Language Ripulation In Animal Farm, By George Orwell

The next speech also presents manipulation but this time it is through the repetition device. Snowball is the literate pig that delivers this speech after Old Major’s death. Snowball devotes himself to freeing the animals of human control. He cleverly uses repetition of his moto or slogan, “four legs good, two legs bad”, in order to create rebellious attitudes and thoughts in the animals’ heads (Orwell 31). O’Neill verifies the power and usefulness of slogans by claiming, “slogans may seem casual, but in fact they are carefully engineered with a clear purpose: to trigger a specific response” (349). Since this motto is stuck in the animals’ heads, they repeat Snowball’s motto several times during the speech and afterwards. O’Neill writes, “repetition is a reliable tool…repetition works” (349). Snowball is a great speaker which enables him to lead the animals to a successful rebellion against human control. After the rebellion, Napoleon exiles Snowball from Animal Farm in order to become the new communist ruler. Therefore, Orwell symbolically names Snowball because after his exile all the problems that …show more content…
One can conclude after reading Animal Farm that language manipulation often occurs between the leadership and the abiding animals. Animal Farm’s plot heavily focuses on the shifting leadership and the impact each leader has on the animals. I best interpret the manipulation of the animals when I relate it to the Aristotelian appeals and forms of doublespeak. Napoleon and Squealer manipulate the animals with language in order to achieve what they desired. Even though Old Major and Snowball have good intentions, unlike Napoleon and Squealer, they still use deceiving devices as well. Therefore, Orwell’s characters that obtained a leadership status, Napoleon, Squealer, Old Major, and Snowball, were all culprits of degrading the animals in order to establish higher power and control over