How Does Orwell Use Satire In Animal Farm

Satirical texts critique the fundamental nature of tyrants in a communist society, and their foundation lies at their satirical techniques. A satire is a text which uses humour, irony or exaggeration in order to highlight the vices, flaws and pretensions of individuals, societies and ideals. The cartoonist’s impression of North Korean society, followed by Orwell’s novella Animal Farm uses satire to its pinnacle in emphasising a totalitarian state overriding an apparently communist society. As a result, communism is a valid form of societal order yet it is the nature of tyrannical leadership that eventually corrupts it, and satire is an effective way to express this.

The cartoon Smart Phone is an allusive representation of Kim Jong Un’s tyrannical

However, Orwell’s Animal Farm also functions as a satirical attack on Stalinist Russia, where the original Communist Revolution degenerated into internal power struggles and the emergence of a grim totalitarian regime under Stalin. Therefore, Stalin can be likened to Kim Jong Un as both are tyrannical rulers whose communist societies are intertwined. Critique in the form of satire common to both texts focuses on the inequality within a society that promotes equality, the misuse of power and exploitation, the pretensions of tyrannical leadership and the breakdown of communism reliant on human nature itself. However, the satirical techniques primarily used by the composers differ significantly between both texts. Most prominently, the cartoonist uses exaggeration and symbolism in highlighting the vices within a communist society. In a symbolic aspect, the inferior figure wears a typical North-Korean uniform embellished by a red communist star on the hat, indicating her to be the embodiment of the working class and a representation of the elements of communism itself. However, her degraded and undignified condition is synonymous of communism’s breakdown in North Korea, in which the circumstances of her exploitation symbolises the failure of communism solely based upon exploitation by a tyrannical leader. Orwell, on the other hand, directs his satirical attack on the nature of a revolutionary leader through the extensive use of irony. Before his death, Old Major warns the animals against mankind, stating “No animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind … All animals are equal.” (I.9). In contrast however, the reader begins to observe the pigs undergo a gradual change. Napoleon’s insistence on the windmill being rebuilt several times is