Animal Farm

“Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.”

Major addresses the animals in the barn and he incites them to rebel. The line proves ironic since we eventually learn that the animals have more enemies to deal with than simply humans—namely, themselves.

“All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.”

This simplistic axiom is the basic principle behind the revolution that Major is calling for. It parallels the communists’ use of the term “comrade” as a title of polite address, and their simplistic classification of anyone not from the proletariat as a force of oppression.

“The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.”

Squealer represents the propagandist—the public relations person whose job is to present negative governmental actions in a good light. This job proved very important to the maintenance of Soviet ideology—and its skills are used by press secretaries and administration spokespeople the world over. Squealer enables Napoleon’s rule through distortion of the truth and outright lies.