Deception and Manipulation in Animal Farm Essay

April 17th, 2015

“Animal Farm” is one of the most famous political allegories written in all twentieth-century by George Orwell. It was first published in England on August 17th, 1945. The book reflects Russia’s history from the beginning of the Rebellion to the end when Russia came upon the stage of the totalitarian Soviet Union. In this novel, the author depicted the processes, which the pigs used to gain power step by step with the use of deception and manipulation of the animals. The conspiracies of the pigs can be attributed to three aspects: Language Advantages, Psychological Intimidation and Propagandist Effects. Firstly, after the rebellion, the pigs wrote the Seven Commandments to introduce laws for all animals to obey, but gradually they broke these laws and tricked the animals in believing what they said. Secondly, when the animals had doubts about the pigs’ behaviors, Squealer always used the threat of Mr. Jones coming back to threaten other animals. Thirdly, Squealer advertised the benefits animals would get and the bright future they would have if they allowed Napoleon their leader to take control. Unfortunately, the pigs’ cruel behaviors ruined both the other animals and themselves. Orwell showed the aggressive way the pigs treated the animals and enjoyed themselves in order to reflect the background of the society. In this novel, since the pigs coveted the power and enjoyment, they eventually end up harming the animals and themselves.
Firstly, the pigs broke the laws and tricked the animals by adding words after the commandments in order to gain power and satisfy their vanity. It is no doubt that the pigs were the cleverest ones among the animals, so they issued orders to animals and wrote the Seven Commandments to control them. “A bed merely means a place to sleep in. A pile of straw in a stall is a bed, properly regarded. The rule was against sheets, which are a human invention.” (Orwell, Page 45) The pigs masterly used “with sheets” to avoid being caught. It was these two words dragging animals to think about the sheet rather than living in bed. The Animals believed the pigs’ words and said nothing. This was the first time that Napoleon changed the commandment and he noticed most of animals had no reaction to it, so he began to use this method more continually. When Napoleon killed some Animals, he said:
“No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.’ Somehow or other the last two words had slipped out of the animals’ memory, argued Squealer “The commandment had not been violated; for clearly there was a good reason for killing the traitors who has leagued themselves with Snowball” (Orwell, Page 61)
This time Napoleon even killed the animals for the sake of maintaining his authority. He not only intended to wipe out Snowball but also wanted to threaten all the animals, telling them if anyone opposed him they will be killed. Language deception seems like a good way to centralize power, but it confused the animals and reduced their trust. It can be clearly seen that Napoleon is good at using psychological strategy, but Squealer use it more effectively.
Secondly, the pigs also used the method of psychological strategy to threaten animals and centralize power. Especially Squealer, a good speaker, could always petrify the animals to agree with the pigs when the animals doubted the pigs’ behaviors. “ Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back.” (Orwell, Page 23) Pigs were the cleverest animals on the farm, so they took advantages of the other animals by relying on their intelligence. Squealer successfully made animals think that if they would not have the pigs, they would do nothing. At this point, the animals followed them automatically. The most powerful argument here was “Do you want Mr. Jones back?” The pigs made sure that