The Abuse of Language in Animal Farm
The Abuse of Languagein Animal Farm:
By: Karwan Ӧzkürt
Animal Farmis a great work by Orwell that includes many things that are real in life. In his book, Bloom says that, “sixty years have passed debating over the ultimate political meaning of Animal Farm, but it owes partly to its use of propaganda” (Bloom, 2007:53). The corruptions and distortions of language which helped Napoleon to have a dictatorial government in Animal Farm became a particular concern of Orwell’s last years. In his essay, Politics and English Language (1946), he recognized that “if thought corrupts language, language can corrupt thought” (Sanders, 1999:571).
Propaganda is one of the ways to abuse language and it is powerful enough to change the most visible truths. It can reshape the truth too. This distortion of language is done very easily in the novel by pigs like Squealer. Pigs are the only literate animals on the farm. Their cleverness helps them to deceive other animals that are not literate very easily. Pigs reject to educate other animals and they let them stay illiterate, so there is nothing to prevent pigs from abusing language. (Bloom, 2006: 23)
The Abuse of Language and Squealer Usually all of the tyrants in the world have their sycophants, and Squealer is Napoleon’s. Squealer is a clever and intelligent pig who is described in the novel as a pig who “could turn the black into the white” (Orwell. 2009: 9) and also who “had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive (Ibid, 9) while explaining his rhetorical answers to the questions that other animals ask when they suspect something or see something unusual in the farm. In the novel, he serves as Napoleon’s mouthpiece and the Minister of Propaganda. Whenever animals question one of Napoleon’s actions, regardless to how selfish and severe it may seem, Squealer succeeds in convincing the animals that Napoleon is only acting in their best interests and that their leader, Napoleon,
By: Karwan Ӧzkürt
Animal Farmis a great work by Orwell that includes many things that are real in life. In his book, Bloom says that, “sixty years have passed debating over the ultimate political meaning of Animal Farm, but it owes partly to its use of propaganda” (Bloom, 2007:53). The corruptions and distortions of language which helped Napoleon to have a dictatorial government in Animal Farm became a particular concern of Orwell’s last years. In his essay, Politics and English Language (1946), he recognized that “if thought corrupts language, language can corrupt thought” (Sanders, 1999:571).
Propaganda is one of the ways to abuse language and it is powerful enough to change the most visible truths. It can reshape the truth too. This distortion of language is done very easily in the novel by pigs like Squealer. Pigs are the only literate animals on the farm. Their cleverness helps them to deceive other animals that are not literate very easily. Pigs reject to educate other animals and they let them stay illiterate, so there is nothing to prevent pigs from abusing language. (Bloom, 2006: 23)
The Abuse of Language and Squealer Usually all of the tyrants in the world have their sycophants, and Squealer is Napoleon’s. Squealer is a clever and intelligent pig who is described in the novel as a pig who “could turn the black into the white” (Orwell. 2009: 9) and also who “had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive (Ibid, 9) while explaining his rhetorical answers to the questions that other animals ask when they suspect something or see something unusual in the farm. In the novel, he serves as Napoleon’s mouthpiece and the Minister of Propaganda. Whenever animals question one of Napoleon’s actions, regardless to how selfish and severe it may seem, Squealer succeeds in convincing the animals that Napoleon is only acting in their best interests and that their leader, Napoleon,