire spectrum of propaganda. He uses bandwagon (“Comrades”), lesser of two evils (“Jones would come back!”), faulty cause and effect (“and this has been proved by Science, comrades”), and card stacking (“the whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us”). He uses the transfer method to associate Napoleon with the revolution and the construction of the windmill while associating Snowball with its destruction. Napoleon’s regime is based on fear of death (by carnivorous dogs) and the fear of the return of Mr. Jones. Orwell also expands his critique of Stalin’s revisionist propaganda. The pigs’ break another one of the Seven Commandments when they begin living in the farmhouse and sleeping in beds. Clover and Muriel investigate, only to discover that the Commandment has been changed to suit the pigs’ desires. Through his smooth talking, Squealer convinces Clover and Muriel that the commandment has always concerned the use of sheets and not beds. In this revision, the allegory serves Orwell particularly well. Stalin and his propagandists plastered the Soviet Union with propaganda in the form of posters, songs, art, and countless other media. Squealer’s version of this pattern is to continually re-paint the Seven Commandments to reflect Napoleon’s changes in policy. Orwell humorously suggests a Soviet agent going around the Soviet Union, personally scratching and rewriting the slogans on posters. The point is that the propaganda changes to suit those in power to keep a controlled acquiescence among the rest. Animal Farm satirises the concept of totalitarianism, criticising through his characters a totalitarian regime that allows one individual absolute power. Orwell uses Napoleon, the central character on the farm, as a satirical metaphor of Stalin. Napoleon signals “nine enormous dogs wearing brass studded collars”, which barge into the barn and chase Snowball out. These dogs are a parody of the secret police (KGB) Stalin used to exile Trotsky. This created a sense of intimidation for the other animals as such keeping them in line and ensuring they worked harder without complain. Also through this episode, Napoleon’s dictatorship becomes more apparent to the audience. The windmill is a symbol of Napoleon’s attempt to exert his influence beyond the farm. Each time the windmill is destroyed, Napoleon gives the animals’ who work tirelessly to build the windmill, sacrificing everything, new hope that, next time around they will build it and reap its benefits. In the same way, Soviet citizens laboured for an abstract “common good”, the fruits of which they never saw. Orwell sarcastically comments on the selfish nature of leaders through Squealer’s praise of Napoleon’s leadership “Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure. On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be”. This excerpt demonstrates Orwell’s criticism on how corrupt a totalitarian regime is and how it will never be able to succeed due to an individual having absolute power of one’s thoughts and actions. Five Ways to Kill a Man written by Edwin Brock demonstrates humans to be sadistic through various satirical techniques such as black humour and irony. ‘Carry a plank of wood to the top of the hill and nail him to it’ expresses the black humour referring to the crucifixion of Christ. The tone implies human beings behaviour to be blunt, pathetic and insensitive together with the joyful rhyme scheme that contrasts with the war theme, and once again highlights our lack of value for human life as well as our negligence and disregard for those who suffer through war. ‘But for this you need white horses, English trees, men with bows and arrows, at least two flags, a prince and a castle to hold your banquet in’ emphasises the irony within the poem. It creates an image of bravery yet they still indulge in killing innocent creatures which are being brought to the battlefield, this represents courage, bravery and pride; and how humans have been trapped in the cycle of killing. ‘Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind allows, blow gas at him’ further exemplifies weapons of mass destruction which alludes to propaganda of the government as well as black humour. The word choice ‘nobility’ seems as if they are killing for a good cause, but as they reach the battlefield they become aware that their act is not at all noble. Similarly in Animal Farm the pigs deprive the animals of the apples and milk creating a façade. Squealer’s spread for propaganda creates an image of nobility to hide their war crimes. Hitler is portrayed as a ‘psychopath’ in the second last stanza of the poem due to his obsession with killing thus relating back to Animal Farm when Napoleon ‘flogged an old horse to death, he starved his cows, he had killed a dog by throwing it in a furnace, he amused himself in the evenings by making cocks fight with splinters of raz c orblade tied to their spurs”.