CLASSISM, DISTRACTION STRATEGIES AND PSYCHOPHANCY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM

Abstract

This paper critically examines George Orwell’s Animal Farm using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), focusing on classism, distraction strategies, and psychophancy (sycophancy) as mechanisms of ideological domination. The modern CDA scholars argue that discourse is never neutral but embedded in systems of power that shape social reality (Machin & Mayr, 2019; Wodak & Meyer, 2016). In Animal Farm, Orwell constructs a symbolic universe where language becomes a tool for political manipulation, allowing the ruling pigs to reproduce inequality under the guise of equality. The study finds that classism emerges as a restructured hierarchy legitimised through ideological language (van Dijk, 2018), distraction strategies function as propaganda tools to redirect resistance (Reisigl & Wodak, 2017), and psychophancy sustains domination through voluntary compliance and internalised ideology (Fairclough, 2018). Overall, the novel demonstrates how linguistic manipulation shapes perception and maintains unequal power relations in post-revolutionary societies as demonstrated in the allegorically fabled text.