In the dystopian novella Animal Farm, by George Orwell, irony is very prevalent throughout the story. Verbal irony came mostly through the pigs violating the 7 commandments. Situational irony came to the story slowly, as the animals’ lives slowly deteriorated and the pigs’ lives became better. Dramatic Irony was not as common, occurring only a few times. Orwell used his point of view, third person omniscient, to portray a sense of irony quite well. It
The use of verbal irony is widespread throughout the novel. One instance that we found verbal irony was when the pigs started changing the seven commandments into phrases that better suited their needs, and then replacing the commandments all together. These changes implied verbal irony because they contradicted the statements made by old major. This showed that the pigs had power over the dull animals with their bad memory, and the pigs were willing to exploit that. The another time Orwell used verbal irony was
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An example was when Napoleon was “sick” after drinking the alcohol, squealer said that Napoleon was about to die. It was expected that he would die, but in reality it was just his hangover from over drinking. This was important because it showed that the pigs were changing the facts at their own will, based on what was convenient for them. The rest of the animals were to foolish to realize that they were being manipulated. The largest instance of situational irony was the difference between life before and a few years after the revolution. The animals dreamt of a better life after the revolution, but in reality it became much worse. Orwell influenced us by making us think at the start that animalism was a great idea, but as the end of the story we could conclude communism could/would be corrupted very easily. He effectively changed our minds using situational