Department of English

Submitted By : Mariam Habib

Roll No : (ENGL51F20R062)

Submitted To : Dr. Tazanfal Tehseen

Subject : Stylistics

Topic : Stylistic Analysis of Animal Farm

Introduction:
Animal farm is stated to be an allegorical novelette by George Orwell. It was first published in
the United Kingdom in 1945.  Set in the background of the animal rebellion on an animal farm,
the storyline reflects the cleverness of the clever animals leading the other simpletons and
guiding them to victory with the allusion of freedom and happy life. Animal farm is also known
as symbolic writing for Russia during the revolution in 1917 and the Soviet nation under the
communist rule, and how the common people were affected by it. The novel created ripples for
attacking capitalists and the communist regime, in other words, totalitarian states and
propagandist approach of the statecraft.

Stylistic Analysis of the Text:

Animal Farm makes heavy use of foreshadowing. Most of the plot’s main events are
foreshadowed in the opening chapter. This foreshadowing emphasizes the inevitability of what
happens, suggestions that violent revolution is doomed to fail, and that power always corrupts.
“There comrades, is the answer to allow problems. It is summed up in a single word-Man.”

 The animals are propounding that the cause of all the problems that they have as is the
man.

Imagery:

“And then after a few preliminary tries, the whole farm burst out into a Beast’s of England in
tremendous unison. The cows lowed it, the dogs whined it, the sheep bleated it, the horses
whined, the ducks quacked it.”

 In this moment, you can imagine all the animals singing the same song in different form
with the way to expression that they have.

Repetition:

“No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.”

 It is clear that old major wants to emphasis in the respect between animals.

Personification:

With some difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to balance himself on a ladder).,“We know that
the pigs are fat and think in this animalism try to walk in the ladder is some kind of impossible.”

Hyperbole:

“But how he seemed more like horses than one, there were days when the entire work of the
farm sees to rest on his mighty shoulders.”

 This part here give us an exaggeration that there is only one horse but he works with
much more energy and all the work can really rest in his shoulders, so its kind of
hypothetically.

Symbolism:

“It was decided to set the gun up at the floor of the flagstaff, like the piece of artillery, and to fire
it twice a year.”

 The animals use the guns as symbol of the war that they have with humans in order to
keep the farm with them. Also they called this day the anniversary of the rebellion.

Dramatically Irony:
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not
lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is
lord of all the animals.”

 They are talking about the contradiction between animals and humans, that the animals
do all the work for humans and served them but the humans are called the lord without
doing anything.

Point of view:

Animal Farm is told from a collective limited third-person point of view sometimes known as
“village voice.” The narrator knows everything the animals see, say, know and do as a group.
The narrator does not know what the pigs say and do when they are apart from the other animals,
and we rarely see the action through the eyes of individual animals.

The collective point of view also creates deep ironies in Animal Farm. While the story is told
from the simple, trusting point of view of the animals, the reader is consistently reminded that
their perspective is very limited.

Flashback:

Old Major (So he was always called, though the name under which he had been exhibited was
Willington Beauty).

The author is remembering what the original name of Old Major was.

Tone of Animal Farm:

The tone of animal farm is objective. The narrator acts as bystander to the happening of the
farm, and the reader learns very little about the personal thoughts or feelings from any individual
animal. The story is presented as fact, and the narrator does not go into detail the moral aspect of
everything happening on the farm. Orwell satirizes the irony in which the pigs take over the
farm.

Foregrounding:

In this novel, George Orwell uses a unique artistic way of writing technique in order to express
the theme, that is, foregrounding. This writing style has appealed to a host of readers.
Foregrounding is a key concept used to study literary languages.

Therefore, the foregrounded language often leads to freshness, vividness, profundity and strikes
the readers as impressive. From this novel, we can see that George Orwell has a good command
of this theory. He skillfully employs foregrounding in his story and makes the story interesting
and fascinating.
George Orwell is one of the most influential writers in the20th century and his works mainly
focus on politics. Because of his particular way of showing political themes, his languages and
opinions exert deep influence on the literary creation by the western writers and playwrights
of1950s and1960s. He writes about what he sees and what he thinks in quite a unique way that is
different from other writers.

The style of Animal Farm is simple and clear. The novella’s language is concrete, factual and
delivered in short sentences. The simplicity of style culminates at the novella’s end, in one-
sentence paragraphs: “It was a pig walking on his hind legs. He carried a whip in his trotter”
(Chapter 10). The simplicity and clarity of the novella’s style contrasts with the way Animal
Farm’s characters use language. Throughout the book, characters use language in deceptive
ways for political purposes. Some characters make their language complex in order to deceive,
like Squealer when he is explaining Napoleon’s actions. Other characters use simplistic
language to distort the truth, like the sheep with their slogan, “Four legs good, two legs bad.”

The use of passive voice:

A notable feature of Animal Farm’s style is the use of the passive voice. For instance, when
Napoleon steals the cows’ milk, we are not told which character or characters notice that the
milk is missing. Instead we are told that “it was noticed that the milk had disappeared”

The use of the passive voice emphasizes the animals' helplessness creating the impression that
things happen without the animals’ consent. The passive voice also helps to show the power of
rumor and false information in an oppressive society. When no one knows exactly who said, did
or “noticed” something, it’s easy to claim that the thing didn’t really happen, or that it happened
differently, and this is exactly what the pigs do.

Animal farm is a dystopian novella. In order to better convey meanings, figure language is often
used. Therefore ， we can find the use of different figure of speech. In the book, the use of
personality， parable and sarcasm play the most important part on conveying the meaning. We
still could analyze this there main figure of speech rest upon this extract.

 Personality

From the whole extract， we can easily find that all the animals are conscious and they can use
English to communicate with each other.

 Parable

Animals drove away their master for they had a dream of all animals are equal. In fact ，
more sadly， animals were more than ever before, live in the hypocrisy and lies fooled
by new and crueler rulers. The writer use animals to reflect the reality. Looking back to
 the history， a large number of crimes were in name of freedom or equality. The writer
writes the novel to call upon do not repeat some criminal history.

 Sarcasm

Boxer was a very impressive animal in the novel. He was hardworking and faithful，
and he always shout his mottos ： “ napoleon is always right” and “I will work
harder”. Finally， after devoting all himself to the farm, Boxer was weak and it was
his time to retire. While， the pig thought he was useless so they sent Boxer to the
slaughterhouse, in return for whisky for pigs. How ironic it was. They were just
fooled by the pigs, the rulers.

Conclusion:

Above all are my stylistic analysis and my own thinking about the Animal Farm ， based on
several paragraphs as an example ， mainly concentrating on lexical ， syntactic/grammatical
and semantic levels. In conclusion ， this book is a political allegory in formal style.
Meanwhile ， there are still some perspectives untouched upon. Taking these factors into
account, it still needs further researches.