Theme Of Ignorance In Animal Farm

In chapter 7 Napoleon began punishing and executing the animals who he believed to be traitors, by forcing them to confess to “crimes” that they committed. Through this, it is obvious that although the pigs goal is to keep humans out of animal farm, and make sure that the animals are safe, it is causing a sense of fear and terror in the animals. This also shows how the animals have no freedom of

"All oppression creates a state of war" -Simone de Beauvar, French Philosopher. Animal Farm by George Orwell is an allegory for the Russian Revolution. Each animal was a key character in the Revolution such as Napoleon being Joseph Stalin, Mr. Jones being Tsar Nicholas and Boxer, being an ignorant. Mr.Jones was run off the farm because the animals were tired of the drunken man mistreating them. What the animals didn't know was that they went from one dictator to a whole group of them. The pigs. Ignorance contributes to political and social oppression and is proved by the inability to comprehend what the pigs are doing to the other animals. The animals cannot read or write as well, are perplexed easily, couldn't see the blemishes in the pig's leadership, or how the pigs changed things and didn't see or completely ignored how the pigs had acted.

Ignorance is defined as, "Lacking knowledge or awareness in genera; uneducated or unsophisticated." In the novel Animal Farm, George Orwell addresses the topic of ignorance. Orwell illustrates that the social and political oppression of the animals is due to their inability to read, which causes them to believe everything they are told. First of all, the animals' ignorance prevents them from realizing the pigs are taking advantage of them. The pigs constantly manipulate the laws to fit their needs. The narrator says, "...it was certainly true that nothing of the kind existed in writing, the animals were satisfied that they had been mistaken." Because the animals lack the ability to read, they are not able to realize that the rule has been manipulated.

When questions aroused about how in the Battle of Cowshed Comrade Napoleon wasn't as brave as they all thought, the only solution was to push the blame to Snowball. The pigs thought that if they explained to the lower animals how Snowball was against them, no one would look to Napoleon for the blame anymore. " That was our mistake, comrade. For we know now----it is all written down in the secret documents that we have found----that in reality he was trying to lure us to our doom" (80). If the animals were smarter and had better memories, they could have remembered this battle more vividly then they wouldn't have seen what the pigs were trying to accomplish. They would have seen how Squealer was manipulating their minds into thinking that Comrade Napoleon was the hero, Snowball was the enemy and he himself had been in on the human's plan with Jones. Not only did the pigs say Snowball betrayed Animal Farm, but they also suggested that he created mischief on the farm while the animals slept at night.

One of the many awful things he did was he proclaimed that whoever killed, snowball would be rewarded. He would also kill any animals he believed were working with Snowball, breaking the commandment that said no animal shall kill another animal. He also formed one single commandment after breaking all of the other ones, which was “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS” ( 194). This shows that the pigs finally established dominance over the animals, and no longer believed that all animals were equal. Another action that showed that Napoleon was taking dominance over the other animals was when he took away some of the dreams that at the beginning was once promised to them, such as “The luxuries of which Snowball had once taught the animals to dream, the stalls with electric light and Hot and cold water, and the three-day week, were no longer talked about. He said, lay in working hard and living frugally” ( 185). This shows that the animals were promised great things, but this all changed when Napoleon's desire for power clouded all of his previous beliefs. Lastly, the pigs and Napoleon appeared one day walking in their hind legs and showing qualities of humans until one day in the eyes of the animals they become so human like, it was impossible to tell between humans and pigs. The animals

Although the pigs in this novel are terrible creatures who do terrible things, they are unfortunately very, very smart. These pigs are power hungry, and they will do anything that it takes to maintain their power. But, to maintain power, the pigs must first gain power. The pigs use education as a way to gain power. After the rebellion in the beginning of the novel, the pigs find books that teach them to read in the farm house. The pigs, being the power hungry animals that they are, teach themselves how to read and write. They know that they are much smarter than all of the other animals on the farm. Since the other animals could not learn how to read or write, the pigs used this as leverage to get power. Because they are the only animals that could read or write, they were quickly thought of as leaders and much

According to Martin Luther King Jr., “nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”. This quote by Martin Luther King Jr. relates to the fact that everyone is a danger to themselves and others when they are ignorant and they show careful stupidity. In the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell, the dangers of being ignorant are shown through the use of the characters Boxer, Benjamin, and the Sheep.

One of the themes of the novel ‘Animal Farm’ is that people’s ignorance can contribute to their political and social oppression. How does the animal’s behaviour in this novel support this theme?

In a society where an elite class has access to tools that the masses do not, this elite group of people often use these tools to dominate and oppress society. In George Orwell’s story, Animal Farm, Orwell demonstrates that education is a powerful weapon and is a tool that can be used to one’s advantage. Living in a world where power is easy to gain, the pigs quickly use education (or lack thereof) to manipulate the rest of the animals on the farm to serve themselves. This story ultimately reveals the underlying message that  first, education is important to all levels of society, next, for when it is not, society is stratified, resulting in the masses suffering.

To begin with, The real power holder was o’l Major, the animal that everybody praised, obeyed, and were grateful for! After, his pass is when the pigs came in power! They were teaching and organizing all the others. “The work of teaching and organising the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally recognized as being the cleverest of the animals” -page 15. The two pigs Snowball and Napoleon were naturally Mr.Jones breeding animals who were being put up for

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a perfect example of how ignorance and lack of education can be used for control. Control which can lead to political and social oppression. The experiences of the various characters present how the pigs use this idea to oppress the animals of Animal Farm.

From the very beginning, Napoleon and the pigs take charge and make the other animals do the work for them, while the pigs just supervise. In chapter three, when they begin working on plowing the fields, the pigs do not do anything other than tell the others what to do, “The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the other” (20). The pigs, from the very start of animal farm, took charge and only directed and told others what to do. They solidified their positions as leader’s right at the beginning of the farm. Also, at the end of the book, the pigs, to show their leadership, carry whips around to make sure the work gets done, “After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters” (92). Since the creation of the farm the pigs started to slowly present the fact that they would take charge, and in the beginning when they were nice about it no one argued with them. By the end though, the animals finally realized what had happened, but by then it was too late for them to do anything about it. Admittedly, Napoleon and the rest of the pigs are greedy because they take all the extra food and make the others work like slaves, but that does not make them ineffective in the ways they make the animals work. Napoleon showed his effectiveness as a

The livestock are naive, because they are uneducated. They are uneducated, because the pigs limit the amount of information that is shared with them. The horse, Boxer, is so brainwashed by Napoleon that he make the phrase “Napoleon is always right” his motto. Several examples of the animals’ uneducation would be in the following sentences. “‘That was part of the arrangement!’ cried Squealer. ‘Jones shot only grazed him! I could show you this in his own writing, if you could read.’” (Orwell, 81). This is Squealer’s attempt to make the animals disloyal to Snowball. He claims he has proof of betrayal, but conveniently, none of the animals are able to vouch for this. Another example is in this paragraph:“The commandment read, ‘No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.’ Somehow or another, the last two words had slipped out of the animals’ memory.” (Orwell, 91). You see here that the undereducation of the animals leads them to think that they were just wrong and that Napoleon and Squealer had been right all along.

Animal farm by George Orwell introduces real life problems using animals on a farm. The narrator focuses on leaders. This novel talks about a group of animals that overrule a farm owned by a man named Mr .Jones, but the animals face many corrupt rules, freedom rights, enemies, and arguments between one another. The farm becomes overruled by a pig named Napoleon, and the animals are afraid to go against him. Napoleon soon acts like Mr.Jones and the animals freedom is getting taken away from their hands. The novel's main message was to believe those are seeking the truth- doubt those who find it. The novel relates to the theme because between all of the animals, their was many that were not being true to each other and the main character of the story was trying to lure the animals in a plan once he found out he could takeover the farm, just like how it was in the beginning when Mr. Jones owned the farm.

Social oppression is a concept that describes a relationship of dominance and subordination between categories of people in which one benefits from the systematic abuse, exploitation, and injustice directed toward the other. Because social oppression describes relationships between categories of people, it should not be confused with the oppressive behavior of individuals. In social oppression, all members of a dominant and subordinate categories participate regardless of the individual attitudes or behavior.