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How Does Orwell Use Propaganda In Animal Farm

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‘Animal Farm’ is a novel written by George Orwell that allegorically depicts communism and the Russian revolution. It is the story of animals overthrowing their human master and the rise of a harsh and deceiving dictator, a pig named Napoleon. Throughout the novel, Animal Farm explores themes of power, oppression and politics and more specifically corruption, terror and propaganda. As a result of the power the pig’s gain, the system becomes heavily corrupt. Moreover, the reigning Napoleon uses terror and violence to oppress the animals on the arm. Lastly, Orwell uses the pig’s abuse of political propaganda to show the reader how people can be deceived by persuasive, yet deceitful leaders. Firstly, corruption is a significant theme in Animal …show more content…

Orwell criticises this form of oppression and the way tyrannical dictators use aggression and fear to frighten their population into submission. Napoleon’s violent displays escalate until he performs a series of slaughters on front of an audience. At his command, his fiercely loyal dogs “promptly tore” traitors “throats out” until “there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon’s feet”. Orwell uses this graphic language to illustrate to the reader how horrific and shocking the killings were. These mass animal slaughters can be compared to the Moscow Trials and Stalin’s Great Purge. Stalin staged the confessions by using fear tactics to coerce the accused. As Orwell suggests in the text, Napoleon does almost an identical demonstration. Likewise, the nine dogs in Animal Farm symbolise the Soviet Secret police and represent the violent militant force in Russia. Napoleon uses the dogs to instil fear into the animals so that he can have total domination over the rest of the animal’s lives. This is also to prevent the animals protesting or starting an uprising. This tactic of using violence to frighten the population can be compared with how Stalin led the Soviet Union. Consequently, Napoleon’s cruel exploitation and oppression of the animals was accomplished by using violence and terror to control the fearful animals on the

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