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How effective is Old Major's speech: Animal Farm Essay

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How effective is Old Major’s speech in chapter one?
In Chapter one, Old Major gives a speech about how the animals should rebel against Mr Jones, the human and leader of the farm in order to please all of the animals by having satisfactory amounts of the essentials. This rebellion would lead into Animalism. Animalism represents communism and how all animals should be equal. Old Major symbolizes Lenin. Lenin was a revolutionary thinker who came up with the basic concept of the Russian Revolution.
During Old Major’s speech, a wide variety of persuasive techniques are used and this is very noticeable. He creates a number of ideas that he discusses to the animals to persuade them that the rebellion is right.
The use of emotive language …show more content…

For example he addresses the cows with the rhetorical question “You cows that I see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk have you given during this last year?”By using rhetorical questions it causes the animals to really think about what Old Major is saying and the rhetorical questions make help the animals relate to the topic.
Throughout the speech, Old Major calls the animals comrades. For example in his opening sentence he says “Comrades, you have heard...” By referring the animals as comrades, it brings the feeling of friendliness and makes his views more personal. Also it suggests that Old Major views and treats all of the animals as equal. Also in the speech, Old Major directly speaks to certain animals at times by using pronouns such as “You” and “Your”. For example he uses the pronoun “your” in the sentence “Fix your eyes on that, comrades, throughout the short remainder of you lives”. Through using pronouns, the speech is more personal and directly aimed at the animals so they would listen and engage more.
Furthermore, in the speech, repetition is used by repeating the main points of his speech. For example “No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness...” is said and them shortly after he repeats “No animal in England is free”. He uses repetition to emphasise his meaning to his speech. But repetition can be ironic as he repeats things due to his old age.
Moreover, the technique tripling is used. He deliberates on the horror

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