Orwell, in "Why I Write," says he often wrote for political purposes to expose propaganda as well as describe it. "Animal Farm" satirizes propagandized phrases by using extended metaphors to create slogans. For example, "Four legs good, two legs bad" becomes a constantly repeated, ultimately meaningless sentiment. Orwell's characterizing human beings as the metaphoric "Man" creates doctrine such as "Remove Man from the scene and ... hunger and overwork are abolished forever." The animal's former owner, Farmer Jones, becomes an extended metaphor for evil and oppression; if the animals shirk their duties, "Jones will come back."
Personified Rebellion:
When Orwell describes the animal revolution that threatens to overrun England, his figurative language recreates the rebellion and its song as living entities in personification. "A wave of rebelliousness ran through the country," he notes, and the "Beasts of England" ditty "was irrepressible." Humans that hearken to it "secretly trembled, hearing in it a prophecy of their future doom." Orwell even sends his personified tune as an invader into the community at large: "It got into the din of smithies [blacksmiths] and the tunes of church bells." Hammer, anvil or bell, the song persists.
Allusions to Stalin:
Orwell uses allusion to characterize his novel's antagonist as two despots in one. Comrade Napoleon, a Berkshire boar named for French world conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte, occasionally alludes to Joseph Stalin, Russia's totalitarian dictator. The boar maintains vicious dogs as secret police. He attacks the porker Snowball, driving him into exile as Stalin did his former friend and revolutionary supporter, Leon Trotsky. He has a personality cult that cries "Comrade Napoleon [the boar] is always right." He even has a propagandist, the clever Squealer, who, as Orwell notes, "could turn black into white."