Education In George Orwell's Animal Farm

In today’s society, it is clear to see how education can make a huge difference in the world. Knowledge has been searched for worldwide for centuries. Many yearn to learn and acquire new skills. Wars have been fought, ideas have been challenged, and new information has popped up across the globe. Education, throughout history, has proved itself to be vital to the wellbeing of a group. Without it, the few that are smarter than others can quickly take control. Dictatorships arise and basic rights are constrained. This leads to a downward spiral of tyranny and suffering. To make matters worse, the lower class of knowledge may not even realize that it is being taken advantage of. With the help of eloquent speakers and persuasive diction, any rebellion …show more content…
Jones has been banished from the farm, the animals quickly set up a new government. With the seven commandments, the foundation of Animalism is finally written. Yet a problem soon arises when it is discovered that some of the animals are too stupid to fully understand the new government that is in place.The phrase “four legs good, two legs bad” simplifies the commandments in a way that the rest of the farm can understand, but this phrase leaves out a huge chunk of the basic rules of their new system. Also, the pigs are the only ones that know how to read, write, and spell extensively. As a result, each animal has to blindly trust that what the pigs are saying is true. Throughout the novel, however, the constant amendments to the commandment by the pigs further weakens the supposed equality that the farm possesses. The pigs are continuously changing the commandments to benefit themselves instead of benefiting the whole farm. To worsen the situation, many of the animals cannot remember what the original commandments said. Pigs like Squealer, Napoleon’s sidekick, calm the animals down by using persuasive diction and assuring everyone that the pigs are working in the best interest of the farm. Squealer installs a sense of fear throughout the community by basically saying that if the animals disagree with the pigs, then Mr. Jones will come back. This is an example of a slippery slope logical fallacy, and these fallacies continue to appear throughout the entire novel. …show more content…
Moses, the raven on the farm, spread around ideas of Sugarcandy Mountain, the animal version of Heaven. The animals start to wish even more strongly for a place like this, much to Napoleon’s dismay. This imaginary place gives the animals false hope, and the animals cannot realize that they are most likely being fooled by the slick raven. They are too uneducated to see the truth; therefore, they would like to believe in what sounds nice. The more the animals vainly believe, the weaker they become. Education has proved to be a vital aspect of a healthy, robust community. It is essential that a society must be able to learn basic skills, so that its citizens will be able to discern whether or not they are being fooled. Animal Farm clearly illustrates that if single citizens can be fooled, then a whole society can quickly fall victim to a dictatorships. Naivety will eventually reach a breaking point, and the citizens who have been blind to the truth will see the horrors that have sprung up right in front of them. By then, however, it will be too