The Use of Personification in George Orwell's Novel Animal Farm

Abstract

The present study, a total of four chapters, attempts to investigate the use of personification in George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm. It also sets to cast light on the author's motives behind the use of such a figure of speech personification. This investigation aims at laying a finger on Orwell's overuse of personification in the novel, focusing on its meaning and usage. The present work is divided into four chapters. Chapter one presents a theoretical background where the focus is on some of linguistic devices; metaphor, simile, metonymy, irony, meronymy, synecdoche, symbolism, and personification. Metaphor is general term, which is used to refer to different figures of speech. Personification, which is our main concern in this inquiry, is one of these figures. Chapter Two highlights the theories of personification and its specifications. Chapter Three is the analysis of the novel, and a corpus-based investigation of personification in Animal Farm, trying to find out Orwell’s motives behind the use of such a linguistic device. Chapter Four attempts to apply the linguistic device personification in the novel Animal Farm, and to find out a suitable way to teach the use of personification in Orwell's Animal Farm.Orwell uses personification in the novel Animal Farm to portray people of power and the common people during the Russian Revolution, and to describe his feelings that time. All in all, this inquiry reveals that this linguistic device operates in an active manner and that the decoration's view needs more reconsideration.