By: Heaven Shalbreck

Is it possible that language can dictate and control lives? In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs use language and intelligence to control the animals. Language, the tool we communicate with, can be used to control others through superior understanding, suppression of useage and rewriting history to create myths.

A better understanding of language can give someone an advantage. “As for the pigs they could already read and write perfectly.” If the pigs didn’t know how to read or write they wouldn’t have an advantage over all the other animals, such as Clover and Boxer, the two horse.“Clover learnt the alphabet but couldn’t put words together, Boxer couldn’t get past the letter D.” This is an example of how the animals couldn’t understand language. The pigs with better understanding can manipulate the others by things they don’t understand. Politicians use language to work in their favor, often altering the truth to paint a false image.

Voices that can be heard or seen have no impact. Napoleon trained the sheep to bleat out “Four legs good Two legs bad” to interrupt snowball. The other animals, because of this, couldn’t hear the rest of Snowball’s speech. As a result, only Napoleon’s views were presented; it was impossible for anyone else to get their point across. If you don’t speak up, or aren’t allowed to, you have no power.

Rewrite history makes it so you don’t know what really happened. “No animal shall sleep in with sheets. Curiously enough Clover had not remembered that the fourth commandment mentioned sheets.” The pigs used paint to change original laws to benefit themselves. In the Battle of Cowshed, Snowball attacked Mr. Jones, but after he got forced out Napoleon told everyone he was working with Mr. Jones and that he himself attacked Snowball. That’s how Napoleon revised history to make his own myth. The victors often rewrite history.

Language controls lives and language is used in many ways to deceive us. We all should have a say in things and more importantly we should try to understand things the best we can. We all get manipulated by any sets of words and everyone should work together to communicate effectively.