Essay: Animal Farm by George Orwell – Squealer, the resident public speaker

Philip K. Dick once wrote that “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” In the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell, a farm run by pigs symbolizes the communist revolution. Once the animals overthrew the farmer, the pigs stepped up. They had good intentions: run the farm, protect the animals, and fight the humans off. Those good intentions began to turn into a manipulative dictatorship. Some of the animals are not bright enough to manipulate. The ones that are intelligent enough do so at every opportunity. One such animal is the pig Squealer, the resident public speaker. Squealer uses guilt, fear-mongering, and blatant lying to keep himself in power and the other animals under control.
Squealer guilt trips the animals, causing anyone thinking he might be lying to feel ashamed and trust him again, thus allowing him to stay in power. At one point, the animals discover that the pigs have been taking shared resources for themselves. This goes against the principles of Animalism (communism), and it upset them. Doing damage control, Squealer gives a speech: “’Comrades!’ he cried. ‘You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege?’” (52). The animals constantly use “comrade”. This is because it has unity and equality in it. Squealer wants the animals to believe that they are all equal, so he uses that word here. When Squealer did not simply talk, but rather “he cried” this is also manipulation. By using emotion he stirs the animals’ emotions as well. When he said “imagine” suggests that the selfishness is not real. It is the product of the animals’ imaginations. When he says “I hope”, this starts the big guilt-trip. The animals do not want to disappoint Squealer. There is no good reason why they should feel that way, but they still trust him enough to be upset. Throughout the story, the constant use of “Comrade” by the animals suggests unity. When Squealer says “we pigs”, he is talking about separation. The entire idea that the farm revolves around is that all animals are equal. He soon brings it back to his audience, but it was a small slip up. If the animals were smart enough, at this moment they could have realized that they were being manipulated. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Next, when he says “are doing this”, he is intentionally vague. This takes the animals’ focus and slowly draws it away from the issue they are discussing. His use of “in a spirit” is deliberate word choice. The animals trust and respect him because the pigs are smarter than the other animals. When he uses words and phrases like that it makes him sound even more intelligent, and the animals trust him even more. Finally, he says what they are doing and then completely denies it. The pigs are absolutely selfish and believe that their intelligence merits privileges not available to the other animals. Squealer goes to all this trouble to convince the animals he is still trustworthy and worthy of their respect.
Squealer uses the animals’ deep-seated fear of Mr. Jones to keep them in line and docile. Mr. Jones ran the farm until the animals rebelled, and he was cruel. Propaganda spread by the pigs demonizes him even more. Again in his speech about the milk and apples, he shapes their opinions: “Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back!” (52). By saying “what would happen”, he implies that this is the guaranteed outcome. There is no alternative, which may not be true. By repeating “we pigs” he is again dividing the inhabitants of Animal Farm into different categories of unequal power. Saying “our duty” proposes the idea that the pigs did not want this power, but nobly accepted it for the good of all animals. All this causes the animals to believe that while their current situation is not ideal, it was much worse under the tyranny of Mr. Jones. This keeps Squealer in a position of power and the other animals blind to the truth.
Squealer also lies to the animals by creating a reasonable explanation that they will believe in order for them to continue believing he has their best interests at heart and continue trusting him. Under the leadership of Napoleon, the animals are building a Windmill. When Boxer working too hard on it injures him, it worries the other animals. Squealer tells them that he made arrangements to send Boxer to a hospital where he can recover. When the truck arrived the animals realized too late that the truck is taking Boxer to a slaughterer. To convince the animals otherwise, Squealer gave a speech saying that the truck did take Boxer to a hospital and he was with Boxer when he died: “And at the end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered in my ear that his sore sorrow was to have passed on before the windmill was finished” (125). One of the first things Squealer does is avoid using the word death, by saying “at the end” and later “passed on”. When he does this, it creates the false feeling that Boxer is still alive and somewhere else. Next, he says “almost too weak to speak”. This is a prime example of pathos. The animals are already heartbroken that their friend has died. It also shows Squealer trying to convince the animals he was there. If he was very vague, it wouldn’t have been as easy to believe he was there. By using specific details he can convince the animals otherwise. It is safe to assume that Squealer is lying here. By using “sore sorrow” he makes it seem like Boxer had a last request. Because the animals looked up to Boxer, they would feel obliged to complete it. Finally, Squealer says “before the windmill was finished”. Here, he pushes the animals to work harder in their friend’s absence. It is cruel, but Squealer uses the unfortunate death of Boxer for his own gain. The completion of the windmill would benefit him but yet he does not contribute. Instead, Squealer delegates that task to the other animals.
Squealer gives speeches that make the animals feel guilty, afraid, and that he is trustworthy, keeping them loyal to him and the current leader. When he makes the animals believe they failed him, they trust him more. When he scares them with the return of their old master, they like the pigs’ leadership better. When Squealer, someone they trust lies to them about their friend’s death, they believe it. People can be as gullible as the animals. In the year 1989 in China, students were protesting the leadership. One protest in Tiananmen square turned into a massacre. This lead the government released a statement intended to manipulate citizens. Through very specific wording, they convinced them that the military had no choice. They also prevented other accounts from reaching the masses. This lead to those who were not there believing it as a fair counterattack, and not a brutal massacre.