The Impeccable Society In Yann Martel's Animal Farm

Thanks to his previous interaction with animals at the zoo, Pi is aware of the importance of social ranking among animals: “Social rank is central to how it leads its life [...] Until it knows its rank for certain, the animal lives a life of unbearable anarchy. It remains nervous, jumpy, dangerous.” (Martel 58). Pi compares his situation to how circus trainers must tame their animals for safety. This implies that they sometimes must act harshly in order to bring the animals under control. They must exercise extreme caution in the beginning due to the intrinsic sense of mistrust between any two creatures that are not familiar with each other. Thus, Yann Martel uses the struggle for power between a boy and a tiger to emphasize that creating a perpetual utopic society is chimerical as it is natural to desire power for survival, which undermines any form of utopia.

DECEIT

However, deception clearly exists in Animal Farm and this is shown through the abuse of the ignorant animals by other intelligent animals.

Napoleon achieves his reign at Manor Farm through the exploitation of other animals’ innocence with the help of the dogs and Squealer, an ambitious and intelligent pig. The pigs, except for Snowball, are portrayed as deceitful characters due to their ability to manipulate the rest of the animals. The author describes Squealer as “a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive.” (Orwell 13). According to the other animals, Squealer possesses the ability to “turn black into white”, which enables him to take advantage of naive and loyal animals, such as