Animal Farm

Where to find it: Chapter 1, in the big barn at night. The second and third paragraphs of the speech: they begin when Major, having spoken of his coming death, asks what the nature of their life is, and end with his promise that removing Man will abolish hunger and overwork. The speech goes on to the cows, the hens, Clover and Boxer, lays down his rules for after the Rebellion, and ends with his dream and the song.

"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours?¹ Let us face it²: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength³; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty⁴. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free.⁵ The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth⁶. "But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no⁷! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep—and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining⁸. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings⁹. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word—Man. Man is the only real enemy we have.¹⁰ Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever¹¹.

1. 1“what is the nature of this life of ours?” A rhetorical question: Major asks it only to answer it himself. The listeners feel they are thinking the problem through with him, when the answer is already decided. “Comrades”, repeated through the speech, is the word for fellow members of a political movement, so the animals are addressed as a movement before one exists.
2. 2“Let us face it” The inclusive “us” places Major among his listeners, and the plain, blunt phrase presents his view as a truth everyone already knows but has avoided. Agreement is invited before any argument has been made.
3. 3“the last atom of our strength” Hyperbole: an atom is the smallest thing there is, so the animals are worked until nothing at all is left. It prepares for Boxer, who is worked in exactly this way, not by Jones but by the pigs.
4. 4“slaughtered with hideous cruelty” The speech climbs from hunger and overwork to violent death. The passive verb names no killer yet, so the animals feel like victims before Major tells them who is to blame: a skilled speaker holding back his answer for effect.
5. 5“No animal in England is free.” Anaphora: “No animal in England” begins two sentences in a row. The repetition gives the speech the rhythm of something meant to be heard aloud, and the short second sentence lands like a verdict.
6. 6“that is the plain truth” Major asserts rather than proves. One reading is that this habit of stating a claim as obvious is exactly what Squealer later copies, using the same confident tone to defend the pigs instead of the animals.
7. 7“a thousand times no” Hyperbole again, and an exclamation, as Major answers his own questions. The emphatic denial turns the speech from complaint to hope: if the misery is not natural, it can be changed.
8. 8“a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining” The vision the Rebellion is fought for. By Chapter 10 the other animals are still hungry, and comfort of this kind is enjoyed only by the pigs, in the farmhouse, so the promise is kept for the few rather than the many.
9. 9“stolen from us by human beings” The heart of the argument: the problem is not that too little is produced but that someone else takes it. In Chapter 10 the farm has grown richer without the animals growing richer, “except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs”, so the taking goes on under new owners.
10. 10“Man is the only real enemy we have.” A single, simple enemy makes rebellion easy to grasp. One reading is that the simplicity is also the danger: the animals are never taught that a tyrant could come from among themselves, and Squealer later keeps them loyal by reminding them of Jones.
11. 11“the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever” The promise is total, “for ever”, and simple. The rest of the novella tests it: Man is driven out in Chapter 2, yet hunger and overwork return, which suggests that the root cause lay in power itself rather than in one species.

The question: Starting with this extract, explore how Orwell presents the ideals behind the Rebellion and how far they are betrayed. Write about the extract and about the novella as a whole.

Where to find it: Chapter 5, at the Sunday Meeting in the big barn where the windmill is put to the vote. Snowball has just won the animals over, and Napoleon has answered with a “high-pitched whimper”. The passage runs from the dogs bursting in to Napoleon announcing, from Major’s old platform, that the Sunday debates are over.

At this there was a terrible baying sound¹ outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars² came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws. In a moment he was out of the door and they were after him. Too amazed and frightened to speak³, all the animals crowded through the door to watch the chase. Snowball was racing across the long pasture that led to the road. He was running as only a pig can run⁴, but the dogs were close on his heels. Suddenly he slipped and it seemed certain that they had him. Then he was up again, running faster than ever, then the dogs were gaining on him again. One of them all but closed his jaws on Snowball's tail, but Snowball whisked it free just in time. Then he put on an extra spurt and, with a few inches to spare, slipped through a hole in the hedge and was seen no more⁵. Silent and terrified, the animals crept back into the barn. In a moment the dogs came bounding back. At first no one had been able to imagine where these creatures came from, but the problem was soon solved: they were the puppies whom Napoleon had taken away⁶ from their mothers and reared privately. Though not yet full-grown, they were huge dogs, and as fierce-looking as wolves⁷. They kept close to Napoleon. It was noticed that they wagged their tails to him⁸ in the same way as the other dogs had been used to do to Mr. Jones. Napoleon, with the dogs following him, now mounted on to the raised portion of the floor where Major had previously stood to deliver his speech⁹. He announced that from now on the Sunday-morning Meetings would come to an end. They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time.¹⁰ In future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself¹¹. These would meet in private and afterwards communicate their decisions to the others. The animals would still assemble on Sunday mornings to salute the flag, sing 'Beasts of England', and receive their orders for the week; but there would be no more debates¹².

1. 1“a terrible baying sound” The dogs are heard before they are seen, and baying is the cry of hounds on a hunt. The chase that follows is exactly that: Snowball, a moment ago the most persuasive speaker on the farm, has become the hunted animal.
2. 2“nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars” The studded collars make the dogs look armed, and a collar is also a sign of an owner: these dogs belong to Napoleon. The narrator explains in the next paragraph that they are the puppies he took away, but the reader who remembers Chapter 3 knows first, so the scene exposes a plan Napoleon has been running in secret since the first summer.
3. 3“Too amazed and frightened to speak” The animals fall silent here before anyone has forbidden them to speak. Fear does the regime’s work for it, and silence becomes the farm’s normal state from this chapter on.
4. 4“running as only a pig can run” A flicker of comedy in the middle of terror, as if the narrator cannot resist the picture of a pig sprinting. One reading is that the fable’s light voice makes the violence stranger, because the tone refuses to match the danger.
5. 5“slipped through a hole in the hedge and was seen no more” Snowball leaves the story here and never returns in person; from now on he exists only in what Napoleon and Squealer say about him. The flat phrasing anticipates Chapter 9, where “Boxer was never seen again” is told in the same plain way.
6. 6“they were the puppies whom Napoleon had taken away” The narrator solves the mystery for the animals, but an attentive reader has solved it already. Napoleon planned this while Snowball was drawing windmills, and the dogs are usually read as the secret police that Stalin’s rule depended on.
7. 7“as fierce-looking as wolves” The simile turns farm dogs back into wild predators. Reared in secret and away from their mothers, they have been made into something the farm has never seen, loyal to one master only.
8. 8“they wagged their tails to him” The narrator adds that it is the same way the farm's other dogs used to behave to Mr Jones. One reading is that this is the first sign of a pig being treated as the humans were, and it anticipates the final scene, where pig and man cannot be told apart.
9. 9“where Major had previously stood to deliver his speech” Napoleon takes Major’s platform, and with it the founder’s authority. The staging is symbolic: the place where the animals were told that all animals are equal is where one animal now rules alone.
10. 10“They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time.” Reported speech gives Napoleon’s reasons in their flattest form, with no argument anyone could answer. Democracy is dismissed as an inefficiency, a waste of time rather than a right.
11. 11“presided over by himself” A committee sounds shared, but the four words that close the clause put one pig at its head. The pattern recurs through the novella: a collective name hiding a single ruler.
12. 12“there would be no more debates” Reported speech flattens the moment: the end of the farm's democracy arrives in a short clause at the end of a long sentence, as if it were a routine change to the timetable.

The question: Starting with this passage, explore how Orwell presents the ways Napoleon takes and keeps power. Write about the passage and about the novella as a whole.

Where to find it: Chapter 7, in the farmyard, four days after Squealer warns that Snowball’s secret agents are hiding on the farm. The dogs have dragged four pigs to Napoleon’s feet and turned on Boxer. The passage begins when “the tumult died down” and runs to the pile of corpses at Napoleon’s feet.

Presently the tumult died down. The four pigs waited, trembling, with guilt written on every line of their countenances¹. Napoleon now called upon them to confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs as had protested² when Napoleon abolished the Sunday Meetings. Without any further prompting³ they confessed that they had been secretly in touch with Snowball ever since his expulsion, that they had collaborated with him in destroying the windmill, and that they had entered into an agreement with him to hand over Animal Farm to Mr. Frederick. They added that Snowball had privately admitted to them that he had been Jones's secret agent⁴ for years past. When they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out⁵, and in a terrible voice Napoleon demanded whether any other animal had anything to confess⁶. The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted rebellion over the eggs now came forward and stated that Snowball had appeared to them in a dream⁷ and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders. They, too, were slaughtered. Then a goose came forward and confessed to having secreted six ears of corn⁸ during the last year's harvest and eaten them in the night. Then a sheep confessed to having urinated in the drinking pool—urged to do this, so she said, by Snowball—and two other sheep confessed to having murdered an old ram, an especially devoted follower of Napoleon⁹, by chasing him round and round a bonfire when he was suffering from a cough. They were all slain on the spot.¹⁰ And so the tale of confessions and executions¹¹ went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones¹².

1. 1“with guilt written on every line of their countenances” The narrator presents guilt as something that can be read on a face, as the watching animals would read it. Whether the pigs look guilty or simply terrified, the reader cannot tell, and that uncertainty is the point: at a show trial, fear and guilt look the same.
2. 2“They were the same four pigs as had protested” One plain sentence reveals the real offence. In Chapter 5 these four objected when Napoleon abolished the Meetings, so the confession is punishment for speaking out, dressed up as a trial for treason.
3. 3“Without any further prompting” No one is seen forcing the words out: the confessions arrive ready-made. The phrase leaves the reader to wonder what happened before this public scene, which the narrator never tells.
4. 4“Jones's secret agent” The prisoners confess to the very story Squealer told the animals four days earlier, that Snowball was Jones’s agent from the start. Their confession does not reveal a plot; it confirms the regime’s own version of history.
5. 5“the dogs promptly tore their throats out” The adverb is shockingly brisk, as if an execution were a routine task done on time. Orwell’s plain style refuses to dramatise the killing, and the lack of emphasis makes it more horrifying, not less.
6. 6“whether any other animal had anything to confess” Napoleon’s question is an invitation and a threat at once. That others step forward at all shows how far fear has spread: one reading is that confessing may now seem safer than waiting to be accused.
7. 7“appeared to them in a dream” The charges grow absurd, and a dream is offered as evidence. The dark comedy is deliberate: the more ridiculous the crimes, the more monstrous it is that animals die for them.
8. 8“secreted six ears of corn” A tiny offence, six ears of corn hidden at the previous year’s harvest and eaten in the night, is punished by death. The goose’s crime exposes a regime that treats any private act as an attack on itself.
9. 9“an especially devoted follower of Napoleon” Even the victims are sorted by their loyalty to the Leader. The charge makes Napoleon the injured party, so the killings can be presented as the defence of those who love him.
10. 10“They were all slain on the spot.” A short sentence of summary judgement: no trial, no defence, no pause. “Slain” is an old, formal verb from epic and scripture, and its grandeur sits grimly beside the farmyard crimes it punishes.
11. 11“the tale of confessions and executions” Confession and execution come as a matched pair, one leading straight to the other. This is one of the novella’s most direct allusions to history: the scene is usually read as Stalin’s purges and the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s.
12. 12“the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones” The paragraph ends by linking Napoleon with Jones. The Rebellion was meant to end killing on the farm, and now it has brought killing back; the comparison is made through the senses, not argued, which makes it harder to escape.

The question: Starting with this passage, explore how Orwell presents fear and violence as tools of power. Write about the passage and about the novella as a whole.

Where to find it: Chapter 9. The animals are weeding turnips when Benjamin gallops up shouting that Boxer is being taken away, and they find a closed van in the yard. The passage begins as they fall silent and Benjamin reads the lettering on its side, and ends with the short sentence “Boxer was never seen again.” The next paragraph moves on three days, to the announcement of his death.

That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush. Muriel began to spell out the words. But Benjamin pushed her aside and in the midst of a deadly silence he read¹: "'Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler², Willingdon. Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal. Kennels Supplied.' Do you not understand what that means?³ They are taking Boxer to the knacker's!" A cry of horror burst from all the animals. At this moment the man on the box whipped up his horses and the van moved out of the yard at a smart trot. All the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their voices. Clover forced her way to the front. The van began to gather speed. Clover tried to stir her stout limbs to a gallop, and achieved a canter⁴. "Boxer!" she cried. "Boxer! Boxer! Boxer!" And just at this moment, as though he had heard the uproar outside, Boxer's face, with the white stripe down his nose⁵, appeared at the small window at the back of the van. "Boxer!" cried Clover in a terrible voice. "Boxer! Get out! Get out quickly! They're taking you to your death⁶!" All the animals took up the cry of "Get out, Boxer, get out!" But the van was already gathering speed and drawing away from them. It was uncertain whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs⁷ inside the van. He was trying to kick his way out. The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer's hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood. But alas! his strength had left him⁸; and in a few moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away. In desperation the animals began appealing to the two horses which drew the van to stop. "Comrades, comrades!" they shouted. "Don't take your own brother to his death!⁹" But the stupid brutes¹⁰, too ignorant to realise what was happening, merely set back their ears and quickened their pace. Boxer's face did not reappear at the window. Too late, someone thought of racing ahead¹¹ and shutting the five-barred gate; but in another moment the van was through it and rapidly disappearing down the road. Boxer was never seen again.¹²

1. 1“in the midst of a deadly silence he read” Reading is power on this farm. Muriel is still spelling out the words when Benjamin pushes her aside, and the adjective “deadly” tells the reader what the lettering means before he reads it.
2. 2“Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler” The trade sign names Boxer’s fate in the flat language of a business. It is the end Major foretold in Chapter 1, when he warned that “Jones will sell you to the knacker”, carried out not by Jones but by the pigs.
3. 3“Do you not understand what that means?” Benjamin’s question is aimed at every animal who could not, or would not, read the signs. One reading is that it is the question the whole novella asks its own reader.
4. 4“achieved a canter” The anticlimax is painful: Clover tries for a gallop and manages only a canter, the best an old, heavy mare can do. Her body fails her just as Boxer’s has failed him.
5. 5“with the white stripe down his nose” The detail recalls Chapter 1, where the same stripe gave Boxer “a somewhat stupid appearance”. Here it makes his face instantly his own, the last sight the animals have of him.
6. 6“taking you to your death” Clover's warning to Boxer is one of the plainest truths any animal speaks aloud in the novella, in short words with nothing softened. It comes from love rather than politics, and it comes too late to change anything.
7. 7“a tremendous drumming of hoofs” Sound imagery: the animals cannot see Boxer now, only hear him. The drumming fades within the same paragraph, so the reader hears his strength die away rather than being told of it.
8. 8“But alas! his strength had left him” The narrator almost never shows feeling, so the old-fashioned lament “alas” stands out. The strength the pigs have used up for years was the foundation of the whole farm, and now it is gone when Boxer needs it for himself.
9. 9“Don't take your own brother to his death!” The animals appeal to the van horses as comrades and brothers, in the language Major taught them. The words that once began a revolution now fail to reach animals who have never heard them.
10. 10“the stupid brutes” The van horses do not understand the animals' appeal to them as comrades. One reading is that the harsh phrase turns back on the farm animals too, who have failed for years to understand what was being done to them.
11. 11“Too late, someone thought of racing ahead” The sentence opens with “Too late”, two words that could sum up the animals’ whole history under Napoleon: every realisation comes after the moment it could have mattered.
12. 12“Boxer was never seen again.” A flat, five-word sentence with no comment and no funeral. The silence is filled three days later by Squealer's account of Boxer dying in hospital, well cared for and happy, which everything the animals have just seen contradicts, so the passage ends with the truth about to be replaced.

The question: Starting with this passage, explore how Orwell presents the treatment of Boxer and the other working animals. Write about the passage and about the novella as a whole.

Where to find it: Chapter 10, the last scene. The pigs are entertaining neighbouring farmers in the farmhouse, and the animals have crept into the garden to watch through the dining-room window. The passage begins as Napoleon, replying to Mr Pilkington’s speech, announces that the farm will take back its old name, and runs to the last words of the novella.

He had only one criticism, he said, to make of Mr. Pilkington's excellent and neighbourly speech¹. Mr. Pilkington had referred throughout to "Animal Farm." He could not of course know—for he, Napoleon, was only now for the first time announcing it—that the name "Animal Farm" had been abolished. Henceforward the farm was to be known as "The Manor Farm"—which, he believed, was its correct and original name². "Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I will give you the same toast as before, but in a different form. Fill your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here is my toast: To the prosperity of The Manor Farm!³" There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied to the dregs⁴. But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them that some strange thing was happening. What was it that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old dim eyes⁵ flitted from one face to another. Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three.⁶ But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing⁷? Then, the applause having come to an end, the company took up their cards and continued the game that had been interrupted, and the animals crept silently away. But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously⁸. Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike⁹. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again¹⁰; but already it was impossible to say which was which¹¹.

1. 1“excellent and neighbourly speech” Napoleon speaks the polite language of diplomacy to a human neighbour. The farm whose pigeons once carried the slogan “Death to Humanity” is now led by a pig who compliments a farmer on his manners.
2. 2“its correct and original name” The renaming completes the circle: the farm ends where it began, as the Manor Farm. Calling the old name correct erases the Rebellion from the farm’s official history, as the Commandments were erased from its wall.
3. 3“To the prosperity of The Manor Farm!” Napoleon repeats Pilkington’s toast with one change, just as the sheep’s slogan changed by one word. Small alterations in wording have marked every step of the revolution’s betrayal, and this is the last.
4. 4“the mugs were emptied to the dregs” The pigs drink beer with men, breaking Major’s rule and the Fifth Commandment as first painted. One reading is that drinking to the dregs mocks the altered Commandment, which forbade drinking only “TO EXCESS”.
5. 5“Clover's old dim eyes” The final vision is seen through Clover, whose sight is failing and who never learned to read. Yet she sees the truth more clearly than any written record on the farm could show it.
6. 6“Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three.” The countdown is comic and grotesque at once. The chins are the visible record of who has eaten the farm’s produce, and they make the pigs look like the well-fed farmers sitting beside them.
7. 7“melting and changing” The verbs describe a transformation, as in a fairy story, and Orwell subtitled the book A Fairy Story. This is its dark version of the fairy-tale change: not a beast becoming a prince, but a pig becoming a man.
8. 8“each played an ace of spades simultaneously” Two aces of spades cannot come from one honest pack, so at least one of the two players is cheating, and the new allies fall out at once. Orwell said he meant the book to end on a “loud note of discord”, and the ending is often linked to the Tehran Conference of 1943, where Stalin met Roosevelt and Churchill.
9. 9“they were all alike” The voices can no longer be told apart even before the faces can. Sound merges first and sight follows, so the reader reaches the final verdict one sense at a time.
10. 10“from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again” Repetition with reversal mimics the animals’ eyes moving back and forth, searching for a difference that is not there. The rhythm slows the last sentence down before its verdict.
11. 11“it was impossible to say which was which” The last words of the novella. The new masters are indistinguishable from the old, and “impossible” makes the verdict absolute: the revolution has come full circle.

The question: Starting with this passage, explore how Orwell presents the relationship between the pigs and the humans. Write about the passage and about the novella as a whole.