Language as instrumental to the abuse of power and mind control in Animal Farm
Introduction
The most effective form of communication in society is speech, that is language. Language serves many functions, which include informative, entertaining and persuasive. In a political context it involves attracting attention and controlling listeners. The purpose of this paper is to analyze some features in Animal Farm that are of characteristics of the language of politics, portraying language as an instrument for attracting attention and controlling listeners.
It is also important when talking about George Orwell related to politics, to be familiarize with the events that marked his life and which made him reject any kind of totalitarian society:
George Orwell was educated in prestigious English schools with an atmosphere of constant taunting and endless competition for scholarship where he developed a contempt for any type of authority. He enlisted in the Indian Imperial Police when he was twenty years old, so during five years he witnessed imperialism rejecting it. In addition to that, when in 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out, he joined the Republican side taking part into the conflict. During this period he saw the perversion of language through propaganda used as an instrument of war and mind control. It was specially during this war, and because of the conflict between Troskists and Stalinists, that George Orwell moved away from his early ideals.
Unlike many British socialists in the1930s and1940s, Orwell was not enamored of the Soviet Union and its policies, nor did he consider the Soviet Union a positive representation of the possibilities of socialist society. He could not turn a blind eye to the cruelties and hypocrisies of Soviet Communist Party, which had overturned the semifeudal system of the tsars only to replace it with the dictatorial reign of Joseph Stalin. Orwell became a sharp critic of both capitalism and communism, and is remembered chiefly as an advocate of freedom and a committed opponent of communist oppression.
Please, for a further study on George Orwell’s life and the historical context of Animal Farm before continuing reading the paper, click on the links:
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