Animal Farm also explores the way that language can be used as a tool of control. Squealer’s character, which represents the media or propaganda arm of a corrupt government, is wonderfully developed as the story progresses. Squealer’s cover stories grow more and more audacious with each event he lies about. The pigs gradually and over time in the story twist the their principles to both keep the other animals ignorant and to justify their behavior. In the beginning, the pigs distort the meaning of Old Major’s words so that the other animals cannot oppose the pigs without being against the ideals of the Rebellion. By the end of the story, Squealer has repeatedly altered the Seven Commandments in order to legitimize the pig’s betrayals and
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Whenever the animals question one of Napoleon’s actions, no matter how selfish it seems, Squealer succeeds in convincing the animals that Napoleon is only acting in their best interests. Throughout the book, Squealer pulls off what would today be a terrific public-relations stunt by picturing the pigs as near-martyrs who never think of themselves but the other animals. His speech and abuse of language makes the animals think that the pigs are really selfless, not selfish. Squealer uses a rhetorical question over and over again in the book – “Surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones back?” This move causes the pigs to look on their current situation, no matter how bad it may be, and reason that they are better off than they ever were under Mr. Jones’ …show more content…
By slightly altering some of the the Seven Commandments, Squealer actually re-writes history, and explains it away so skillfully that it is the animals who believe that they are the ones who forgot what the original commandments said. When he needs to convince the animals that the windmill was actually Napoleon’s idea, which of course it wasn’t, he introduces a new and confusing term, “tactics”. When the pigs reduce the amount of the animal’s food, Squealer searches and finds a suitable word to replace “reduction” to make the action not look so bad. Instead of honestly saying that the food had been reduced, Squealer cleverly uses the word “readjustment”, which means just a small change to something. In addition, the use of the word readjustment give the animals the feeling that the pigs are looking out for them and carefully watching how much food is available for
Whenever the animals question one of Napoleon’s actions, no matter how selfish it seems, Squealer succeeds in convincing the animals that Napoleon is only acting in their best interests. Throughout the book, Squealer pulls off what would today be a terrific public-relations stunt by picturing the pigs as near-martyrs who never think of themselves but the other animals. His speech and abuse of language makes the animals think that the pigs are really selfless, not selfish. Squealer uses a rhetorical question over and over again in the book – “Surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones back?” This move causes the pigs to look on their current situation, no matter how bad it may be, and reason that they are better off than they ever were under Mr. Jones’ …show more content…
By slightly altering some of the the Seven Commandments, Squealer actually re-writes history, and explains it away so skillfully that it is the animals who believe that they are the ones who forgot what the original commandments said. When he needs to convince the animals that the windmill was actually Napoleon’s idea, which of course it wasn’t, he introduces a new and confusing term, “tactics”. When the pigs reduce the amount of the animal’s food, Squealer searches and finds a suitable word to replace “reduction” to make the action not look so bad. Instead of honestly saying that the food had been reduced, Squealer cleverly uses the word “readjustment”, which means just a small change to something. In addition, the use of the word readjustment give the animals the feeling that the pigs are looking out for them and carefully watching how much food is available for