Name ______Date ______Pd _____

Animal Farm: Satire

English 8

Satire: A literary technique in which ideas, customs, behaviors, or institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society. Satire may be gently witty, mildly abrasive, or bitterly critical, and it often involves the use of irony and exaggeration to force readers to see something in a critical light.

Show your understanding by paraphrasing the definition of satire below:

Satire is ______

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Chapters 1 & 2
Passage from Text / What is being mocked, ridiculed, or called attention to through the use of wit, sarcasm, irony, or exaggeration?
“‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘here is a point that must be settled. The wild creatures, such as rats and rabbits—are they our friends or our enemies? Let us put it to a vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are rats comrades?’ The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades” (Orwell 10).
“Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way. Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character. All the other male pigs were porkers” (Orwell 16).
“Their most faithful disciples were the two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover. Those two had great difficulty thinking anything out for themselves, but having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other animals by simple arguments” (Orwell 18).
Chapters 3 & 4
Passage from Text / What is being mocked, ridiculed, or called attention to through the use of wit, sarcasm, irony, or exaggeration?
“The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the others. With their superior knowledge it was natural that they should assume the leadership” (Orwell 27-28).
“It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions. The other animals understood how to vote, but could never think of any resolutions on their own. Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates. But was noticed that these two were never in agreement: whatever suggestion either of them made, the other could be counted on to oppose it” (Orwell 31).
“None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A. It was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart” (Orwell 33).
“‘It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples”’ (52).
“When time passed and the animals had evidently not starved to death, Frederick and Pilkington changed their tune and began to talk of the terrible wickedness that now flourished on Animal Farm. It was given out that the animals there practiced cannibalism, tortured one another with red-hot horseshoes, and had their females in common. This was what came of rebelling against the laws of Nature, Frederick and Pilkington said” (55).