How important is language in the use or abuse of power Custom Essay

How important is language in the use or abuse of power?

Language is used to abuse or generate power is exceedingly important in spoken or written word. A single word changes everything, even the whole concept. For example in the text of Animal Farm where

Snowball persuaded the animals on Animal Farm to build the windmill to create electricity to reduce the workload for the animals, he used language through his speeches to gain power. Like when he says

“…Comrades, could you imagine the luxury that a three day week brings to us? You would only have to work three days in a week, and get even more ration than what you now have. Your stalls would no

longer be chilly in the winter; they will be heated and lightened up with electricity…”.

In the book Squealer was used for his high capability to twist words into making them sound believable and convincing. Napoleon used Squealer to get the animals to trust him and hate Snowball, which

eventually got snowball impeached. Later on, even when the animals doubted Napoleon and his crew, Squealer used his language to gain control and regain the trust. One of the most strong lines said by

Squealer is “Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?”.

When Old Major gives his first speech, the animals are moved by the positive motivation he tries to let them know how good life could be. When there are mottoes such as “Two legs bad, four legs good” the

animals find the repetition comforting and basic: they now have an idea to follow. When Major dies the motto changes at the end, we see that the animals and their beliefs can change as quickly by the words.

So from this we can find out how a single word can change the whole concept of something and divert people’s minds and also shows that if we use rhetorical devices perfectly this could be achieved easily.

How does story work in the creation, maintenance, and change of culture and social values?

As people change, people change stories in order to tell new stories with new morals and values. This creates a distinct difference between the values between time as society progresses and new things

become more important than others. Importance grows and diminishes…, so do social values.

When we look at the Charles Perrault version of red riding hood which was written in the 1697 the story starts of with little red riding hood taking the bag of goods to the street until when the wolf comes and

diverts her into a wrong and long route to her grandmother’s house so that he could go there before her. The wolf asks questions to the wolf like “does she live far of”. From this what social values that

represent this concept is that do not talk to strangers as they can divert you into a wrong direction.

And when the wolf is in bed and little red riding hood is getting changed the wolf says “Come into bed with me” which shows a meaning of the wolf wanting to rape or having sex with the young girl and to

represent that what the wolf does instead is to eat her up. So what the moral values are in this scene is that beautiful young girls should be aware of older boys and adults after a certain age and that girls need

to be alert when talking, meeting or behaving with older boys and adults.

When we look upon a more recent poem version of Little red riding hood from Roald Dahl, written in 1982 the poem starts of with the wolf and ends with the girl shooting the wolf dead . We can say that the

wolf is gets shot because in the poem it says “ And bang bang bang, she shoots her dead”. What this scene is trying to explain is that now a days girls have the power to be more independent to fight their own

situations and that they aren’t the girls like in the past who are completely blind to the world.

To conclude stories, language and the ability to communicate has enabled further development of human societies. Language and stories are the two main factors that shape the society in the past and in the

present world.