The use and meaning of language in “Animal Farm”

——Thoughts after reading “Animal Farm”

With a fairy tale as its cover, the underlying tone of “Animal Farm” is actually desolation and
tragedy. My reading review of this novel mainly focus on the “language” in “Animal Farm”.

First of all, I’d like to talk about the use of language, namely its literary style and writing
techniques. Just as the author himself had mentioned, this novel fuses “political purpose and
artistic purpose into one whole”. In terms of the political purpose, Orwell used metaphors and
symbolism to tell a cruel historical story. Each animal stands for a precise figure or typical type.
For example, the pigs are the Bolshevik intellectuals who enjoy the privileges as the new ruling
class. Napoleon who is surrounded by dogs is exactly Stalin who was surrounded by secret police.
Snowball is Trotsky and Squealer represents the propagandists. Boxer symbolizes the decent
working class, and Clover is the motherly working woman of the people. The sheep refer to the
ignorant conformist masses while Benjamin the donkey is the cynical but powerless average man.
The special meaning assigned to them not only makes their image vivid and highly distinctive, but
also projects the cruel and dark political reality. Some may argue that the characters in this novel
are monotonous and not well-rounded since they seem to lack variations as the plot moves
forward. However, these characters actually embody all Orwell’s understanding and emotions
about politics. It is by doing so that the author’s criticism towards totalitarian can be better
demonstrated, that the readers’ understanding of the novel can become clearer. Besides, the use
of contrast made the theme more thought-provoking. Case in point, the contrast between the
idyllic life depicted in "Beasts of England" and the actual miserable life of the animals on the
farm. Also, throughout the book, you’ll find its black humour in several aspects.

The grim ending of the book also stimulates my contemplation on its underlying theme--
totalitarianism. And the establishment of totalitarianism in the animal farm is achieved through
the manipulation of language and discourse. The manipulation of language creates doubts in the
animals' minds about the truth of history and their own memories (the seven commandments).
The embellishment of language conceals the essence of dictatorship and the cruelty of reality
(Squealer always spoke of it as a “readjustment”, never as a “reduction”). The promotion and
propaganda of speech subtly deprives animals of their abilities to think and judge (the
abolishment of “Beasts of England” and the propaganda of the new poem ”Comrade Napoleon”).
The control of language symbolizes power. Those who doubt the power and injustice are brutally
suppressed by the rulers through killing and violence. And those who give in to the brainwashing,
just like the "sleeping people in the iron house" described by Lu Xun, obediently accept the
ideology of the ruling party and become enslaved. This situation is exactly what Orwell described
in "1984": "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength". People are no longer people,
but mere gears on the production machine, serving as tools to fulfill the dictator's objectives.

However, the significance of the novel extends far beyond the political totalitarianism of the
Stalinist era. Orwell still matters. Though totalitarianism may seem distant from us, the
dominance of discourse still exists. Our minds are still, to a certain extent, under the control of
those in power or capitalists in this era of self-media. Some truths are still inaccessible to us. So
what should we do about this? I think maintaining an attitude of independent thinking is the
most important point. As we can see, all the enslaved animals have one thing in common, which
is the lack of reality-based independent thinking. It is because of this that they turn a deaf ear to
the obvious logical fallacies in Squealer's words, they constantly deny themselves and their own
memories, they rationalize all the unreasonable orders, and unable to see the nature of
Napoleon's dictatorship and their own plight. Nowadays, faced with the authorities’ organized
manipulation of social media, which penetrates into every aspect of our life, how can we achieve
independent thinking? In my opinion, first we should diversify our sources of information. Listen
to different voices and have a comprehensive understanding of an issue. Second, we should
question the authenticity of the information we receive.