Squealer (Animal Farm)

Squealer
First appearance	Animal Farm
Last appearance	Animal Farm (Only Appearance)
Created by	George Orwell
Voiced by	Maurice Denham (1954 film) Ian Holm (1999 film)
Information
Species	Pig
Occupation	Napoleon's second-in-command and a leader of Animal Farm

Squealer is a fictional character, a pig, in George Orwell's Animal Farm. He plays the secondary antagonist to Napoleon, the pigs' leader. He serves as Napoleon's second-in-command and the farm's minister of propaganda, and is described in the book to be an effective and very convincing orator. In the book, he is described as merely a fat pig, but in the 1954 film, he is a pink pig, whereas in the 1999 film, he is a Tamworth pig who wears a monocle.

Throughout the novel Squealer is highly skilled at making speeches to the animals. He is also one of the leaders of the farm. Under the rule of Napoleon, Squealer does things to manipulate the animals. Squealer represents Vyacheslav Molotov who was Stalin's protégé and head of Communist propaganda.

It is also possible that Squealer represents the Soviet newspaper, Pravda. This paper was Stalin's key to propaganda in the communist times, and was very powerful to proletarians of the time (proletarians being Boxer, the horse).

Squealer takes the central role in making announcements to the animals, as Napoleon appears less and less often as the book progresses. Near the start of the book, it is said that he was very convincing and could turn "black into white". This is foreshadowing several euphemisms he uses to maintain the control of the barn through difficult times. He is Napoleon's (Stalin's) key to propaganda for the farm (Soviet Union).

Throughout the book, Napoleon and Squealer broke the Seven Commandments, the tenets on which governance of the farm is based. To prevent the animals from suspecting them, Squealer preys on the animals' confusion and alters the Commandments from time to time as the need arises. Squealer falls off a ladder while trying to change one of the commandments in the night. A few days later it is discovered that Squealer was altering the commandment regarding alcohol which suggests the reason he fell off the ladder was because he was drunk at the time. Orwell uses Squealer mainly to show how the increasingly totalitarian and corrupt regime uses propaganda and deceit to get its ideas accepted and implemented by the people. In the end, Squealer reduces the Seven Commandments into one commandment, that "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

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