Rhetoric In George Orwell's Animal Farm

Rhetoric is used throughout Napoleon's rise to power. It is used to keep the animals (excluding pigs, of course) from realizing the chasm between what really is happening and what they want to happen. They are therefore rather obsequious toward Napoleon. Napoleon uses Squealer to spread his propaganda. Squealer, being very mellifluous and silver-tongued, can easily get the animals to believe and follow Napoleon's unorthodox laws and wishes. They don't realize how unfortunate their fate …

…these "commandments" could be so easily altered shows just how eager the animals were to believe that everything was okay. This is a common human hope. We all want everything to be okay. This leads back to the message of Animal Farm. Yes, it has yet another meaning: Everything will never be "okay," no matter how hard you try to make it so. This puts Animal Farm in an entirely new, much more pessimistic light.