ShodhPatra: International Journal of Science and Humanities

Animal Symbolism and Political Dissidence: A Comparative Study of Ian McEwan’s The Cockroach and George Orwell’s Animal Farm

This research paper attempts to make a comparative study between Ian McEwan's The Cockroach and George Orwell's Animal Farm to examine how animal imagery is used in satirical prose, with special emphasis on political satire. It would also try to study how the literary technique named animal imagery has a significant impact on contemporary readers to interpret political meanings and contexts. The research paper would also try to shed light on the concept of dehumanization, and to delineate how humans are equated to particular animalistic traits, to highlight the corruption and filth entrenched in them. The paper would also try to interrogate how both the texts, can be read as political allegories on The Brexit and on Russian Revolution respectively. In this context, the paper would also try to depict how language becomes a political tool in the hands of the government to propagate their ideology. Through the theoretical framework of Marxism, the paper would study how various state apparatuses have been implemented to ideologically condition its subjects and thus repress them. The paper shall also try to analyze how the powerholders by employing radical policies such as 'Reversalism' in The Cockroach and ‘Revolution’ in Animal Farm, conceivably can go to any length to hold on to power. The research paper is governed by the hypothesis that even though both the novels have been placed in different historical contexts yet there is an explicit, if not implicit, critique of the government and the workings of law in it. Keywords: totalitarianism, ideology, political satire, dehumanization, state apparatus