Manipulation In Animal Farm

As George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So as the animals, of Animal Farm, began forgetting about the reign of Farmer Jones the pigs began to take control. The array of forgetful animals, on the farm, were easily manipulated by the pigs. So without much effort, the pigs took charge. The pigs were able to take control because of the animal’s lack of long-term memory. The animals remembered “—or thought they remembered—“yet the pigs changed things on them (Orwell 91). Often the few animals who could remember didn’t frequently try to remember and therefore thought what they remembered was wrong. One of the main characters, “Boxer[,] was forgotten except by the few who had known him” (Orwell 127). The characters forgetting Boxer is significant, for if it wasn’t for Boxer most things would never have been completed on the farm. What the characters did remember about Boxer was changed and manipulated by the pigs.

Many of the animals took the lies they were told by the pigs as the one and only truth. One of the most common characters that the pigs lied about was Snowball, Napoleons scapegoat, one example of this is when the pigs made the animals believe that Snowball had never “received the order of ‘Animal Hero First Class’”, and that this was just a lie told by Snowballs comrades (Orwell 97). This simple change gained Napoleon and his lackeys more faith from the animals on the farm. Squealer, Napoleon’s main lackey, also told the animals that the cart that took away Boxer was the “property of the knacker, and had been bought by the veterinary surgeon, who had not yet painted the old name out” (Orwell 125). This seemingly unbelievable lie was able to crush rumors around the farm about Boxer being murdered and not treated