Los Angeles Unified School District

Division of Adult and Career Education WORKSHEET #13

Copyright © 2005
Literary Terms

The following information is essential to your understanding of the novel, Animal Farm, and to your ability to
complete the assignments.

George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm, was deeply concerned with the political and social
issues of the time. He was especially interested in the dictatorships that arose in Nazi Germany
and Soviet Russia, and Hitler and Stalin, their respective leaders. In Animal Farm Orwell
expressed his concerns through various techniques.

The following terms all describe techniques or methods used in Animal Farm:

allegory: a work of literature in which characters and events symbolize qualities such as greed, or real
people and events. Allegories are written not only to entertain, but to teach a lesson or moral
principle. In a sense, Animal Farm is an allegory about the Russian Revolution, but it could be
about any revolution or any group of people corrupted by power.

fable: a literary form in which animal figures are used to teach a lesson about humans.

propaganda: the spreading of biased, one-sided information, ideas, concepts, etc., with the purpose of
influencing people’s thinking and actions in order to further one’s own cause or damage that of
the opposition.

satire: a literary work which uses humor or ridicule to expose stupidity or evil.

Complete the following sentences with one of the four words in bold above:

1. A government may use ____________________ to convince its citizens to go to war.

2. The folk tale about the fox and the grapes is a ____________________ that teaches children an
important lesson about gluttony.

3. A newspaper editorial that makes fun of a politician to reveal his corrupt policies could be called a
____________________.

4. The novel Lord of the Flies, in which children act like savages, is an ____________________ about how
adults behave in the world.

Literature/Modern 23-12-78.WP
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