Whips, chains, slavery, labor, oppression and misery. Power. Power corrupts and causes abuse. In George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, the animals choose to rebel against Man to escape his tyranny, and form a society all their own. They were not expecting some of the difficulties they’d face in order to first procure power and second to use it. Although the animals were powerless in the beginning, they rose to power by exploiting propaganda such as passionate, persuasive speeches, fun, patriotic rituals, and evil, malicious scape-goating.

Major’s speech, dripping with propaganda, was the spark that led to the Revolution. The speech included such propaganda as loaded words and powerful images. Strong verbal techniques and potent pictures send out certain messages of evil to strengthen Major’s persuasion. He describes the desperate hardship, “...those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty.” This extreme idea is dramatized with such power and confidence that it is a simple task to influence others to think the same. The words such as “slaughter,” “last atom” and “hideous cruelty” are strong enough to leave a lasting impression in one’s mind. In addition, Major won the animals over with catchy slogans. The easy-to-remember-and-repeat motto, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” is quite simple. The simplicity of it makes the point clear towards effectively brainwashing the animals to believe that all men are evil.

After Major’s speech manipulated the animal’s thoughts, propaganda was continually supported by weekly rituals. These rituals fulfilled the animal’s basic need and desire of pride and belonging. A “...ceremony which was observed every week without fail” is what the animals needed for a sense of courage coming through strength in numbers. The gatherings were a kind of social control to bring everyone to a certain place and feed them lies and propaganda to sustain the revolutionary patriotism. Also, after the ceremonies, a song is sung by every animal that encourages and upholds the Animalistic beliefs. The firm, devoted tune emphasizes loyalty “Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland, Beasts of every land and clime, Hearken to my joyful tiding, Of the golden future time.” The song is optimistic with the joyful, promising lyric “golden future time.” Having all the animals singing this propagandistic melody together, enforces all the patriotic group values of Animalism.

In addition to the rituals, propaganda was also spread by the act of scape-goating. Essentially the Animals (beginning with Major) blamed all their life’s problems on Man. In Major’s speech he points out, “Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of our hunger and overwork is abolished forever.” Desperate to find a solution, using propaganda along the way, the animals believe that human beings are the cause of all their hardships. They are led to think that subtracting men would make everything all better when really it is not necessarily all Man at fault. Again, scape-goating occurred under Napoleon’s unjust reign when Snowball was blamed for the destruction of the holy windmill. “Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill? SNOWBALL!” Napoleon was worried about the ruined windmill threatening his leadership. Instead of owning up to his own responsibility, Napoleon blames Snowball and further pushes propaganda to manipulate the animal’s heads and filling them with lies.

As a result of all the persuasive verbal influences, entertaining celebration customs, and finally the wicked scape-goating, the immense propaganda is quite apparent on Animal Farm. Although propaganda is bad, the animals could not acquire their power without it. Look closely, propaganda is everywhere. Animal Farm is an allegorical novel based on the Russian Revolution where propaganda was also spread widely by such historical figures as Joseph Stalin (represented by Napoleon). How does one know when they are being fed propaganda and being brainwashed to think a certain way? Take notice.