Animal Farm as a Warning About Political Manipulation Essay

Animal Farm 3rd

All the governments in the world use strategies to keep the population under control. Governments manipulate society, with both their lack of education and selective education, using propaganda and media to spread their views. Each play a significant role in the book Animal Farm. In the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, the comparisons between animal and the characters in the Russian Revolution support his view of societys manipulation through the tactics of the dictators.

After a time of war several leaders fight for control, using a variety of tactics . Old Major, representing Lenin, with goals against higher power, spreads ideas of a Rebellion against Jones and the humans. In the Russian Revolution, Lenin rebels against monarchy and the tzars. Old Majors speech changed the animals way of thinking. He shows them that The life of an animals is misery and slavery: this is the plain truth (28) and calls for action for if the animals take Man from the scene, and the root cause hunger and overwork is abolished forever (28-29). His call for rebellion made the animals views of humans different. Old Major opened their eyes to how humans treat them and showed them who the common enemy was. He wanted the animals to all be treated equal; All men are enemies, All animals are comrades (31) When Old Majors speech was over, all the animals went into a tremendous uproar and agreed with him by singing the song, Beasts of England. As previously stated, the manipulation through the tactics of dictators, Old Major manipulated them to show them the sense of unity, that they were all one. Like any government leader, Old Major had an agenda and his death caused Napoleon and Snowball to fight for control over the farm. Napoleon competed with Snowball just like Stalin did with Trotsky in the Russian Revolution. At the end of competing for leadership, Napoleon ends up winning and exiles Snowball and builds an idea of a common enemy by turning the animals against Snowball.

When Snowball was gone, Napoleon became the leader of the animals, the longer he was the leader, the more he became a dictator. Napoleon, who represented Stalin, was a strong leader but also a bad one. A dictators use of power couldnt beat anyone else. Napoleon who had the greatest power, decided to do a secret service and train puppies which he can use to manipulate the animals by scaring them. The way he trained the puppies wasnt an ordinary puppy training, he trained them to listen to whatever he says protect him and kill, he knew that starting with the young would be better because the lack of education of young ones would easily be treated. He needed everything to be perfect and done, and if not, he would command the animals to do it, he used the use of work to take control over them. If the animals refused what they were commanded to do, didnt follow the rules, or disagreed with Napoleon, they would be tortured and killed by the puppies and pigs. When Napoleon started noticing that they werent getting that much money, he decided to use the manipulation of violence and told the chickens to sell their eggs. The chickens couldnt say no or do anything because the dogs would throw out a tremendous growl, scaring the chickens. Napoleon was oppressive and manipulative, he made the animals believe lies, and changing history. When an animal would confess about having something to do with Snowball or Jones, each of the animals would get slaughtered by the puppies and pigs. After that, the manipulation of Napoleon kept the animals busy that they had no time to complain and had lies and ideas shoved into their head by him and follower Squealer.

Squealer, Napoleons follower, clearly shows that he is Vyacheslav Molotov. He was the voice of Napoleon and a tool for propaganda. Like every dictator, there is a follower and Squealer prove that point. He always followed Napoleon, he was right behind him in all he did and respected him. Throughout the book, leader Napoleon and follower, Squealer brainwashed the animals by telling them multiple lies over and over again to keep the population ignorant. For example, to get the animals not to lie/trust Snowball anymore, he lied and said Snowball has sold himself to Frederick of Pinchfield Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and take our farm away from us (89) Squealer changed and isolated the farm by using his tactics, his tactics were to lie to all the animals and start rumors to get each of them to look up to Napoleon and only Napoleon. The animals didnt know what to believe but for them to hear it from a higher class, they had to believe it, as previously stated, it was the manipulation of a dictators tactics.

In conclusion, Orwells point was to warn us about political manipulation during the Russian Revolution by using animals. Beyond just the history of Russian Revolution, throughout the world we still have leaders and dictators that use tactics of manipulation parallel to the Russian Revolution. What this shows us today is that we have leaders that manipulate us but not as bad as people were manipulated during the Russian Revolution. During the Russian Revolution, the dictators keep the population ignorant but now a days, our leaders and dictators prevent ignorance.