A large group of people can be easily influenced based on one's choice of words. In Animal Farm, George Orwell uses intellectual animals that acquire power through language to show the effect that compelling language has on individuals. Orwell characterizes the pigs as manipulative through Snowball and Squealer to reveal that language can be used as a persuasive tactic to influence society. Snowball is characterized as persuasive as his speech is acknowledged to reveal that he can convince the animals to agree with his opinions. If Snowball didn’t have the best of intentions or the brightest of ideas, the animals will still agree with him due to his persuasion skills. As an example, Snowball explains the significance of their maxim to the …show more content…
Squealer can be completely wrong in a situation but he has the ability to convince the animals otherwise until they believe him. First, The pigs get accused of stealing the milk to keep for themselves, but Squealer makes a rebuttal against their accusation: “‘Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones will come back! Yes Jones would come back!’”(Orwell 36). Squealer uses language that implements fear into the animals which is how he stopped them from accusing him and the pigs of doing something wrong. Next, the animals showed suspicions of the pigs as they questioned a change in a commandment, “‘You did not suppose, surely, that there was ever a ruling against beds? A bed merely means a place to sleep in. A pile of straw is a bed, properly regarded. The rule was against sheets, which are a human invention. We have removed the sheets from the farmhouse beds, and sleep between blankets’”(Orwell 67). Squealer has the ability to twist words to make the animals think they are wrong because the animals are not all that confident in their memories and Squealer makes them even more unsure by using phrases and words like “you did not suppose” and “merely” with emphasis on