Power and corruption — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Power and corruption
Themes
What you need to know
How Orwell explores power, privilege and how the pigs become the masters they overthrew across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind', 'With their superior knowledge it was natural that they should assume the leadership.', 'should be reserved for the pigs alone', 'It was also more suited to the dignity of the Leader', 'when a pig and any other animal met on the path, the other animal must stand aside', 'all pigs, of whatever degree, were to have the privilege of wearing green ribbons on their tails on Sundays', 'half a gallon for Napoleon himself, which was always served to him in the Crown Derby soup tureen', 'Napoleon, wearing an old bowler hat of Mr. Jones's', 'the pigs took Mr. Jones's clothes out of the wardrobes and put them on', 'Napoleon was so gratified that he left his place and came round the table to clink his mug against Mr. Pilkington's'.
How each privilege prepares the next, from the milk and apples to the farmhouse, the beds, the whisky and the whip.
Context: Stalin's rise from party official to dictator, and Orwell's view that such a revolution brings only a change of masters.
For Edexcel's essay on this text, link each point to its context and the writer's purpose, which earn as many marks as knowledge of the text (16 of 40); language analysis earns no marks there.
