Skip to Main Content

English Year 10 - Animal Farm: Language, Style & Structure

A selection of resources to support Year 10 students studying 'Animal Farm'

Structure

Form and Structure

Use of Form, Structure & Language

The language used in Animal Farm as well as its form and structure are vital to Orwell’s storytelling. His use of persuasive language, circular narrative and allegory are particularly significant...continue reading...

Style

Style

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...continue reading...

Language

Language as Power

From the beginning of the popular revolution on Manor Farm, language—both spoken and written—is instrumental to the animals’ collective success, and later to the pigs’ consolidation of power. Through Animal Farm, Orwell illustrates how language is an influential tool that individuals can use to seize power and manipulate others via propaganda, while also showing that education and one’s corresponding grasp of language is what can turn someone into either a manipulative authority figure or an unthinking, uneducated member of the working class...continue reading...