Power and Leadership
This type of leadership uses fear and intimidation to maintain control
What is authoritarian leadership?
A slogan, repeated often, designed to stop people from questioning authority.
What is a controlling mantra or propaganda slogan?
A sudden attempt by a group to change the system or remove those in charge.
What is a revolt?
A story where characters represent ideas or historical figures.
What is an allegory?
This is the real name of George Orwell.
Who is Eric Arthur Blair?
This word describes people who support leaders even when the leaders act unfairly, often because they hope to benefit.
Who are loyalists or sycophants?
When information is twisted so that an enemy appears more threatening than they really are.
What is fear-mongering?
This describes the moment when a group realises that those promising equality have taken power for themselves.
What is the betrayal of the revolution?
This literary technique uses a simple story to reveal a deeper political truth.
What is symbolic storytelling?
Orwell fought against this political system because he feared it took away people’s freedom.
What is totalitarianism or dictatorship?
A leader who claims to act for the good of all but gradually becomes selfish and corrupt is experiencing this moral decline.
What is the corruption of ideals?
A method of persuasion where leaders rewrite events or “truth” to make themselves seem correct.
What is historical revisionism?
A revolution that begins with hope but ends in disappointment because of new corruption.
What is a failed idealistic revolution?
In political allegories, this type of character often represents the working class.
Who are the labourers / the proletariat?
Orwell based Animal Farm on this real historical revolution.
What is the Russian Revolution?
This is the term for a society where all members are supposedly equal but, in practice, certain groups hold more privilege and power.
What is a false or unequal utopia?
This persuasive technique blames problems on a single group, allowing leaders to avoid responsibility.
What is scapegoating?
The political idea that power should be shared equally among all members of a community.
What is collectivism or egalitarianism?
A symbolic object or place in a story that represents an entire nation or system.
What is a microcosm?
Orwell believed that ordinary people (like the animals in the book) deserved this basic right.
What is freedom / fairness / equal treatment?
This term refers to a revolution that ends up recreating the same oppressive system it tried to remove.
What is a cyclical revolution?
The act of hiding, changing, or simplifying complex truths to control how people think.
What is censorship?
This term describes the point at which ordinary people realise they have simply exchanged one form of oppression for another.
What is the cycle of tyranny?
A character who slowly shifts from victim to oppressor symbolises this political transformation.
What is the rise of totalitarianism?
This word describes Orwell’s style of writing: simple, clear, honest.
What is plain / direct / transparent writing?