As Squealer represents the propaganda, he uses trickery, and deception to persuade everyone. Squealer's intelligence and unwavering loyalty to "comrade" Napoleon makes him the ideal go-between for any tyranny. Throughout the book, Squealer acts as a spokesman for Napoleon, justifying his actions and policies. He succeeds because of the animals’ obliviousness as he slowly twists the truth. Even the name Squealer suggests than he is a ‘tattle-tale’.
The potency of Orwell’s satire as the story of corruption and greed unfolds. Napoleon “a large, rather fierce looking Berkshire boar ... with a reputation of getting his own way”, is representative of Stalin and portrayed as an oppressive and dictatorial leader. Through Orwell’s mocking tone, he clearly aligns Napoleon’s horrendous actions with Stalin’s thereby denigrating not only Stalin’s leadership but also his basic lack of morals. Through irony “Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmill. On the contrary, it was he who had advocated it in the beginning.” Orwell is able to illustrate the hypocrisy of Napoleon's regime as Squealer's ability to pervert the truth, effectively enables Napoleon to manipulate the minds of the animals through mindless propaganda and rhetoric.
Propaganda in Animal Farm Essay Propaganda is defined as the spreading of information and ideas. This can be done for a cause of good, or bad. In the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell, propaganda is definitely used for influencing and manipulating the thoughts of all of the animals, besides the pigs of course. The pig Napoleon for example composed propaganda the most effectively and his greatest advantage that allowed him to do so, besides his cunning, was the ignorance of the less intelligent animals. His right hand man... or pig was named Squealer.
Orwell’s writing makes this moment in the novel so moving, for the reader, by his use of emotive language and characterisation of the animals in relation to the Russian revolution. The allegory is able to convey the feelings of betrayal the animals felt when they realised that their reality was nothing like the utopia of animalism. Napoleon and the pigs betrayed the other animals in the novella as they went against commandments 6 and 7. Orwell wrote, at this moment in the novella, that clover accepted ‘the leadership of Napoleon’. This meant that Napoleon was above all the other animals on the farm, Napoleon was a leader; therefore, the animals had to follow what he said.
Along with this, Lady Macbeth is also hasty to pursue the prophesised power, and manipulates Macbeth into committing the first deed. In animal Farm, it is Old Major’s ideals which spurs the animals into performing the uprising against Farmer Jones and forming the new idea of Animalism. Unlike the murder of Duncan, the animal’s revolt is a worthy cause, which benefits the whole community and not just a single individual. Both the Witches prophecy and Old Majors ideals planted the seed of ambition in Macbeth’s and Napoleon’s minds, unfortunately, those seeds quickly grow into tyranny. Macbeth begins his bloody chain of murders with the help of Lady Macbeth, working together to murder King Duncan.
The only good human being is a dead one.’ Snowball is a ruthless leader who is committed to the revolution, so committed in fact that he indicates he’d be willing to die for Animal Farm. This arrogance towards the distressed horse Boxer and the commitment he displays mirrors that of Leon Trotsky in Russian society, it is this lack of empathy that differentiates him from the others animals, yet his hope and high ambitions ultimately contribute to his exile, but these traits are initially what made him a good leader. Orwell is using the character of Snowball to reflect the ideas that essentially, knowledge and ruthlessness is power. Trotsky was intelligent and ruthless just like many
Animal farm parodies the events of the Russian Revolution mocks humanity’s morally weak government foundations. Under the rule of animalism, the seven commandments are representing their views of equality, allegorical of communism; this is further enforced through the characterisation of animals which draw links to past figures. These ideals are epitomised by Old Major, “a majestic looking pig” who poses as an allegory to Karl Marx the founder of communism. Old Major’s dream of an ideal world was brilliant but unrealistic. Through his speech, Major shapes one of the Revolution’s key notions, stating “Even when you have conquered him do not adopt his vices,”
This applies to the book, because a certain character takes initiative and had much of the power, and took control of the farm. A character in the novel that stands out, and had great power is a pig named Napoleon. Napoleon emerges as the leader of Animal Farm after the Rebellion. Napoleon uses military force (his nine loyal attack dogs) to intimidate the other animals and consolidate his power. In his supreme craftiness, Napoleon proves more treacherous than his counterpart, Snowball.
Propaganda plays a really important part in the Russian Revolution, and as a result propaganda was also one of the main themes in Animal Farm. In the Novel, George Orwell portrayed the manipulation of speech through a character named Squealer, a pig who acted as a spokesperson for Napoleon. One example of Squealer’s use of propaganda to gain the animals’ support can be seen in his speech denouncing snowball part in the rebellion after he was banished from the farm. Using the animal’s stupidity to his advantage, Squealer played with the minds of all the animals, describing a twisted version of the events of the Battle of the Cowshed, one of the battles that were fought during the rebellion. In Squealer’s version of Snowball’s part of the battle, Snowball was planning to “leave the field to the enemy” (p54).
The novel Animal Farm by George Orwell and the movie V for Vendetta demonstrate the dangers of bureaucratic leadership bodies, as they abuse language to their advantage, betray the loyalty entrusted to them, and eventually shift toward totalitarianism. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the dominant species also used lies and propaganda to secure their power. Squealer was the pig who served as the public relations person for Napoleon, the dictator of Animal Farm. Squealer used several techniques to persuade all the other animals. For example, he would take the Seven Commandments, the de-facto constitution of Animal Farm, and distort any connections the animals made between the actions of the pigs and the commandments.