Comparisons Between the Novel Animal Farm Written by George Orwell and the Psychology Documentary Quiet Rage

Animal Farm and Quiet Rage

Can you make the non-obvious comparisons between a favorite book and a random documentary? To some people it is not obvious and takes a bit of thought. Animal Farm written by George Orwell, and the documentary Quiet Rage have many similarities. It might make you wonder what a book about animals based on the Russian Revolution and a documentary on a prison experiment have in common, but the truth is, it’s more than you know. Mastering the act of psychology can lead to the downfall or persuasion of any sane person or animal. Man or animal falling to pressure by being easily lead by others is the key to being persuaded easily. Animal Farm and Quiet Rage use similar and also some very different persuasion techniques to accomplish their goals in each situation.

To begin with in Animal Farm, the pigs use reverse psychology on the other animals. “But the pigs were so clever that they could think of a way round every difficultly.” (pg. 45) The imperious pigs, became very smart and learned ways to control the animals psychologically in attempting to persuading them. Which is very different from the psychological persuasive techniques used in Quiet Rage. During the book, the guards did not use reverse psychology methods on the prisoners but, they did not use other psychologically ways of persuasion such as dehumanization. The guards figured a way to make the prisoners feel as if they really were not humans. One way, is the guards wore dark reflecting glasses. The prisoners could not see the guard’s eyes, they could only see their reflection. They also would do “night counts,” by waking up the prisoners during the nights and made them count off their numbers while being called insults. It made them almost forget their identity. For the guards to do these two small things, it reminded the prisoners constantly that they were below the guards. These psychological methods were very effective but very different from the psychology used in...