Fear used in Animal Farm Fear is a constant theme seen throughout Animal Farm.The author uses the pigs to demonstrate how fear is used even today by people in power to keep others standing against them repressed. Napoleon, Squealer, and even Snowball for a short period of time, used their status to subdue any animals that had the audacity to stand against them. However, there are a faction of lower level animals that do believe in the higher power for instance Boxer, the dogs, and the sheep. In George Orwell’s book Animal Farm, Napoleon and Squealer use fear to control and oppress the other animal by threats, executions, and changing commandments. Threats used by pigs are a tool to install fear in the animals, to keep them complacent. Squealer …show more content…
Napoleon and Squealer use this tactic to confuse the animals. The confusion makes the animals reliant on the word of the pigs who are very corrupt in their ways. The author shows this confusion when, “They had thought the Fifth Commandment was ‘No animal shall drink alcohol,’ but there were two words added that they had forgotten. Actually the Commandment read: ‘No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.’” (Orwell 75). The pigs change the commandments in order to cause a confusion within the animals. Confusion makes the animals dependent on the pigs namely Napoleon, who is kept in power by the animals and their confusion. In the book Animal Farm threats, executions, and the changing of commandments are all tactics that are used to stimulate fear into the minds of the animals. These strategies are all ways that the pigs insure that all the other animals will stay oppressed, and them in power. Napoleon and Squealer succeed in placing fear in the animals, and it holds true all the way to the end. Even in the end, when the animals see the true nature of the pigs, they still allow themselves to be ruled over. Why; because they are