Satire In Animal Farm And Related Texts

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Satire is used to criticise humanity’s creations, creating a mutual understanding between composer and audience. Through the use of literary devices, the flaws and hypocritical stances are identified within each text. This notion is explored in George Orwell’s allegory ‘Animal Farm,’ which is an allegorical representation of the Russian Revolution, illustrating flaws in our society with a mixture of black humour and critical attitude. The flaws of the human condition corrupt the dreams of Old Major. Napoleon and Snowball originally strive to fulfil Old Major’s dreams but due to the self centeredness of Napoleon, among others, the tenets of Animalism are systematically undermined throughout the novel. Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka ridicules the hypocritical stances of society concerning racism. Similarly to the political cartoon, “Upgrading to cattle class” satirising the racial prejudice that is featured in society where Australians seemingly are more concerned about the treatment of cattle than the situation of Asylum seekers. Animal Farm expresses the nature of humanity through defamiliarisation, uncovering societal flaws through different characters representing different norms of society. 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,”
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