Language and Propaganda as a Tool of Power in Animal Farm Essay Example

“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead” -Aristotle. Based on Russia's Bolshevik revolution and the betrayal by Joseph Stalin, Animal Farm is a novel about a group of animals that rebel against their human owner because they want a new, free way of life. But as time goes on social division becomes prominent due to education or lack thereof. George Orwell in his novel Animal Farm, presents the idea that language can be used as a tool for power to influence, manipulate and corrupt those who are uneducated.People use propaganda to influence others, propaganda can be dangerous and people need to be educated to know facts from lies. But even then with power comes greed and fear, and then the educated become powerless, and the uneducated are kept in the dark.

The proper education within the people can help prevent people in power from creating a false reality that benefits themselves. But, with an inadequate education those false realities created could be believed due to the people now knowing any better. This directly compares to how Squealer's speeches to the other animals are made up and false. In one of Squealers speeches he says, “ Comrades!...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...It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples" (Orwell 35).  Napoleon is having Squealer lie to all the animals in his speech. In truth the pigs are just taking the food for themselves just because they want to. He uses words such as “ proved my science” so that the animals won't question it. The other animals can't even read, so where is it their place to judge what science says? They know so little, and have such minimal education that they can't even see the flat out lie that is being told to them. 

Another way that language is used as a tool for power is through fear. Fear can be used to put people (or in this case animals) in line. By someone threatening you, or attacking you, through words can instill a different kind of fear in a person. Squealer puts fear into the animals heads by giving them a deterrent, “ I warn every animal on this farm to keep his eyes very wide open. For we have reason to think that some of Snowball’s secret agents are lurking among us at this moment” (Orwell 82). Not only is Squealer using his social rank to talk down to the animals, but he is causing fear with his words. He is warning the animals that they know things that the common animals don’t. And to the animals that were (allegedly) conspiring with Snowball, he is telling them to keep one eye open because they will go after you. Later on, Squealer and Napoleon use fear by slaughtering some of their own. Proving that they stand by their word. Fear is one of the strongest things that can stop someone from making a decision or figuring something out. Squealer is using his authority to put something in the back of all the animals heads, that they know everything about everyone, and all the animals go along with what they are being told. 

Not only is language being used as a tool for power being shown in books, but it happens in real life too. North Korea being the best example for this, the government controls everything going on in North Korea. Things such as, “internet is only accessible by a select number of powerful individuals accessing...foreign media is illegal and punishable by death or by imprisonment in political prison camps...North Korea also engages in a constant rewriting of history” (The World Mind). In North Korea every single thing that a citizen knows has been told to them, the government tells them what they know, even though it is only to benefit the government. An education is very important, but even more important is a proper and correct education. The citizens are told everything they know, and its not like they can go onto the internet to fact check it, because the government controls that too. Any propaganda that they see is there to promote and glorify the leaders in power. The language in which they speak about the leader is cult-like, they compare the leaders to god. And in all of this web of lies says one simple truth, that the people of North Korea are uneducated in the truth. And truth is really all that matters.

All in all, Education is the foundation that leads to a society, if one is uneducated this then leads to people being taken advantage of. Through language and propaganda being used as a tool for power, the uneducated fall into a web of lies. Education and one forming their own opinions are necessary in one life to be able to be independent. If people let language and propaganda determine themselves, would there be any individualism?