Animal Farm - How and Why Do the Animals Resemble Man?

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Orwell has given the animals the ability to speak and reason, to enable the animals to communicate, control and overpower. This allowed certain animals to gain knowledge and a better insight of the world. The animals were able to debate, civilise themselves, and operate without the guidance or instruction of man. The ability of speech and reason helps create the animal satire in which Orwell indirectly attacks Russian Communism. He uses animals instead of human beings and places his animals in human situations. Old Major, a wise boar, gave a speech which stirred up the revolution on Animal Farm, in his speech he mentioned the many vices attributed to mankind such as: • Man only cares for his kind - Mankind is selfish and he isn’t concerned about the animals he exploits. • Consuming without producing – Man consumes the animals produce and lives off it, without producing anything themselves. • Men are tyrants – they are ruthless and cruel, once an animal isn’t able to produce it will be slaughtered. • Selfishness – Men barely give animals enough food to keep healthy, just the bare minimum. • Mankind has rulers – power allows one man to have the upper hand over another. • Men smoke tobacco, trade, operate with money, wear clothes, sleep in beds and live in homes. Old Major doesn’t directly say that these vices are caused by man’s ability to speak and reason but he implies that man uses this to protect himself: “No argument must lead you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies.” Squealer was a small, fat pig known for being a smooth talker and could reportedly “turn black into white." Squealer had an explanation for everything, including why the pigs need to drink the milk the cows produce, why the commandments of Animalism seem
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