Led by three young black minorca pullets, the hens made a determined effort to thwart napoleon's wishes. their method was to fly up to the rafters and there lay their eggs, which smashed to pieces on the floor. napoleon acted swiftly and ruthlessly. he ordered the hens’ rations to be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a hen should be punished by death. the dogs saw to it that these orders were carried out. for five days the hens held out, then they capitulated and went back to their nesting boxes. nine hens had died in the meantime.

–animal farm,
george orwell

which literary device does orwell most use to support his purpose in writing in this passage?

a. characters, to show that what happens on the farm is fiction
b. allegory, to show similarities between the farm and the soviet union
c. point of view, to show how the characters think about the murders
d. setting, to show that events in the soviet union may have been caused by the economy