The Role Of Propaganda In George Orwell's Animal Farm

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George Orwell’s fascinating novel, Animal Farm was written in a period of time when World War II was raging across Europe. His book was an indirect message to the ruthless Soviet tycoon, Joseph Stalin about the consequences of his dictatorship. Stalin had killed millions of people just because they failed to follow his rules. In Orwell’s book, a farm called Manor farm is changed into Animal Farm after the overthrow of its owner, Mr. Jones by the animals. A pig named Napoleon, then slowly but surely starts to mend the farm’s rules to benefit and suit himself and the pigs. Animal Farm is about how Napoleon starts to take control of the farm and starts a Stalin-like dictatorship. Napoleon mirrors Stalin’s tactics of ruling which were the manipulation …show more content…
Propaganda is the manipulation of facts to make someone look good. Propaganda in Animal Farm, was mostly carried out by Squealer the pig by changing the facts to make Napoleon look good. He also convinced the animals why all the pigs should have all the milk to drink and apples to eat. “We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depends on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake we drink milk and eat those apples.” (Orwell, pg.31). Moreover, when Napoleon realized that Snowball was in his way on taking over Animal Farm, he ordered the dogs to banish him. From then on, he criticized Snowball for everything including destroying the windmill. This is also an example of propaganda. Furthermore, Squealer also uses propaganda for praising him for almost everything. “Squealer is ‘reminding’ the other animals of Napoleon’s role in the Battle of the Cowshed” (Document E). As stated in Document E, Squealer creates such an environment about Napoleon that he was never referred as ‘Napoleon’ but as ‘Comrade Napoleon.’ The animals listened to Napoleon because of the fact that they were afraid of him, which leads us to our next topic: