It was night time: the animals were exhausted from their work and this was intensified by the fact that they were missing sleep. The threats of Mr Jones had disappeared and it was the ideal time for the animals to reflect on the reasons for their misery. Old Major had chosen the best time. The fact that they were tired may have made it even more likely for them to submit to Old Major’s view on their lives and his solutions to their problems. It would be natural for them to accept his conclusions given the circumstances they were in and the authority he had.
Old Major waited till the animals were all present and silent. This also alludes to the importance of the topic he was going to talk about since it was his intention for all the animals to know about it and to give it their ultimate commitment. This was the importance of the occasion.
One of the main components of his speech was the dream he claimed he had. In the eyes of the animals, Old Major, due to his high standing amongst them, was totally trustworthy and truthful. Hence the fact that he claimed he had learnt a song that was sung by the ancient animals, and which had been long forgotten, a song which appealed to their innermost cores, linked him up with superior powers in the eyes of the animals. In this manner, the dream led the animals to putting all their trust in Old Major’s ideas, since he was, in their eyes, impossible to be contradicted. With this in mind, the animals naturally fell “into the wildest excitement” upon Old Major’s recitation of the song. It threw hope into their hearts for change, made them wishful of the future and inspired them to work for the rebellion. It was also Old Major’s experience which made his dream impossible to contradict: he was unique amongst them due to his vast experience, something which no other animal on the farm could compete with, and it was based on this that he made his predictions of the future.
A feature of the speech, which was arguably one of the most effective in terms of persuasion of the animals, was Old Major’s use of inclusive language i.e. language which included and united the audience i.e. the animals. He uses this technique throughout the speech, but the effect is emphasised in the 5th and 6th paragraphs. In the 5th paragraph, after mentioning the enemy, man, he justifies his conclusion about them citing the fact that man is incapable of doing the work animals do. Old Major declares about man, “he does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch the rabbits”. By mentioning this, he is not only illustrating the superiority of animal over man, but he is also engaging the animals in making them proud of what they do as opposed to men. Old Major does not confine himself to speaking (generally), rather he chooses to speak directly to each animal, capturing their fullest engagement with rhetorical questions on subjects of utmost concern for them. He emphasises the corruption of man with regards to these matters. This ultimately leads to the animals anger and outrage at the humans, further uniting them against man. He says, “You cows...how many thousands of gallon of milk have you given during the last year? And what has happened to that milk which should have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies”. He repeats this with regards to the hens, “ And you hens, how many eggs have you laid this year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens?”. He even singles out Clover reminding her of the fate of her foals who were all sold. He emphasises his uniqueness in that he was allowed to reach his age, he uses himself as the ideal model and describes his life as “the natural life of a pig”. He highlights the fate of the porkers, saying “you will scream your lives at the block within a year”. He mentions Boxer, who was described earlier on in the text as “as strong as any two ordinary horses put together”, and describes his ultimate fate to be with the knackers who will kill him for the fox-hounds. As I have illustrated, Old Major combines inclusive language, rhetorical questions on issues of utmost concern for the audience, such as the horrors Mr Jones had prepared for their death.
An interesting feature of the above examples is the statistical data, Old Major uses. In addition to inclusive language, rhetorical questions of issues of the utmost concern for the animals such as what had been prepared for their deaths, he drives his point home using this data in order to subliminally emphasise to the animals that he is dealing with clear facts which cannot be denied. This obviously gives authority and weight to the points Old Major is making. One such example of this (which has been cited in the previous paragraph) is the following: “You cows...how many thousands of gallons of milk have you given during the last year? And what has happened to that milk which should have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies”, where he uses the statistic “thousands of gallons of milk”. With Old Major, an animal of authority, speaking directly to the cows, quoting statistical data which the cows were not in a position to refute, it was natural for the cows to accept and submit to his conclusions. In this way, Old Major’s use of statistical data was just as effective as his use of inclusive language. The overall effect of both these tools are that he successfully captures the audience’s fullest attention, engagement and concern. With this, Old Major is able to control their thoughts and win their hearts.
Although the use of the “rule of three” was limited to one example in the speech which was “our lives are miserable, laborious and short”, it was extremely effective in that it explained the one of the main objectives of the speech in a single sentence. The effects are, in my opinion, that it gives the speaker added authority due to the confident manner of speaking which the rule of three results in. Repetition is also a main technique he uses. The effect of this that the information being repeated is retained in the memory of the listener. Another more subtle effect of this is the fact that when one repeats something over and over again, the listener begins to believe in it and submit to it. An example of this is the exaggeration: “no animal in England”. The technique used most frequently is “rhetorical questions”. These were used most often for a reason: it forces the listener to think about the topic at hand and usually before sufficient time is given, Old Major answers the question in an extremely confident manner. Examples of this are “Is this simply part of the order of nature”, “why then do we continue in this miserable condition”? Etc.
The very objective of the speech was to convince the audience that man was the only true enemy. It is for this reason much of the duration of the speech was spent by illustrating directly and indirectly mankind’s enmity to the animals and what that meant to the animals. Old Major begins his speech by describing all the problems of the animals. He then states that “man” is the ultimate problem and enemy and the cause of all the animals problems. Man is described as not able to perform any of the work animals do but who consumes all the fruits of animal labour. “Man is the only creature who consumes without producing”, Old Major states. Old Major then describes how man does this with inclusive language, statistical data and rhetorical questions. With a common enemy, whom all the animals now are enraged with after hearing so clearly all the injustices committed by them, it can be safely assumed that the animals would unite against the humans if the need be. This would be vital for a “rebellion”, something which Old Major talks about towards the end of the speech, and this is the wisdom behind Old Major uniting the animals with the use of the common enemy.
After briefly and loosely explaining the rules of what was later to be known as “animalism”, outlining the idea of “rebellion”, and explaining the principles the animals would have to hold on to for a successful rebellion, two rats come out of their holes to listen to the speech. The dogs caught sight of this, hence the rats once again took shelter in their holes. George Orwell, the author, included this scene to facilitate for Old Major to offer the animals a chance to vote, something Old Major must have been intending to do. He takes a vote from the animals posing to them whether or not the wild creatures were comrades. The result was probably obvious to Old Major before he posed the vote, he merely did this to emphasise the fairness and democracy which would ideally be implemented if the animals were to run the farm themselves.
Just before this, he describes the hardships the animals should be prepared to face in order to successfully implement the rebellion and take over the farm. This is extremely appropriate so that the animals would realise what rebellion truly entailed, so that they would prepare and work hard for it.
However he does not leave the matter with a message of hardships, rather he mentions the reward of such struggle. He likens the certainty he has of justice i.e. a farm in which “the produce of our labour will be our own”, like the certainty of the fact that he can see the straw below him. With such a figure of authority having such surety of this, it would most definitely lead to the animals belief and hope in this. Old Major realised that for the animals to put total effort into the eradications of humans, they must have an objective they are working for, and an ideal to hope for. This justice was the ideal they were looking for.
It is clear from Old Major’s speech that he uses simple but effective language. This is simply because not all the animals were of equal intelligence. The paragraphs preceding the speech give us hints of this, for example. “Boxer...was not of first rate intelligence” and “Molly...the foolish mare” and “even the stupidest of them...”. Further on in the book, this is confirmed and elucidated.
The animals, during the speech would naturally have had their emotions aroused, their hearts moved and their “resolve to change” made firm. However, due to the tense and formal setting of the speech, they had not yet expressed these emotions; the song was the opportunity for just this. The song was, in realty, a summary of the objectives of the speech and the means they would have to take to achieve these. There is additional stress on the idea of “hope”, hope for the fields of England “to be trod by beasts alone” and “riches more than mind can picture”. After expressing these hopes, the songs last stanza explains how they are to achieve these aims, i.e. “to toil for freedoms sake”. The song rousing the emotions of the animals is evident by the fact that it “threw the animals into the wildest excitement”, so much so that “the uproar awoke Mr Jones”.
George Orwell clearly displayed his talent in authoring such a speech: a speech that was effective but succinct. Everything about the character Old Major is engenders respect from the animals, from his name; his appearance; his life, experience and wisdom. Old Major made full use of the setting of his speech, (i.e. placing himself in a place of authority above the audience) and the content of the speech, (i.e. the dream which connects him to powers beyond the audience, his use of language and emotive vocabulary and statistics etc). The effectiveness of the speech in my opinion, was derived from two things, the first was that Old Major manipulated the setting and content of the speech in such a way that he was above the audience in all senses, making it extremely difficult for any animal to oppose him or answer him back. The second was that the content of his speech was designed to arouse the emotions of the audience, by his inclusiveness, use of facts and his succinctness.