Response To George Orwell's Animal Farm

Response to Animal Farm: Exposition

In Animal Farm, George Orwell skilfully uses the exposition to privilege central themes like exploitation of the disempowered by the use of propaganda through his use of narrator and repetition. He demonstrates that through propaganda a group can be exploited through the manipulation of language to believe their dystopia is a utopia. Clearly, it is Orwell’s intention to use the conditions on the Manor Farm to reflect on the social stratification that characterised life in Russia under Tsar Nicholas II prior to the 1917 revolution and then during Stalin’s totalitarian regime. Power was centralised in an elite minority while the peasants endured a life of poverty working long hours for little money. Orwell’s exploration of the exploitation of minority groups through propaganda is highlighted in the

He effectively uses the pseudo naïve narrator in, “the pigs did not actually do any work, but directed and supervised the others,” when the pigs ‘direct’ the other animals as they harvest the hay. This has the has the effect of revealing the ironic subtext which works to uncover the pigs ulterior motive, pretending they are just as hardworking as the other animals however they assert themselves to be above manual labour. By twisting their language into propaganda, tricking the other animals into believing what they’re doing is right, similar to dystopian societies that promote powerful elite minorities under the guise of equality. Orwell’s intention is to position us to see that similar to dystopian societies where an elite minority uses propaganda to exploit the uneducated disempowered, the pigs are beginning their own reign of tyranny by indoctrinating the other animals. This idea is amplified through his use of repetition of, “Comrade!... Comrade,” when the observing pigs call out to other working animals on the farm. This word connotes camaraderie, companionship, and equality, however, the pigs