President 2

It is the narrator who refers to people by the names of animals most often. The president or police certainly introduce the derogatory designation, but it’s the narrator who maintains it. I feel this suggests the absolute power words have to control. Not only are the people animals in the eyes of the president, but by the narrator referring with animal terminology a sense of universality is created. These people really are what the president says they are. And I suppose the same can be said for all the nick names, not simply the animal ones.

The order established by the president is real in a sense beyond simply the arbitrary stipulation which it actually is. Psychologically it’s real. Believing in this hierarchy anchors a false reality which justifies the presidents behaviour. The people are swine and turkey, what does it matter if they disappear, or are tortured. Or if you are a turkey being slaughtered is every day business. In sense then, words even have a truly absolute power. Not only are they used to carry out cruel orders, but they are capable of inverting reality. Making it such that the cruel orders are actually acceptable. Humans become animals, and what’s wrong becomes right.

And I think the craziness many people seem to suffering with might have to do with some struggle with the backwards reality that is being created for them, and the way they know things should really be.