Deception is a key strategy the pigs use to gain and maintain power.
Deception means deliberately tricking someone. It often involves making a person think one thing while actually doing something else. This is the tactic used by the pigs, especially Napoleon. The pigs use Old Major’s philosophy to get all of the other animals to give them power. They pretend that they have the animals’ best interests in mind.
Napoleon and the other pigs call Old Major’s dreams Animalism. Under these principles, all animals will be equal and they will live a much better life than when they were under the humans’ control. As far as the pigs are concerned, Old Major gave them an opening and they used it to their advantage.
The pigs use manipulation and deception from the very beginning. A good example is the disappearing milk and apples. These foodstuffs are considered luxuries to the animals and they look forward to enjoying them now that the humans will not be taking everything from them. However, the pigs convince them that these items should be reserved for the pigs.
The mystery of where the milk went to was soon cleared up. It was mixed every day into the pigs' mash. The early apples were now ripening, and the grass of the orchard was littered with windfalls. The animals had assumed as a matter of course that these would be shared out equally; one day, however, the order went forth that all the windfalls were to be collected and brought to the harness−room for the use of the pigs. (Ch. 3)
The pigs, through Napoleon’s mouthpiece Squealer, tell the other animals that they deserve the milk and apples because they are the farm’s braintrust. As leaders, they need the extra sustenance and nutrition that the apples and milk provide. By taking these all to themselves, they are just looking out for the other animals. When the pigs are well fed, all animals benefit.
This deception does not seem to bother the animals. They do not realize they are being deceived. They take what the pigs tell them at face value. However, the pigs are even sneakier when it comes to the commandments. These tenets of Animalism had been written on the barn wall for all to see. The first version was very egalitarian. However, the pigs slowly change them one by one to the pigs’ benefit, giving them rights and privileges over other animals.
Even when the animals catch Squealer in the act, they do not seem to realize that the pigs are deceiving them. One night the animals see Squealer fall off a ladder, and he still has the paintbrush with him from where he was changing the commandments.
About this time there occurred a strange incident which hardly anyone was able to understand. One night at about twelve o'clock there was a loud crash in the yard, and the animals rushed out of their stalls. It was a moonlit night. At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint−brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. (Ch. 8)
The animals do not realize the significance of this incident. They are simply too trusting. That is why the incident is written off as “strange” and no one understands what actually happened. Eventually all of the commandments are replaced with one: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (Ch. 10). Napoleon and the other pigs have become tyrants, murdering any animals who speak against them or just killing them to set an example. They trade with the humans, and by the end no one can tell them apart from the people.
Orwell's message here is pretty clear. Deception is the key to corruption. Through propaganda and misdirection, the pigs are able to keep all of the other animals flummoxed. They use Snowball as a scapegoat, driving him off because he does not agree with Napoleon and then blaming things on him. The pigs slowly take power for themselves, turning the animals' utopia into a nightmare. The pigs are no better than the people they replaced.
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