Animal Farm Group

Question:

sm123
sm123
Student
High School - 10th Grade

In Animal Farm, what strategies do the pigs use to suppress the other animals on the farm?

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Posted by sm123 on Thursday October 15, 2009 at 12:32 AM and tagged with animal farm, pigs, strategies.

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  1. scarletpimpernel Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    They use many of the common propaganda techniques, such as:

    1. Glittering generalities--use of words with positive connotations to appeal to one's sense of duty, compassion, etc.  The pigs employ GG by rallying the other animals' "patriotism" for their new government and by originally having them sing "Beasts of England" and chant a motto for the farm.

    2. Lesser of Two Evils--later in the book when rations are low and morale is even lower, the pigs remind the other animals how bad things were under Mr. Jones and that even though the situation is not currently great, it could always be worse.

    3. Pinpointing the Enemy--as Napoleon gains more power on the farm and eventually expels Snowball, he begins his quest to blackball Snowball by blaming all negative events on the mysterious and seemingly ubiquitous Snowball, including the windmill's destruction.

    4. Assertion--this technique is the asserting of something as true or logical without any evidence. When the pigs want to rewrite history, they simply do.  If any of the other animals question them about past promises or traditions, the pigs simply kill their opposition or assert that they were mistaken.

    Hope this helps--you can find examples in Animal Farm of the pigs using all of the main propaganda devices; so these are just a few.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/animal-farm/historical-context
    http://www.enotes.com/animal-farm/style

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    Posted by scarletpimpernel on Thursday October 15, 2009 at 12:56 PM