Key Quote
“"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"”
The Pigs (commandment revision) · Chapter 10
Focus: “more equal”
The novel's most famous line — the final corruption of the Seven Commandments — exposes how revolutionary ideals are destroyed by the very leaders who claimed to champion them.
Technique 1 — OXYMORON / LOGICAL CONTRADICTION
The phrase 'more equal' is an oxymoron — equality, by definition, cannot have degrees. Something is either equal or it is not; there is no 'more equal.' This logical impossibility IS the point: the pigs have corrupted language to the point where contradiction passes as truth. The sentence sounds reasonable despite being nonsensical — demonstrating how totalitarian language works: it does not convince through logic but through repetition and authority.
The conjunctive 'but' performs a devastating logical manoeuvre: it begins with a universal ('All animals ARE equal') and then immediately contradicts it ('BUT some are more equal'). The 'but' claims to ADD a qualification when it actually DESTROYS the original statement. This is the grammar of betrayal: pretending to extend a principle while actually abolishing it.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
The revolution has regressed fully: the animals are now worse off than before because their oppression is disguised as liberation. Under Jones (the human farmer), oppression was visible and honest; under the pigs, oppression wears the mask of equality. The regression is not merely to the starting point but BEYOND it — to a state where even the LANGUAGE of freedom has been corrupted.
Key Words
Technique 2 — PALIMPSEST — OVERWRITING THE ORIGINAL
This commandment is a palimpsest — a text written over an earlier, erased text. The original commandment was 'All animals are equal.' The pigs have not replaced it but ADDED to it, creating the illusion of continuity while reversing the meaning. This layering technique — the new meaning visible atop the ghost of the old — mirrors how totalitarian regimes rewrite history: they do not openly contradict the past but subtly REVISE it.
The progressive erosion of the Seven Commandments throughout the novel — each one quietly altered — demonstrates the incrementalism of corruption: tyranny does not arrive suddenly but accumulates through small, seemingly reasonable changes. Each revision is minor enough to accept individually but devastating cumulatively. Orwell shows that oppression advances not through revolution but through revision.
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Context (AO3)
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
Orwell's allegory directly mirrors the Russian Revolution (1917) and its betrayal by Stalin. The original Bolshevik promise of equality was progressively corrupted as the Communist Party elite created a new ruling class while maintaining the rhetoric of workers' liberation.
PROPAGANDA & DOUBLETHINK
In *Nineteen Eighty-Four*, Orwell would later name this phenomenon 'doublethink' — the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. 'More equal' IS doublethink: it requires believing both that all animals are equal AND that some are superior, without recognising the contradiction.
Key Words
WOW — HEGEMONY (Gramsci)
Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony — the process by which a ruling class maintains power not through force alone but through controlling ideology, culture, and 'common sense' — explains exactly how the pigs maintain control. They do not merely ENFORCE inequality; they make inequality seem natural, reasonable, even equal. Gramsci argued that the most effective domination is that which the dominated ACCEPT as legitimate. The animals accept 'more equal' because the pigs have established hegemonic control over language, education, and the interpretation of history. The animals cannot challenge the pigs' power because they cannot think outside the framework the pigs have constructed. Gramsci would argue that the true revolution would require not just removing the pigs but dismantling the entire ideological apparatus — the control of language, history, and knowledge — that makes their rule seem natural.
Key Words