Power’s Manipulation of the Minds and Language’s Creation of Knowledge: Foucault’s Power/Knowledge as Depicted in George Orwell’s Animal Farm

Abstract

This paper investigates the social and political control strategies of totalitarian societies. Michael Foucault (1926–1984), a philosopher and thinker, proposed the idea of the incorporation of power and knowledge, which suggests that power creates knowledge and knowledge supports power. The study's investigation into how political control is formed depends on approaching the close and polar relationship between power and knowledge. Power creates the truth with the help of discursive practices and in its turn, the truth is to maintain and support the consistency of power. In this paper, the researcher illustrates these hypotheses in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Terrorism, torture, propaganda, and the rewriting of history and language are depicted in the novel as representing just a few strategies used to control and impose hegemony over mankind. Having a look at Orwell's works, we can see that they demonstrate the power of the language of those in power. Language and eloquence are employed throughout the novel to establish power. Language manipulation and verbal commands helped make the farm control system successful.