How Does George Orwell Use Language In Animal Farm

Discuss the effects of the language techniqueswhich the author, George Orwell, uses to explore the idea of power in the novel ‘Animal Farm’.

George Orwell's allegorical fable, Animal Farm, is a political satire set in a small English farm which details the animals struggle through the oppression and tyranny of their master, Mr Jones. In Orwell's portrayal of this utopian story, the animals are found craving freedom from their monotonous lives of servitude to mankind. In an unforeseen effort, the animals overrun Mr Jones, only to re-enter into a dictatorship run by a shrewd Stalin-like pig, Napoleon. The didactic textpaints a picture of society, more specifically society during the Russian revolution, where the animals complete an unescapable

The old boar begins the rhetoric by first stating how he does not have much time left, but before he dies he wants to "pass on such wisdom that (that he had) acquired" (p.3). Already the language is manipulating the audience and the animals by appealing to their emotions, forcing them to feel sad and sympathetic for the old boar. Old Major proposes the question to the group, “what is the nature of this life of ours?”, forcing the animals and the audience to consider their own life while positioning them to agree with Major in his opinion (p.3). Orwell applies the rule of three when Old Major states that life for animals is 'miserable, laborious and short' (p. 3). This detailed response to Major's question is a typical political rhetoric which is used by Orwell to engage the audience by pre-empting the responses of both the animals and the audience. Following this, Major's vocabulary choice dramatically shifts to a more emotive degree in order to describe how the animals are "slaughtered with hideous cruelty" (p.3). Orwell deliberately utilises the emotive language to force the audience to feel sorry for these animals which Orwell compares to slaves. Major then concludes the main body of his speech by generalising how "no animal(s) (are) free" (p.3). Therefore, it can be seen that Major is playing with the animals emotions to gain power and convince the animals that a

This manipulation is clearly established when the pigs teach the sheep the phrase "four legs good, two legs better" which the sheep conveniently repeat at different occasions for their dictators. Used as puppets, the sheep continually repeat the phrase until it is eventually accepted as true by the other animals. This onslaught of propaganda from the pigs successfully prevents the animals from thinking for themselves by persuading them that it is all for the greater good of the Manor Farm. Furthermore, Orwell highlights the symbol of the barn with the seven commandments painted on the side, as representing the collective memory of the animals which is manipulated. The contrasting irony of the altered commandment "all animals are equal but some are more equal than others" is a prime example of how the pigs are manipulating Old Major’s words (p.90). The commandment changesto allow the pigs to maintain power as it forces the animals to believe that history is on thepigs’ side. Moreover, by revising the story of the revolution and re-defining the laws of Animalism the animals are re-capturing the identity of the farm, forcing the oppressed animals to depend upon the pigs for