Article Type : Short commentary
Authors : Mbon A
Keywords : Manipulation; Means; Control; Dictator; Dystopia
This article investigates manipulation as a means of
control in George Orwell’s dystopian novel Animal Farm. It purports to
demonstrate how the pigs shape the mentality of the people symbolized by animal
characters in this political allegory intentionally to gain, maintain and
control power. In fact, this work sheds light on the Napoleonic maxim that the
world suffers a lot, not because of the violence of bad people, but because of
the silence of good people. Today, though this allegory is a hackneyed work just
like its themes, it, however, remains topical because it discusses the
ever-growing abuses of political leaders over impotent peoples. The exploration
of this novella understandably displays huge inequalities as the exploitation
of the masses continues at varying levels in different countries around the
world, even today. To do this, there is recourse to the historical approach
since it involves understanding between other things, the events surrounding
the composition of a work, like the Russian Revolution on which this work is
based, using the findings to interpret that work of literature.
Manipulation; Means; Control; Dictator; Dystopia
Manipulation is the relevant and most obvious motif of Orwell’s masterpiece because the pigs, known as the ruling class, manipulate the other animals in order to indoctrinate and achieve their ultimate control over them. The prevalence of manipulation would not be possible without the lack of education of the other animals and their gullibility. Thus, this lack of literacy proves to be one of the most important reasons animals are subjugated, manipulated and forced to false trials, confessions and blind acceptance, and prone to control. They are too trusting and unsure of their own ability to comprehend what they have been told by Old Major, and so rely on the pigs to interpret his words for them. Manipulation in the eyes of farm animals results in the inability of the other animals to realize the extent of their suffering, vulnerability and unhopeful tone under the leadership of the pigs. The farm is controlled solely by the pigs disabling the other animals to realize their situation in life. At this point, the hope for a better life is unattainable; now the animals seem to lose control of their fate in their own hands for, the pigs have a very different vision for the future of ‘’Animalism’’. Orwell’s portrayal of manipulation urges me to put the following fundamental question: What are some early signs of manipulation as a means of control in Orwell’s dystopian novel Animal Farm? The author’s reference to Animal potential ignorance, the Tamed raven Moses’s Sugar Candy Mountain story, false confessions and blind acceptance, and the use of fear tactics to control push me to hypothesize that they are signs of manipulation as a means of control in Orwell’s account. We find it necessary to resort to the sociological approach, psychological and Marxist approaches. As for the sociological approach, most of literary critics have taken some accounts of relation of individual authors to the circumstances of the social and cultural area in which they live and write as well as of the relation of a literary work to the segment of society that its fiction represents or to which the work is addressed. This means that sociological criticism considers the novel as being a social product. They analyze and interpret the relationship that characters have with their counterparts in a given society. They also study the way the author recreates the community he or she belongs to within a work of fiction as Toni Morrison (1984, 339) writes about her own novels: “If anything l do, in the way of writing novel or whatever l write is not about the village or the community or about you (The African Americans), then it is not about anything’’. As it can be seen, Toni Morrison confesses that the writer, whoever he may be, does not write in a vacuum, but is inspired by his society. This means that the novelist reconstructs the experience of people in a given society. Very often, when we go through a given novel, we discover that what the writer has done is a depiction of a society with its people, the relations that these have among them and with the land or community in which they live.
It is indeed in this regard that Krutch (Krutch, quoted by Scott: 1963, 123) writes
Sociological criticism starts with a conviction that
art's relations to society are vitally important and that the investigation of
these relationships may organize and deepen one’s aesthetics response to a work
of art. Art is not created in a vacuum; it is the work not simply of a person,
but of an author fixed in time and space, answering to a community of which he
is an important. Because articulate part. The sociological critic, therefore,
is interested in understanding the social milieu and the extent to which and
manner in which the artist responds to it. The psychological approach or
psychoanalytic criticism is associated with the appearance of Sigmund Freud's
early time in the first half of the twentieth century. It is indeed the
application of Freudian theories to all literary processes from the mind of the
writer and motives of characters he creates to the reaction. This approach
helps people analyze not only the spiritual link that characters have with
their community, but also the work itself. One will understand the work by
examining conflicts, characters, dream sequences and symbols. In this sense,
the psychological approach or psychoanalytic theory of literature is similar to
the formalist approach.
In
reference to this approach, Wilbur Scott (1962, 71-72), states [8]
Psychology, of course enables biographers to speculate
upon ‘’the interior’’ part of life. The criticism that employs this approach
assumes that an important part of the relationship artist and art is similar to
that between patient and dream, (…) psychology can be used to explain
fictitious characters. Lastly, Marxist Criticism is a strongly
politically-oriented criticism, deriving from the theories of the social
philosopher Karl Marx. Marxist critics insists that all use of language is
influenced by social class and economics. It directs attention to the idea that
all language makes ideological statements about things like class, economics,
race, and power, and the function of literary output is to either support or
criticize the political and economic structures in place. Some Marxist critics
use literature to describe the competing socioeconomic interests that advance
capitalistic interests such as money and power over socialist interest such as
morality and justice. Because of this focus, Marxist Criticism focuses on
content and theme rather than form. It is keen to observe how classes are
represented in literature and what is more, how class distinctions are
reinforced.
In
the light of this logic, Barry (2002, 108), opines
Marxist Theory as established in the Communist
Manifesto by Karl Marx and Engels highlights the prevailing socioeconomic
situation and encourages the formation of a society devoid of class. It
postulates a classless society, based on the principles of common ownership.
Four main points are discussed in this paper. The first focuses on Animals’
potential ignorance. The second scrutinizes the Tamed raven Moses Sugar candy
Mountain Story, the third evaluates false confessions and blind acceptance and
the fourth examines the use of fear tactics to control.
Animals’
potential ignorance
Ignorance is an important theme in Orwell’s Animal
Farm. To better understand pigs’ manipulation as a means of control, it is
important to go through this potential ignorance too. It is explained as a lack
of knowledge or information about something. In another way, it is a way to not
to do what should be done or a way of laissez-faire. In George Orwell’s Animal
Farm, the other animals, considered as the citizens of this society make a
large to potential ignorance chapter other chapter, relying only on their
leaders, the pigs gradually take advantage of this potential ignorance to lie,
deceive and manipulate them. The other animals, too illiterate as they are,
cannot remember the original version of the commandments written on the wall of
the big barn as it is asserted in the following passage.
None of the other animals on the farm could get
further than the letter A. It was also found that the stupidest animals, such
as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the seven commandments by
heart. After much thought Snowball declared that the seven commandments could
in effect be reduced to a single maxim, mainly: ‘Four legs good, two legs bad’’
This, he said contained the essential principle of Animalism. Whoever had
thoroughly grasped it would be safe from human influences. (p.21) from this
passage, one sees how potentially ignorant the animals are since they are
unable to memorize even the first four letters of the alphabet. It demonstrates
how Snowball finds it important for his fellow comrades to learn this maxim
given that they are not able to read, write or retain those commandments which
govern the farm animals in order not only to adopt human vices, but also to not
be manipulated by the rulers. However, because of their intellectual
superiority, the pigs who rule the farm manipulate the other animals. When
comrade Napoleon overthrows his fellow comrade Snowball, he eventually adopts
human vices and manipulates animals. Their ignorance does not help them be
really aware of pigs’ manipulation and about what they know or what Snowball
said in the earlier days when the commandments were set up and loudly read by
Snowball. Again, the animals are too ignorant in the sense that they are unable
to realize that they are not working for the pigs, but not for themselves and
they cannot make up their minds to notice that the pigs are secretly
manipulating them. By doing so, the pigs exploit, manipulate and enslave them
too much that they give them little food only as illustrated by Davis (2010,
p.10) in this passage.
What are living conditions like for all of the animals
except the pigs and dogs? The animals are working harder than ever and are
given less food. Ration is cut repeatedly, a “readjustment’’ according to
Squealer, who uses more facts and figures to prove how well off the animals
are. And the other animals believe it!
This quotation enlightens how conditions of life
worsen because not only the pigs exploit, enslave and manipulate the other
animals for their own profit, but also by giving little food which will prevent
them from starving, to recall Major’s words. As the work on the farm increases,
Napoleon imposes them willingly volunteer if not their ration is cut
eventually. Squealer manages himself to give them hope, holding a large list to
prove the improvement of their production which increases in accordance with
the production of the stuff. Too ignorant, they cannot even remember whether
the living conditions are better now than during Jones’s time. This Animal
potential ignorance leads to the failure of their society because even
Benjamin, who can read as well as the pigs, does not seem to speak. Her
position of never complain retains the reader’s attention to think that she is
afraid, but why does she not react? It is because she knows that even though
she can reveal it to her fellow comrades, it will not have any effect. Or again
perhaps she thinks that sooner or later, justice will be done. The author uses
this potential ignorance in his masterpiece to mock any society for not
reacting against manipulation or something the masses should react to. Orwell,
by doing so, wants any society to arm itself as it is depicted as follows.
Orwell’s message is a warning that a society needs to
arm itself with knowledge in order to protect itself from its own government.
People who are ignorant are likely to become oppressed because they have no way
of protecting or fighting for their rights. Through this quotation, the reader
discovers that ignorance leads to manipulation and oppression and so, knowledge
is power. Unfortunately, those animals are too ignorant and their illiteracy
makes them be easily deceived, manipulated, oppressed and controlled by the
pigs. Orwell scrutinizes this potential ignorance to condemn the Soviet
citizens for not reacting against Stalinist’s manipulation and oppression
towards them. Apart from animals’ potential ignorance, the tamed raven Moses’s
Sugar candy mountain Story is another mean of manipulation that will be
discussed in the coming section.
The
tamed raven Moses sugar candy mountain story
To begin with, the Tamed raven Moses is George
Orwell’s Animal Farm “religious figure’’ and “Sugar candy Mountain’’ is seen as
a utopian world where all hard working is rewarded. Then, like his biblical
counterpart, Moses offers his listeners or the other animals the descriptions
of a place Sugar Candy Mountain where they can live free from oppression,
hunger, exploitation and manipulation. In Animal Farm, the tamed raven Moses
also embodies this sign of manipulation and represents an organized religion on
the farm animals used by the pigs to deceive, manipulate and control the other
animals. Since Mr. Jones’s time, he had been a spy used not only to blind the
animals, but also to manipulate and prevent them from protesting as they were
completely enslaved or controlled. He is a character able to convince the other
animals with his Sugar Candy Mountain Story, which claims that there is a
better place up to the sky full of sweets and where all animals go after the
earth’s life or death. Through this tale, Jones used Moses to manipulate the
animals by forcing them to accept their present miserable conditions and
believing only in that coming life up to the sky. There, all animals will be
free and enjoy their times, as the writer describes it in the following
passage:
Moses, who was Mr. Jones’s special pet, was a spy and
a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the
existence of a mysterious country called Sugar Candy Mountain, to which all
went when they died it was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance
beyond the clouds, Moses said. (p.10)
After reading this quotation, the reader is aware of
how Mr. Jones used the tamed raven
Moses with his Sugar Candy Mountain story to blind the
animals, manipulate and control them so that they may not realize that their
life is miserable and laborious. That is, Jones uses him as a key-figure to
manipulate and keep his animals under his control despite their miserable
conditions. At first, the pigs find Moses irksome or annoying before they
realize that he may be an advantage for manipulation. They fear his religious
presence will distract the animals from the concept of Animalism as illustrated
below: “The animals hated Moses because he told tales and did no work, but some
of them believed in Sugar Candy Mountain, and the pigs had to argue very hard
to persuade them that there was no such place’’ (p.11). This assertion is a
perfect illustration of how the author demonstrates the pigs’ hatred against
the tamed raven Moses Sugar Candy Mountain Story which they consider to be
Jones’s tool or key-figure used for deceiving, gaining and maintaining control,
sanity and manipulation in the animals. They believe that Jones essentially
attaches or uses Moses to form authority in a bid for superior advantage. It is
evident that the pigs struggle to abolish Moses due to his strength. They
initially consider him as an enemy of the animals and an opiate of the masses.
The fear is that, if the other animals believe in an after-life paradise, they
would not be motivated to change their earthly conditions in this life.
Therefore, the pigs search to discredit Moses soon after taking power. Here is
how Orwell puts it in the novella: “The pigs had an even harder struggle to
counteract the lies put by Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones’s
especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker’’ (p.10)
These lines evidence hatred from the pigs towards Moses the tamed raven’s Sugar
Candy Mountain Story, since they want animals to believe that Animal Farm is a
paradise and fear that the animals will be prompted by Moses’s tales to seek a
better place. However, Moses left the farm, but then, interestingly, Orwell has
him reappear late in the novella. But now, everything has changed on Animal
Farm, and the pigs are not in such a hurry to get rid of him. As conditions on
the farm worsen, the pigs accept and allow Moses to come back to stay so that
to use him as a way to pacify with the oppressed animals and manipulate them
because his tales offer the other animals the promise of rest after a weary,
toilsome life. They realize that Moses the tamed raven can be taken to
advantage or manipulate the other animals. Despite his lack of contribution
towards work around the farm, Napoleon tolerates Moses’s brash presence on the
farm after his return from the Battle of the Windmill as illustrated in the
following passage:
In the middle of the summer Moses the raven suddenly
reappeared on the farm, after an absence of several years. He was quite
unchanged, still did no work, and talked in the same strain as ever about Sugar
Candy Mountain. He would perch on a stump, flap his black wings, and talk by
the hour to anyone who would listen. (….) Sugar candy Mountain, that happy
country where we poor animals shall rest for ever from our labours (p.7).
Through this passage, the reader sees how Moses, like his biblical counterpart,
offers his listeners the description of a place Sugar Candy Mountain where they
can live free from oppression and hunger. Moses is unknowingly benefitting by
manipulating and keeping control in the animals; which the Russian Orthodox
Church was known for doing. Now that the pigs have become much the same as the
cruel master they overthrew, Mr. Jones, they see the value in having their
workers listen to Moses Sugar Candy Mountain Story and go about their daily
tasks with good behavior and a minimum of fuss. Many people feel that religion
serves a function in a society. Moses’s tale of Sugar Candy Mountain serves as
an opiate to the other animals’ misery, exploitation and manipulation.
Another, the pigs even give Moses a daily ration of
beer because they know that his talk of Sugar Candy Mountain is good for
morale. It will keep the other animals from rising up against Napoleon because
they will be rewarded of their obedience and hard work when they die. The tamed
raven Moses offers a story about an obviously fictitious place to advantage the
pigs that manipulate and control the other animals. The following lines bring
evidence:
A thing that was difficult to determine was the
attitude of the pigs towards Moses. They all declared contemptuously that his
stories about Sugar Candy Mountain were lies, and yet they allowed him to
remain on the farm, not working, with an allowance of a gill of beer a day
(p.78). From these lines, the reader understands how the pigs, although
disagreed themselves with the supposed existence of a better world, tolerate it
because, of a small offering of beer towards Moses. Such fantasies are the
underlying reason of manipulation, sanity and control amongst the animals. The
other animals are tricked and pressured into believing that just like the
Christian view of Heaven; Sugar candy Mountain is an idyllic utopia place where
there is no suffering or pain. They believe there is such thing as an
after-life, and they are lulled into a state of endurance, therefore,
continuing to work hard. The oppressed and manipulated animals have something
to look forwards to; they look past the barbaric working conditions and dream
about the Promised Land. The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the
revolution is uncannily similar. Moses unknowingly becomes a great asset to the
pigs, only if he speaks to the farm animals about Sugar Candy Mountain
regularly to mislead them. Essentially, the pigs realize why he was Mr. Jones’s
favourite pet, because he manipulated and kept control on the farm. The fact
that the other animals are willing to believe him reveals their wish for a
utopian place in the heaven or on the farm which will never be found. Thus,
Moses the raven is the ‘’religious figure’’, but in a strictly ironic sense,
since Orwell never implies that Moses’s tales better the other animals’
conditions. He fills the heads of the animals with tales of Sugar Candy
Mountain. What the animals fail to realize is that Sugar Candy Mountain, a
so-called paradise or utopian place is as unattainable a place as a farm wholly
devoted to the principles of Animalism. Moses plays a useful but illusive
psycho-therapeutic role by bringing consolations which make animals adherents
to forget their frustrations. He does not really solve the animals’ problem of
suffering, but he is simply a misguided attempt to make life bearable. As such,
one sees Moses as merely stupefying, manipulating the animals rather than
bringing them to happiness and fulfilment. Napoleon establishes his relation
with Moses to use him as a susceptible means to deceive in order to gain and
maintain power, manipulate, control and keep the other animals from protesting
against him despite his misleading and oppression towards them. He also tames
Moses to justify his position both to himself and to others. Moses is directed
and supported by Napoleon to further his interests. Using Moses, Napoleon tends
to discourage the other animals from making efforts to change their social
situations and conditions. He prevents the idea of overthrowing the existing social
and political structure by means of revolution and acts as a mechanism of
social and political manipulation and control. In this way, Moses reinforces
class. Equivalently, the Russian Orthodox Church was heavily prominent around
the Revolution. The Bolsheviks found it difficult to reduce religion during the
revolution because of the church’s large following and tenacity. Stalin, the
leader of the Bolsheviks, believed in science and reason, completely
disregarding the Russian Orthodox Church. However, it was only after the World
War II when the Orthodox Church gained status and toleration by the government,
only because it was seen as an opportunity to deceive, manipulate, control and
keep the Slaves and peasants subdued. The Orthodox Church resembled a
pain-killing drug; used on the poor to manipulate and keep them working.
Religion maintained manipulation and control by creating a fantasy for workers.
This particular idea of an after-life provided solace for the hard working and
distressed poor during the revolution, thus eliminating controversy and
maintaining discipline. Without the Church, there would have been uproar, chaos
and the chance of more rebellions. The Russian Church kept stability and hope
amongst the working-class society, paralleling Moses’s role in George Orwell’s
Animal Farm. It is in this perspective that Karl Marx and Engels (1975, p.39),
in his Essay “Toward a Critique of the Philosophy of Hegel’’ argued that:
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed soul, it is the emotion of an emotionless
world, and, in the same way that it is as it were, the spirit of a spiritless
system, so religion is the opium of the people.’’ Here, Marx and Engels’s views
of religion can be summarily examined in three perspectives as: a reflection
and projection of social alienation; an ideological tool to legitimize and
perpetuate the oppressive social order and as the opium of the masses. They sum
up their own idea of religion. It has been said that this statement forms “the
cornerstone of the whole Marxist outlook on religion.’’ They mean to say that
religion acts as an opiate to dull the pain produced by oppression and make the
oppressed docile and anaesthetized. Karl Marx and Engels use the language of
imagery to show that religion possesses the important social function of
providing spiritual consolation to people in their suffering. In his original
meaning, Marx was in no way intending to pass judgment on this political and
social function of religion, nor in describing it figuratively, could he have
been making a judgment about its intrinsic character? In explaining these
words, however, Vladimir Lenin creatively added the word “anaesthetizes’’,
which altered the quotation to the familiar “religion is the opium which
anaesthetizes the people’’, and also changed Marx’s original words about “the
people’s need for religion’’ to “the ruling class used religion to anaesthetize
the people’’. Eventually, this means that religion is a drug for the people.
Before the Russian Revolution, religion presumably “sedated’’ the members of
the working class, enabling them to look past the pain and hard work and dream
about the after-life.
To cite not only Moses, there are many other means of
manipulation in this novella which the author demonstrates through false
confessions and acceptance that I am going to examine in the following section.
After attempting to investigate on the tamed raven Moses’s Sugar Candy mountain
story a means of manipulation, it is also important to scrutinize false
confessions and acceptance.
False
confessions and acceptance
‘’False confessions and acceptance’’ can be viewed as
any form of a written or oral acknowledgement of guilty by a person or party
accused of an offense lacking naturalness or sincerity tending to mislead.
Manipulation is greatly used by totalitarian leaders in order to control and
maintain their subjects under subjugation and serves as a major weapon. In
George Orwell’s Animal Farm, false confessions and acceptance are the result of
the pigs’ use of manipulation which comes from their intelligence superior.
They make use of death to manipulate, frighten and gain control over the other
animals. They abuse their power by forcing animals to confess and accept the
things which they do not do, as it is asserted in the following lines:
Presently, the tumult died down. The four pigs waited,
trembling, with guilt written on every line of their countenances. Napoleon now
called upon them to confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs as had
protested when Napoleon abolished the Sunday meetings. Without any further
prompting they confessed that they had been secretly in touch with Snowball
ever since his expulsion (…) they added that Snowball had privately admitted to
them that he had been Jones’s secret agent for years past. When they had
finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in
terrible voice Napoleon demanded whether any other animal had anything to
confess. (p.56)
Through this quotation, one can see how Napoleon lies,
deceives, falsifies history, fabricates stories, manipulate, and wrongly
accuses innocent animals of treason and coerce them to confess their
uncommitted crimes, and finally kill them in cold blood. The four pigs that had
suggested that Sunday’s meeting should continue are forced to confess that they
have been in touch with Snowball and collaborated in the destruction of the
windmill. For instance, when they had finished their confession, the dogs
promptly tore throats out, and in a terrible voice Napoleon demanded whether
any other animal had anything to confess. To manipulate, control and teach the
rest of the animals a memorable lesson, Napoleon asks his dogs to drag four
pigs to a general meeting and place them at his feet to falsely confess and
accept what they did not do. By putting these innocent pigs to death in such a
blood-thirsty manner, comrade Napoleon violates the sixth commandment of the
law which he and the other animals have established to help them run the farm
animals justly. This is what most of dictators and tyrants do to manipulate,
exploit and have total control over the masses. This use of violent spectacle
and manipulation to create hysteria and a subsequent terrified obedience is the
ultimate corruption and contradiction of the ideals of Old Major espoused. The
fact that the animals are manipulated and killed by having their throats torn
out is Orwell’s way of symbolizing the literal silencing of dissent which went
on under Josef Stalin’s rule. The brutality of the stark description shows the
power of his conviction that the ideal of Socialism had gone dreadfully wrong.
Then follows another series of false confessions and
acceptance on the farm to manipulate and control the other animals. With
Napoleon as the sole leader of the farm, the possibility of manipulation and
total control throughout false confessions and acceptance invested with him
becomes even greater. He violates the unchangeable law which he, along with the
other animals, have vowed to abide and live by forever so as to multiply his
wealth, manipulate, misinform, threaten, terrorize, control the other animals
and satisfy his lust of power. In the novella, false confessions and blind
acceptance are described by the author as follows.
The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the
attempted rebellion over the eggs now came forward and stated that Snowball had
appeared to them in a dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon’s orders. Then
a goose came forward and confessed to having secreted six ears of corn. (…)
then the sheep confessed to having urinated in the drinking pool. And so the
tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses
lying before Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood,
which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones (p.56). These above
lines illustrate the pigs’ use of power through death. Being frightened, the
snow-white four pigs, the three hens, a goose, and the three sheep are forced
to confess to be in touch with Napoleon’s so-called opponent or enemy,
Snowball. They are innocently executed. That is, under Napoleon’s influence and
pressure with their lack of literacy, those animals blindly accept having done
what they did not do. Being under influence and pressure of comrade Napoleon,
the animals are obliged to confess and accept being responsible for something.
This is in fact why they confess as they are indicted for contacting Snowball.
The other animals have to accept the fact that the executions are of traitors.
If not, they have to accept the situation that conditions are worse than they
were under Farmer Jones. The French philosopher Montaigne (1512, p.85) calls
this stoicism, the fact of not complaining or showing what one is feeling when
one is suffering. It is in this sense that he states in his philosophical Essay:
“Celui qui pense a la mort se libere de sa pensee.” As a matter of fact, all
those animals free themselves from fear on the farm animals by accepting to be
in touch with Snowball and by being killed, whereas, the pigs are in search of
Epicureanism, the fact of devoting oneself to pleasure and enjoying oneself.
Orwell scrutinizes this scene of false confessions and acceptance to take us
back to what actually happened in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s era show
trials, when he proceeded to execute Leon Trotsky’s followers. Stalin’s show
trials were a series of political trials held in Moscow in the late 1930s under
Stalin’s direct control. The trials were not held in secret but were, as the
title suggests, held in the open. Foreign journalists were invited to attend as
the trials were intended ‘to show’ the guilt of the accused and have this guilt
widely publicized. Many were demonized by being linked to Trotsky, Stalin’s
exiled rival. Over the years that followed, many ordinary people experienced
manipulation, arrest, imprisonment and sometimes execution as Stalin sought to
eliminate any traces of disloyalty or opposition. The following quotation from
Institut pedagogique Africain et Malgache (1988, p.219) brings evidence:
Ainsi furent elimines les partisants de Trotsky entre
1925 et 1930, les adversaires d’une « dékoulakisation » trop brutale entre 1930
et 1935. Après 1936, l’URSS traverse une nouvelle crise grave. De nombreux
dirigeants du parti sont arretes, accuses de haute trahison et condamnes a mort
au cours des proces spectaculaires ou les accuses reconnaissent frequemment
leur culpabilite. These words echo false confessions and blind acceptance
intelligently managed by Stalin to bring Trotsky’s followers to confess and
accept their culpability in order to be executed. They show how Trotsky’s
followers or the so-called hypocrites and political opponents of Stalin and
others whom he distrusted, were accused of criminal deeds and were put under
pressure to make public false confessions of their alleged crimes and were
liquidated. Standards of evidence were low and the process was designed to show
the use of apparently proper judicial procedures in dealing with the so-called
‘enemies’ of the State. Stalin used these murders as justification for an
assault on ‘enemies’ of the State, people who he claimed were betraying the
Revolution of October 1917 and threatening the economic reforms which were
underway. The trials were the culmination of a process. Orwell too, exposes
this scene of show trials to remind people of how falsely the idea was that the
Soviet Union was a socialist State as shown in the coming section [1-8].
The
use of fear tactics to control
The term “fear tactics’’ is a reference to the art of
disposing and manoeuvring an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by
awareness of danger. In Orwell’s Animal Farm, one of the most efficient tools
of language’s manipulation used by Squealer is fear tactic, especially fear of
the old regime and farmer Jones. The animals are absorbed with fear tactics which
prevents them from seeing the difference between the rule of Jones and that of
pigs. They have lost all their individual freedom but are unable to realize it
because they are blinded by the promise of a golden future and a better life.
The murder of innocent animals should have been the straw which the camels’
back, but because of constant fear tactics used by Squealer, an unclear
definition of freedom, and the inability to speak their minds. They keep on
believing and obeying the selfish and immoral pigs. Squealer uses more
subversive forms of appealing to fear to misinform the other animals on the
farm. When the circumstance calls for a softer approach, like when he must
explain why the other animals should trust comrade Napoleon and why Snowball’s
exile is necessary, Squealer uses psychological fear. Playing off the animals’
distrust of human, he threatens them through the use of fear tactics to control
their behaviour without any knowing. The following lines bring evidence:
“Discipline, comrades, iron! That is the watchword for today. One false step
and our enemies will be upon us! Surely comrades, you don’t want Jones back!”
(p.37). It goes out from this passage that Squealer, being Napoleon’s
mouthpiece, invokes scare fear tactic and misleads the other animals, thereby
enabling the pigs to control them, to suit their greedy desires. Because of
Squealer’s manipulation of broad language, and the implementation of this fear
tactic, he is able to convince the other animals into believing untrue that is
beneficial to Napoleon and the other pigs. Although this is completely untrue,
seeing that Squealer only occurs in self-centred and self-beneficial engaged
and the other animals believe it to be true. Squealer uses his gear to dominate
and oppresses the others. Living in a world where strength is straight forward
to benefit, he manipulates language to govern the relaxation of the animals on
the farm to serve Napoleon’s advantage. This shows the underlying message that
first, knowledge is important to all tiers of society, subsequent, for when it
is not, society is stratified, ensuing in the masses struggling. Moreover, fear
tactic is used in order to oppress, deceive and control the other animals in
Orwell’s Animal Farm celebrated novella. Initially, Mr. Jones ruthlessly wields
his authority by oppressing and intimidating the animals. Mr. Jones and his men
use whips, prods, and harnesses to punish and control the animals. As a result
of his intimidating presence and the threat of violence, the animals fear Mr. Jones.
They passively submit to his authority. Following the successful Rebellion,
Squealer uses the fear of Jones to motivate the other animals into accepting
Napoleon’s principles or directives and narrowing freedom of speech. The other
animals submit to the ruling pigs’ policies because they fear Jones will return
and brutally oppress them. The use of fear tactic traumatizes, threatens and
drives the animals to insanity and even compels them to lie and accept lies as
truth. Napoleon misuses his power, but justifies his action through the use of
Squealer. Thus, using Squealer, Napoleon is able to control the other animals’
way of thinking. Not only misinformation is used in books, magazines, and
articles, but is also used by leaders, politicians, and companies to influence
the public, attract attention, and gain and maintain power. Therefore,
language’s manipulation appealing to fear tactic is one of the main tools which
Squealer uses to control others and a way to justify one’s wrong behaviour,
such as the abuse of power. Squealer misleads animals into obeying Napoleon’s
oppressive policies by suggesting that Mr. Jones will return if they do not
follow their leader’s directives. The possibility of Mr. Jones return strikes
fear in the heart of the animals and this terror motivates them to obey every
command. Once again, fear tactic is the essential element needed to delude and
motivate the animals into believing and obeying the pigs as we read it from
Squealer’s words in the following passage.
Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our
duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades,
cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his
tail, surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back? (p.23)
Through this passage, one can notice how Squealer
exploits the other animals’ ignorance by reminding them how miserable life was
and will be under Jones’s rule; he threatens a return to this existence if they
do not listen and follow Napoleon’s will. Appealing to fear tactic strengthens
Napoleon’s relative power over the rest of the animals. One sees the emergence
of Squealer who plays a pivotal role in the farm animals. His main attribute is
his brilliant or persuasive rhetoric and he is to some extent appeasing the
other animals by cleverly distorting Major’s original plan. By controlling
language and information through a complex coercive apparatus, Squealer
realizes a mind control of the other animals that is ‘total’ in both extension
and intensity. In extension, because the totality of the animals is misled,
dominated, in intensity, because any individual though is totally dominated.
This view clarifies that Squealer controls mind body of the other animals
through language manipulation which he uses as an effective weapon to exert
power on them on the farm. It is in this regard that Bakhtiar Sabir Hama (2015,
p.2) writes: “The totalitarian manipulates language to dominate people, and
language is not a social practice but it has political dimensions and regarded
as a threat to the government if people can use it freely.’’
From this assertion, the reader understands that
knowledge is a big factor which allows politicians to give false impressions,
gain and maintain power, manipulate and control the masses. People with
confidence and knowledge are likely to delude and gain most of control and
power. People with little intelligence, but lots of confidence are more likely
to have some power or work underneath the leader. Those with knowledge, but no
confidence seems to have no power at all and shy away from it. Both knowledge
and confidence are needed for someone to take total power. Squealer, the
appointed speaker among the pigs with greater knowledge than most is more
efficient due to the fact that he offers false information appealing to fear
tactic and has a vast knowledge to look back on for help. Napoleon uses him as
the Nazi dictator; Adolph Hitler used Paul Joseph Goebbels as his Minister of
propaganda. By using fear tactic and threatening the other animals with the
eventuality of Mr. Jones’s returning, he would condition them to accept the
terms of self-sacrifice and even subservience without question. Orwell
demonstrates that political regimes often use means such as playing on fear
tactics as a way to control, consolidate their power and ensure that there will
not be any questioning of their policies and practices.
The end of this exploration demonstrates that
manipulation is exclusively associated with means of control, unfairness or
even evil intentions, and this has consequences for the farm construction and
the animals’ morality. Animals’ mental incapacity is what leads them to be
manipulated, controlled and to accept the pigs as their leaders’ giving them an
opportunity to create a society which only resembles a utopia for animals.
Their lack of intelligence is constantly taken advantage of the other animals
and control them. Being uneducated prevents the animals from voicing their
opinion and fighting against the brutal manipulation of the pigs’ political
regime. Clearly, the animals’ illiteracy, false confessions and acceptance, the
tamed Raven Moses’s Sugar Candy Mountain story and the use of fear tactics open
a door for manipulation. Through the book, the other animals are manipulated
and are not able to realize that the land they once dreamt of and lived in for
a short while is transforming into a nightmare. These series of false
confessions and acceptance, the Tamed raven Moses and the use of fear tactics
served probably one of the most important and functions. They shaped the
mentality of the people symbolized by animals on the Farm. The purpose of the
Tamed raven Moses was directed, first, to the maintenance of the so-called
utopian image of the Animalist’s reality as well as to the peace making,
manipulation of the poor masses. Moses is presented as manipulative,
exploitative and acceptable religious figure of Napoleon’s political system
under which have no chance for better life.