tyranny in animal farm essay

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Theme of Irony in Animal Farm

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Published: Mar 16, 2024

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Leaders' manipulation of language, pigs' betrayal of their fellow animals, ultimate transformation of the farm.

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Animal Farm

George orwell, everything you need for every book you read..

George Orwell once wrote: “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been [...] against totalitarianism.” Animal Farm , Orwell’s tale of the titular farm animals’ takeover of a provincial English farm and their development of a totalitarian state there, is no exception. Totalitarianism is a form of government in which the state seeks to control every facet of life, from economics and politics to each individual’s ideas and beliefs. Different totalitarian states have different justifications for their rule, but Animal Farm suggests that all totalitarian regimes are fundamentally the same: those in power care only about maintaining their power by any means necessary, and they do so by oppressing the individual and the lower classes.

While Animal Farm is, most directly, a pointed critique of the USSR, the totalitarian regime established by Joseph Stalin in the early 20th century. However, the book also implies at various points that the USSR was not—and indeed, isn’t—the only totalitarian regime worth critiquing. At the beginning of the novel, Mr. Jones ’s running of Manor Farm reads as similarly totalitarian and despotic to Stalin’s regime. Mr. Jones spends his time drinking and hires corrupt, unfeeling cronies to run the farm while his animals toil their lives away, only to be slaughtered or otherwise killed gruesomely when they’re no longer useful to him. The animals’ lives are short and guaranteed to be lived in hunger, while Mr. Jones lives in relative luxury and believes that the natural order of things is that he, as a human, should be the one in charge of his animals. After the animals overthrow Mr. Jones and Napoleon the pig takes over the farm, the animals themselves begin to emulate this oppressive hierarchy despite basing their initial uprising on the notion that all animals are equal. At the end of the novel, it’s possible to see that if the other farmers who visit Napoleon’s Animal Farm aren’t yet running totalitarian farming establishments already, the hunger to do so is definitely there— Mr. Pilkington notes that it’s commendable that Napoleon manages to eke so much labor out of his animals while providing so little in the way of food and other care. This makes it clear that the tendency for a government or organization to lean toward totalitarianism is often present, even if it’s not always evident in practice at a given time. In other words, Napoleon as a totalitarian dictator isn’t an anomaly—he’s part of a much larger tendency of powerful leaders to consolidate and hoard as much power as possible.

The way that Napoleon, Stalin, and other leaders, fictional and real, achieve these totalitarian states is by controlling every aspect of life in their state. Napoleon demonstrates that this is particularly achievable through offering education and elite job training to some, while denying those opportunities to many—while also assuring the “many,” through propaganda and pro-state events, that things are as they should be. While the pig Snowball takes it upon himself to attempt to educate everyone on Animal Farm, Napoleon insists that it’s not worth it to educate the animals who are already adults and instead, it’s better to focus on educating the youth. This does several things. First, by having an uneducated adult population, Napoleon ensures that those adults won’t be able to teach their offspring to think and potentially push back on him. Those adults also won’t be able to push back themselves, both because of their own illiteracy and because of how little power they have to begin with. Then, while Napoleon uses “youth” to describe who he wants to educate, the youth are at first just the dogs ’ nine puppies and later, are just the 31 piglets he fathered. Educating the puppies turns them into nine vicious adult dogs that mirror the Soviet secret police and go on to help Napoleon maintain his rule, while the young pigs represent an educated and powerful ruling class. Essentially, when Napoleon mentions educating youth, he very purposefully doesn’t include the young chicks, ducklings, calves, or foals in the term, thereby relegating them to a position in society where they’re unable to advocate for themselves or for change—or indeed, even to understand that speaking up is something they can or should do.

In addition to controlling education and advancement opportunities, the novel also illustrates the role of propaganda in a totalitarian state. From Napoleon’s initial takeover of Animal Farm to the very end of the novel, he skillfully deploys propaganda in the form of the Seven Commandments themselves, as well as the skilled orator pig Squealer and the pig Minimus , who composes songs and poems that praise Animal Farm and Napoleon. Importantly, much of what the pigs write and say to the other farm animals comes in the form of absolutes, as when Old Major says initially that animals should never concede that they might have common interests with men, or when Squealer insists that the pigs need all the food they can get—or else Mr. Jones will surely return. Importantly, the exhausted and uneducated animals have complete trust that Napoleon has their best interests at heart—something Squealer reminds them of constantly—in addition to the inability to recognize the pigs’ propaganda efforts for what they are. In this way, Napoleon creates a cult of personality around himself that is fueled by fear, ignorance, and the deeply-held belief that Napoleon’s version of Animal Farm (while still short on food and requiring hard work) is the best possible scenario.

Animal Farm offers no real remedies for  overthrowing totalitarianism. Indeed, the end of the novel, in which both pigs and humans are revealed to be equally corrupt and interested in presiding over totalitarian states, is extremely grim. However, the very existence of the novel itself allows readers to understand how a totalitarian state comes into being, gains power, and holds onto it. Knowing how this process happens and has happened historically, as well as recognizing one’s own power to not let this happen in the first place, the novel suggests, are the best thing readers can do to guard against totalitarianism in their own lifetimes.

Totalitarianism ThemeTracker

Totalitarianism Quotes in Animal Farm

“Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings.”

“Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”

“Remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.”

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS 1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. 2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. 3. No animal shall wear clothes. 4. No animal shall sleep in a bed. 5. No animal shall drink alcohol. 6. No animal shall kill any other animal. 7. All animals are equal.

“I will work harder!”

Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations, the quarreling and biting and jealousy which had been normal features of life in the old days had almost disappeared.

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

“Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.”

At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws.

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”

“Napoleon is always right.”

“Comrades, do you know who is responsible for this? Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill? SNOWBALL!”

If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal.

If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak [...] Instead - she did not know why - they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.

“ Animal Farm, Animal Farm, Never through me shalt thou come to harm! ”

At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. [...] None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to understand, but would say nothing.

Besides, in those days they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out.

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer—except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.

“Four legs good, two legs better !”

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

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Animal Farm Essay

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Essay: Satire and government tyranny in Nineteen Eighty-four/Animal Farm

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• Published: 27 March 2022*
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• Tags: 1984 essays Animal Farm essays George Orwell essays

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There are many issues in the world and one of them are the social injustices. According to honorsociety.org, “Social injustice is the way unjust actions are done in the society. Social injustice occurs in a situation where the equals are treated unequally and the unequal is treated equally. Three common examples of social injustice include: discrimination, ageism and homophobia.” According to Quora.com, “Social injustice issues would be things like unfair labor practices, racial discrimination, discrimination due to gender, orientation, ethnicity, age. Also, the death penalty, inequality of health care, public school quality in poor income areas, etc. It is any issue affecting a society where there are differences based on certain criteria, generally affecting marginalized groups or those who are not considered to be ‘equal’ to the ‘norm’.” Political correctness has created the same dynamic in America. Freedom of speech is no longer equal in some venues of America today. (Gardner, 2017)

Many authors get inspired by the government to write their books. An example is George Orwell, he is very passionate about politics and decided to write many works of literature about it. He noticed that the government used many elements to manipulate people, like propaganda and persuasive speaking, and he decided to speak up about it in his novels. But who is George Orwell?

George Orwell, pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, was born June 25, 1903, and died January 21, 1950. He was an English novelist, essayist, and critic famous for his novels “ Animal Farm ” written in 1945 and “ 1984 ” written in 1949, the latter a profound anti-utopian novel that examines the dangers of totalitarian rule. (Woodcock, 2019)

George Orwell was very invested in politics because he always wanted to know what was happening in the world he lived in. He wrote an essay called “ Politics and the English Language ” in which he criticized the “ugly and inaccurate” written English of his time and he examines the connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of a language. This essay focuses on political language, which, according to Orwell, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”. Orwell believed that the language used was necessarily vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it. This unclear prose was a “contagion” which had spread to those who did not intend to hide the truth, and it concealed a writer’s thoughts from himself and others. Orwell encourages concreteness and clarity instead of vagueness, and individuality over political conformity. This essay reflects Orwell’s concern with truth and how truth depends upon the use of language. (Wikipedia, 2020 ) Which is why he tries to use his novels as a way to express how he really feels about politics and the government.

This paper will analyze the elements of satire and government tyranny in the novels “Nineteen Eighty-four” and “Animal Farm” which will help readers understand how Orwell portrays his concerns about society through his novels. He uses lots of satiric elements in his novels, as well as governmental tyranny. Writing books is a way in which he shows how he sees society that many people don’t understand because they don’t read in between lines.

Satire is a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society, by using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule. It intends to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles. A writer in a satire uses fictional characters, which stand for real people, to expose and condemn their corruption. A writer may point a satire toward a person, a country, or even the entire world. Usually, a satire is a comical piece of writing which makes fun of an individual or a society, to expose its stupidity and shortcomings. In addition, he hopes that those he criticizes will improve their characters by overcoming their weaknesses. Satire and irony are interlinked. Irony is the difference between what is said or done, and what is actually meant. Therefore, writers frequently employ satire to point at the dishonesty and silliness of individuals and society, and criticize them by ridiculing them. The role of satire is to ridicule or criticize those vices in society the writer considers to be a threat to civilization. The writer considers it his obligation to expose these vices for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, the function of satire is not to make others laugh at persons or ideas they make fun of. It intends to warn the public, and to change people’s opinions about the prevailing corruption and conditions in society. Satire elements include exaggeration, hyperbole, incongruity, reversal, parody, irony and sarcasm. (Literary Devices, 2020).

A tyrannical ruler wields absolute power and authority, and often wields that power unjustly, cruelly, or oppressively. It was first used in the 1530s, the adjective tyrannical stems from the late-14th-century word tyranny, meaning “cruel or unjust use of power,” which has origins in the Greek word tyrannos, meaning “master.” Tyrannical rule is the opposite of democratic rule, which places the power in the people, the majority of whom makes the decisions. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin are three examples of the 20th century’s most tyrannical dictators. (Vocabulary.com Dictionary, 2020)

Tyranny is a noun that describes a repressive and arbitrarily cruel regime. One of the root words of tyranny is the Latin tyrannia which means the “rule of a tyrant” and a tyrant is a “cruel master.” Today, it can mean the repressive regime of a dictator or it can also mean being controlled by something metaphorically harsh like time or work. (Vocabulary.com Dictionary, 2020)

Satire is used in many works of literature to show foolishness or vice in humans, organizations, or even governments – it uses sarcasm, ridicule, or irony. For example, satire is often used to achieve political or social change, or to prevent it. Satire can be part of a given work, or it can be the purpose of an entire text. Satire is a broad genre, incorporating a number of different approaches. It is sometimes serious, acting as a protest or to expose, or it can be comical when used to poke fun at something or someone. Some satire is explicitly political, while other examples of satire in literature, film, TV and online take on a wider variety of topics. While a satirist may direct their work at one individual, a whole country or the world as a whole, political satire is some of the most common and the most significant. Satire has been a part of literature since literature has existed. The oldest texts available to modern readers, all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh from around 2100 BC, contain satirical passages. (YourDictionary, 2015). Examples of these can be George Orwell’s works “Animal Farm” and “1984”.

Tyranny is considered an important subject, one of the “Great Ideas” of Western thought. The classics contain many references to tyranny and its causes, effects, methods, practitioners, alternatives… They consider tyranny from historical, religious, ethical, political and fictional perspectives. “If any point in political theory is indisputable, it would seem to be that tyranny is the worst corruption of government – a vicious misuse of power and a violent abuse of human beings who are subject to it.”(Adler, 1952). While this may represent a consensus position among the classics, it is not unanimous – Thomas Hobbes dissented, claiming no objective distinction, such as being vicious or virtuous, existed among monarchs. “They that are discontented under monarchy, call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy…” (in Leviathan). (Wikipedia, 2020).

Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm, summons the animals on the farm together for a meeting, during which he refers to humans as parasites and teaches the animals a revolutionary song called Beasts of England. When Major dies, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and consider it a duty to prepare for the Rebellion. The animals revolt and drive the drunken and irresponsible farmer Mr Jones from the farm, renaming it “Animal Farm”. They adopt Seven Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is, “All animals are equal.” (Giordano, 2012)

Snowball teaches the animals to read and write, while Napoleon educates young puppies on the principles of Animalism. Food is plentiful, and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and set aside special food items, ostensibly for their personal health. Napoleon and Snowball struggle for preeminence. When Snowball announces his plans to build a windmill, Napoleon has his dogs chase Snowball away and subsequently declares himself leader of Animal Farm. (Giordano, 2012)

Napoleon enacts changes to the governance structure of the farm, replacing meetings with a committee of pigs who will run the farm. Through a young pig named Squealer, Napoleon claims credit for the windmill idea. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. When the animals find the windmill collapsed after a violent storm, Napoleon and Squealer convince the animals that Snowball is trying to sabotage their project. Once Snowball becomes a scapegoat, Napoleon begins to purge the farm with his dogs, killing animals he accuses of consorting with his old rival. Beasts of England is replaced by an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who appears to be adopting the lifestyle of a man. The animals remain convinced that they are better off than they were under Mr Jones. (Giordano, 2012)

Mr Frederick, one of the neighboring farmers, attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the restored windmill. Though the animals win the battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer the workhorse, are wounded. Despite his injuries, Boxer continues working harder and harder, until he collapses while working on the windmill. Napoleon sends for a van to take Boxer to the veterinary surgeon, explaining that better care can be given there. Benjamin, the cynical donkey who “could read as well as any pig”, knacker, and attempts a futile rescue. Squealer reports that the van was purchased by the hospital and the writing from the previous owner had not been repainted. But in reality, Napoleon has sold his most loyal and long-suffering worker for money to buy himself whisky. (Giordano, 2012)

Years pass, and the pigs start to resemble humans, as they walk upright, carry whips, and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are abridged to a single phrase: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and local farmers, with whom he celebrates a new alliance. He abolishes the practice of the revolutionary traditions and restores the name “The Manor Farm”. As the animals look from pigs to humans, they realize they can no longer distinguish between the two. (Giordano, 2012)

The book is set in 1984 in Oceania, one of three perpetually warring totalitarian states (the other two are Eurasia and Eastasia). Oceania is governed by the all-controlling Party, which has brainwashed the population into unthinking obedience to its leader, Big Brother. The Party has created a propagandistic language known as Newspeak, which is designed to limit free thought and promote the Party’s doctrines. Its words include doublethink (belief in contradictory ideas simultaneously), which is reflected in the Party’s slogans: “War is peace,” “Freedom is slavery,” and “Ignorance is strength.” The Party maintains control through the Thought Police and continual surveillance. (Lowne, 2018)

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