George Orwell : Language As Tool Of Propaganda

Have you ever been curious about how animals feel inside living in farms and who are the big bosses that run everything within the farm? And who has the power? In, Animal Farm, size did not matter in this case! The animals were convinced to do what the pigs tell them to. The power holders in the book are the pigs ! Puny, chubby, and persuading pigs! Ruling a whole farm of animals. They were smooth with their words and careful and manipulative. Then, soon enough the pigs took matters into their hands causing surprises to most of the farm animals. In the book Animal Farm as well as in our society, the leader that rise to power are usually the cleverest or most intelligent and most able to manipulate.

Another example of this is when the narrator says, "They had nothing to go on except Squealer's lists and figures." by manipulating the numbers, the pigs are able to convince the animals that their lives are better with Napoleon as their leader. Because of their ignorance, the animals do not realize their lives are indeed worse. Furthermore, the lists and figures are appealing to the society since they reflect what the animals want. This will prevent the animals from rebelling. In conclusion, the animals will not be able to realize the pigs are corrupted due to their lack of education. Second, the pigs are constantly portrayed as heroes due to them telling lies. One example is when Boxer gets sick, and the narrator says, "Benjamin pushed her [Muriel} aside... he read Alfred Simmons, horse slaughterer." The animals are not able to tell that Boxer is going to the slaughterhouse, due to their inability to read. Furthermore, by telling the animals that Boxer is going to the doctor to get better, the pigs are becoming more powerful and credible. This will allow them to take control of the society, create a dictatorship, and tell more lies in the

George Orwell’s article “Politics and the English Language” gives six rules that authors should follow by to be good writers. After reading the article, one notices how often these rules are broken by authors all the time. George Orwell’s article makes readers question whether or not an author knows how to dictate their own thoughts. By breaking Orwell’s rules, an author loses attachment with a reader, and therefore will be unable to convey their message successfully.

Throughout the course of history propaganda has been widely used in many societies to help keep the people under control. Basically every country has experienced some form of propaganda and it stills conintues today. Whether these be the creation of false information, slogans, or genernating fear among the citizens, they create an unrealistic reality which they believe to be just. These socities all limit the freedoms of their citizens so they could have no original ideas. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”(Winston 84), the government brainwashes them into believing whatever they want them to and if they stop believing in this it would lead to a revolt.

Known for being one of the most controversial novels of all time, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four transforms the reader’s understanding of oppressive government, but also of the power of language and the danger of its confinement. As said by Aristotle, “If it is argued that one who makes an unfair use of such faculty of speech may do a great deal of harm, this objection applies equally to all good things except virtue . . . for as these, rightly used, may be of the greatest benefit, so, if wrongly used, they may do an equal amount of harm.” (Aristotle 65) The world Orwell creates relies on said harmful speech to control the general populace to feel and think exactly what the government wishes them to. In such a society, thinking something other than the government’s propaganda becomes a thought-crime punishable by extreme precautions to make an individual believe what they are told to. The dominant political party in Nineteen Eighty-Four controls language and rhetoric in order to manipulate mentalities, prevent rebellion, and to provoke a feeling of love for the party’s leader, Big Brother.

I remember ninth grade English when I wrote basically whatever I wanted and got A’s. It was such an amazing time to be alive. I rarely had to worry about major writing conventions or anything. However, if I could go back, I would tell myself two things, first that I need to learn what a comma is (this is exhibited in all of my writing), and secondly that I shouldn’t write fluff pieces. Young me would have probably looked current me straight in the eyes and would have said, “yeah, but the word count requirement.” Foiled again by the rubric. However, in all seriousness, George Orwell brings up a good point about the current state of the English language in his essay, “Politics and The English Language.” It is no mystery that no current English

George Orwell presumes, “The enemy of clear language is insincerity.” But what, exactly, is clear language? It is saying succinctly and plainly what is meant without the intention of offense. However, with the modern rules of adhering to a continuous doctrine of being, as dictionary.com says, “multiculturally sensitive,” it is almost impossible to state exactly what is meant. No one likes to be called offensive names or stereotypical slurs, but when considering such insults, words such as “racist,” or “sexist,” are usually labeled toward the insulter, not the insulted. Yet, with the strict, but implied rules of political correctness, these labels get thrown around quickly and easily at any slip of the tongue without concern for the person’s

Even though the year 1984 has passed, George Orwell’s 1984 maintains it’s position as a pop culture icon. Orwell’s creations of “Newspeak” and “Big Brother” live on in infamy. Much of the basic plot of 1984 is paralleled in current dystopian best sellers. The Hunger Games and Divergent are just two series that have profited off the idea of dystopia and used a gruesome future to become a pop culture phenomenon. But Orwell’s ideas have stood for more than a cultural reference, his ideas reveal a corrupt society that isn’t in the future. In 1984, Orwell uses the power of language and the use of ironic contradiction to expose the dangers of totalitarianism while simultaneously crafting a warning of the power that comes with control.

Orwell describes a time in which language and history are manipulated and controlled to assure the dominance of the government and technology is used only to the government’s advantage. Several of the most alarming things that are described in 1984, and that Orwell ultimately warns about include the manipulations of history, the use of language as a means of control, and the use of technology as a means of surveillance. History is more powerful than one might think; when it is changed and manipulated it can become a means of subconscious propaganda. This can be dangerous because one might not even be aware that they are being persuaded to think something. Suppression of a historical event can cause tension in society. In 1984, a new

The Animal Farm is run by the 7 Commandments as well as the pigs. The pigs are considered the most intelligent species at the farm. They don’t really do the work they just tell the animals what to do and how to do it. They plan everything out and strategize. Napoleon and Snowball are the top 2 pigs. Squealer is just the persuader and message delivery pig.

According to Orwell, language corrupts thought and thought corrupts language. In this case, “an effect can become the cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form” (2). This can continue on indefinitely if nothing is done to stop it and reverse the effects. First, he discusses how thought corrupts language in paragraphs three and four. He argues that the use of euphemisms in political language is so that governments can defend and cover up their cruel actions. For example, a euphemism such as “rectification of frontiers” (3) would be used to hide the cruel fact that “millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry” (3). The manipulative

The pigs are able to manipulate the animals on the farm using distortion and bad logic because the animals are quick to believe anything and will trust whatever the pigs say. Propagandists often have to change information that could disturb their opinions to make it appeal to an audience (Stults). Propaganda will often be illogical if the propagandist thinks that their ideas are believable (PBS). Because few of the farm animals are highly knowledgeable, the pigs take the milk from the cows and the windfall apples in Chapter 3 and the other animals barely question them. In fact, the pigs say it is for the animals’ own good that they drink the milk and eat the apples because it helps them run the farm and they actually dislike them (Orwell 36). The animals are foolish and do not argue with Squealer’s explanation for drinking the milk and eating the apples. They are so incredibly lacking in common sense that they do not notice the pigs control of the farm and the pigs are able to have a way to take more food than the other animals. After the van takes Boxer, the pigs tell the animals a fake story to conceal that the sell him. When Squealer tells the animals that even though Boxer is picked up in the knacker wagon, it takes him to the hospital, the animals believe him. Benjamin the

What is the key to controlling a population? In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, he depicts a world where the government controls every aspect of its citizens lives, including language. Orwell suggests that the key to controlling the citizens of Oceania is through language. 1984 demonstrates the party’s obsession with control through language which is used to eliminate thoughtcrime, take power away from the citizens of Oceania, and eliminate love.

Orwell creates the theme of destruction of language in 1984, and successfully portrays government abusing their power. It is easy to see when Syme and Winston are talking about the eleventh edition of the Newspeak dictionary in the lunchroom. Syme vocalizes that “we’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, each day” (Orwell 51). As previously stated, Big Brother wants Oldspeak to be superseded by Newspeak. Syme says this will happen by around the year 2050. Big Brother wants it to be impossible to even commit a thought crime, which is why they are destroying the language. More evidence for this is in the text George Orwell and the Living World. The text claims that Newspeak in 1984 is created “to banish from the minds of people any thoughts other than those approved by the ruling party of Oceania (Woodcock). This is a great example of abuse of power, because the ruling party wants “banish” all thoughts that could go against the government. If this isn’t abusing power it is hard to what is. To clarify, Big Brother wants everyone to stay ignorant as to what his party is doing.

The animals on the farm blindly believe everything that the pigs or dogs tell them. An example of that is when Napoleon and the other pigs moved into the house they started doing more ‘humanly’ things, like moving into the house wasn’t one already. They ate their meals in the kitchen, used the drawing room as recreation room, but they even slept in the beds. When Clover heard of this, she thought she remembered that in the Seven Commandments there was a rule against beds; something about ‘never sleeping in a bed’. She tried reading it but she couldn’t put the words together yet and read it, so she asked Muriel to read it to her. It said ‘No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets’ (p 50). When Muriel reads this, Squealer happened to pass by and explained himself out of this situation. There were more occasions were Napoleon or the pigs who worked for Napoleon changed some of the Commandments to please their liking. Another very similar occasion of this was when Napoleon executed multiple animals on the farm, when everyone confessed their secrets to him. When they finished their confessions ‘his dogs promptly tore their throats out’. A few days later, ‘when the terror caused by the executions died down’, some of the animals started to remember that the Sixth Commandment said something about ‘No animal shall kill any other animal’. It was again Muriel who read the