Animal Farm by George Orwell - Book Report/Review Example

Animal Farm Abstract One of the main pigs, by the name of, “Squealer” is shown to be in a very persuasive position with the animals, having direct control over the actions and reactions often times. This is one of the main points of emphasis that is expressed in the following literary summary of the story, “Animal Farm”. Also, the idea of propaganda and how it is utilized will be illustrated within these pages so as to bring a more comprehensive idea into how animals can succumb to the delusional affects that some forms of power bring, just as people do. The main objective of the story and why the animals behave the way they do is included in this summary as well; to show just how much alike some of the animals in more authoritative positions actually become, which is just as cold and calculating as some human dictators were perceived to be. Overall, Squealers role and his objectives, various techniques, and calculations he used will be pulled together to bring a tight conclusion to the summary, bringing a solid reasoning into why he was portrayed the way he was throughout the story. Animal Farm After old Major dies in his sleep it is evident his speech did not fall on deaf ears. The rest of the animals are seriously contemplating an uprising and leadership of the animals is generally emphasized to fall into the hands of three pigs; their names being: Squealer, Napoleon, and Snowball. Squealer seems to play one of the largest roles in the story since his characteristics emphasize much power of persusal with the animals on the farm as it is said that he has the ability and influence to be able to convince any animal that “black is really white”. This ability continues on throughout t he book, detailing strong manipulative skills that Squealer utilizes to achieve his own hidden intentions as well as primarily keep control of the farm in the hands of himself and Napoleon. The pigs move steadily forward in their leadership roles, teaching the other animals about a new school of thought they have devised titled, ‘Animalism’. The book starts out with the best of intentions by the pigs but soon power and hunger for domination take over and also Squealers methods of spreading lies and deceit soon start to be the main focus of the story, brainwashing all the other animals into believing things that just aren’t true. One way that Squealer did this is emphasized in Chapter 3 when he is discussing how things use to be when humans ruled the farm. Through utilizing falsities he lead the animals to believe that with Napoleon in supreme control the animals had more hay, oats, and turnips than they had ever had before when Mr. Jones was in charge of the running of the farm. Although this was simply a form of propaganda, it affected the minds of the animals and they were lead to believe every word from then on out that spilled forth from Squealers mouth. Soon, the books pages begin to show many disagreements that Napoleon and Snowball began to have, especially with regard to the teaching of the other animals, but this is somewhat representative of how politics work in the real world anyway. The pigs, assuming sole responsibility of delegating all work to be done but yet not doing any physical labor themselves is explained away once again by Squealer, by claiming that the pigs themselves are not required to do any strenuous work since they do enough mental labor to equal the exact amount of the physical activities of the other animals. Again this is accepted by the other animals as making logical sense so they do not complain. At one point in the story it is shown that the pigs denied the other animals milk while they themselves gorged on it mixed in with crushed apples. Once again, Squealer stepped up to make up another explanation, again stating that the milk and apples was necessary for them to keep up the concise mental competencies that they had been showing in order to keep up with the proper running of the farm. The animals again accepted this and assumed that the pigs did indeed need extra nourishment since they had to perform such mentally draining exercises everyday to keep everything in check. This shows that Squealers main technique of keeping the other animals without questioning the pigs authority is found to be built on nothing but lies and also the spreading of fear into the other animals as he keeps insisting if they do not listen to the pigs then Mr. Jones will surely return and take over the farm once more. What Squealer is actually doing is spreading authoritarianism, which is almost like communism, with the pigs in control of everything associated with the farm and all its earnings. One example that is found in the book to clarify this is the statement that Squealer makes in the following sentence. “Surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?” (52) He also utilizes this tactic to keep fear spreading among the animals and to keep them complacent as to whom they follow and the rules being specified, that are meant to be followed without question. Squealers main way of dealing with the other animals is using a sense of false logic and it is evident everywhere throughout the books pages. There is no real freedom expressed for the other animals accept being free of human dominance, but this soon starts to sway as well as the pigs start becoming more and more like humans. There is one pig that stands out from the other two though and this is Snowball. He is considered to be more of an academic type and indeed cares about the cause of ‘Animalism’ and the other animals feelings where as Napoleon only proves to care about himself and is shown to be subversive and deceitful. Squealer is depicted as Napoleon’s right hand and again, this is demonstrated throughout the story. Where Snowball is different from Napoleon and Squealer is in the fact that he truly cares for animal farm, and although he is an authoritative figure he still shows respect for the other animals’ thoughts and feelings and this places him in a very popular role among the animals, one in which Squealer and Napoleon neither like. Therefore, when plans to build a windmill crop it, Napoleon disagrees with Snowball and soon uses devious tactics to undermine him and run him from the farm using his personal body guards. Napoleon’s interests are obviously and totally self-serving and in no way vindictive of a leader who cares about his subjects. Napoleon orders the construction of the windmill to restart and Squealer places doubts in the other animals’ minds about whose decision it had initially been to develop the windmill in the first place. When the animals start to begin to become uneasy over Napoleon’s ways of running the farm, Squealer again uses his persuasive skills in communication to confuse them more, as is shown in the following sentence. Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure. On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. 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? (Orwell 1984) Squealer continues on this destructive type of path, further ruining Snowballs name which places more doubts into the animals minds on how great a leader Snowball actually was. Through Squealers actions it is seen that he does what he does so that there will be total control of Animal Farm for him and Snowball so that they and Napoleon’s body guards can do whatever they wish while the other animals are subjected to what would appear to be nothing more than slavery. As time continually progresses through the book, the laws that had formed ‘Animalism’ slowly begin to come more and more unraveled with the breaking of the commandments, trading with humans, walking on two legs, wearing human clothing, and Squealer continuously seen as the one constantly spreading more and more of the propaganda that is the main cause of the other animals being in the belittling positions they were in and the pigs having supreme dominance over all of them. The farm had turned into nothing more than a form of authoritan government. Sadly, what Old Major and Snowball had intended for Animal Farm to be turned out to be something quite the opposite in the end. In conclusion, it would seem that everything Squealer did worked out for his own benefit in the end. The pigs ruled supremely, enjoying all the riches that the working of the farm had brought. Any animals that were deemed to be balking the authority of Napoleon were quickly silenced in the cruelest of ways, much like that of how human dictators such as Hitler had abused his subjects. Because of Squealer and the ways in which he could manipulate the other animals’ minds, it was found that his ambitions for his own self succeeded. This is shown as Napoleon is aging in the end; Squealer is specifically emphasized as being the next in line to rule Animal Farm which again, was his main motivation for doing all that he had done to begin with. In order to gain control of animal farm he had utilized all of his power of persuasive brainwashing on the other animals which lead to nothing more than the corruption of Animal Farm due to the misuse of power and authority which is so often found in the human world. Reference Orwell, George (1984). Animal Farm Retrieved on 8 January, 2006 from: http://www.novelguide.com/animalfarm/ Read More