Ethos has already been covered earlier in the book. ‘’…prize Middle White boar’, ‘with a wise and benevolent appearance’ and, in a way, old Major already has respect from the other animals because he is a pig, and therefore clever, because he uses words like we, use, our to identify himself with his audience and also because of his age- in fact, Old Major dies shortly after this speech. Orwell has used those quotes as indicators that he is well respected in the farm, and the animals are especially interested in what he has to say because of the bizarre dream the he wants to tell the other animals about.
Old Major makes especially good use of rhetorical questions in this speech; making references to the animals’ hard life, such as a politician my do during election time. A good example is, ‘Now comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Note how he uses the word ‘comrades’-it is used extensively and is one of the linguistic points at which one can identify this speech, and the rest of the book with the communist Bolshevik revolution in which we may even compare Old Major to Lenin. With the question mentioned, Old Major is inviting discussion on the subject, but also see how there is no talking during the speech as well as showing high respect for the pig, it also shows that Orwell means all the questions to be rhetorical and Old Major answers many, if not all, of them himself.
The use of exclamations often follows the use of rhetorical questions, ‘But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no!’ In this case, Orwell builds up to the climax of the speech with more and more rhetorical question which he then proceeds to answer in one sentence. This sentence is exclaimed because in it, all the injustices that old Major feels he has been served are let out and the animals begin to realise what their lives really are, before the speech it is expected that they didn’t particularly question their lives and assumed it simply was ‘…the order of nature’ as Old Major puts it. So this climax is not only an emotional ‘ending’ for Old Major but an emotional ‘dawning’ for many other animals about how they will live and eventually, die.
Structure in the speech is very definite, but is still flexible enough to let different people group the speech differently, many points overlap, which seems to be a good idea. Subtitles, such as ‘The Dream’,’ Wisdom’ and ‘Self pity and revenge against man could be cited. Actually, the subtitles mentioned above are names for a commonly used structure called dispositio. This method was used by writers in rhetoric such as Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian . Exordium which is identified as mostly the first paragraph, Old Major shocks the animals into listening to him by stating that he has not much time left and that he has had an interesting dream. This is followed by Narratio which could easily be the second paragraph with its basic ideas and rhetorical questions. Proof (confirmation) is harder to identify, but the sentence beginning, ‘The soil of England is fertile…’ is generally seen as ‘proof’. Refutation is when Old Major states that ‘Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.’ This is also the fourth paragraph of the speech.
The refutation continues for approx. two more paragraphs before old Major sums up his argument, has a vote and then proceeds to sing ‘Beats of England’.
This speech is successful and the rebellion occurs soon after. Unfortunately, (drawing parallels with Lenin) after his death there begins a power struggle between Napoleon and Snowball. This speech is successful because firstly, Old Major is old and wise which makes the animals want to listen to him, he has a point which is extremely relevant to his audience, he uses natu8re to justify his claims which can be very opinionated especially in the context of the natures versus nurture debate which encompasses issues like GM food and its ethical implications etc. Refutation and Peroration are also quite relevant, it is relatively esay for Old Major to reject a pro-hman argument because the animls have only experienced Mr Jones and so already hold an anti-human view. Perroration is also quite easy to do because, again this is extremely relavent and the song id a very good ending to the argument because it is an effective summary.
TT: 1hr 45mins
1066 words
Rhetoric: the art of persuasion(11/10/06)
