Animal Farm Propaganda Essay

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1. Some examples of propaganda techniques in Old Major’s speech are: “No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old.” This is an example of simplification and card stacking. Obviously, Old Major has no way of knowing for certain that every single animal in England lives a terrible life. But by assuming that, he is able to make the choice of freedom seem like the better option, because since it is so widespread, obviously the animals should start a revolution to help everyone. Even though there may be animals who are treated extremely well by their humans who would fair much worse without them, by simplifying the situation to only support his views, he can make a very convincing argument.

“The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.” This is an example of simplification. The entire life of an animal, even the ones on Jones’ farm, did not consist of only misery and slavery. An excellent example is Molly, who loved the life she had under Jones since she got sugar cubes and ribbons. But to support his opinions, Old Major simplifies his statement, making it black and white, leaving …show more content…

Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well−being of a pig.” This is an example of card stacking and his use of pseudoscience. Squealer states that the milk and apples are necessary to a pig’s diet, yet he never gives any hard facts about why, just saying that it is proven by science. Also, if Squealer hadn’t been lying about it being necessary, why would it have only helped the pigs? You would think that if something was so good for one animal, that it would also be beneficial for the others. By only mentioning its role in the pigs diet, and backing it up with his pseudoscience, Squealer effectively took advantage of the other animals who didn’t know any

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