Animal Farm

Summary: Chapter III

The animals spend a laborious summer harvesting in the fields. The clever pigs think of ways for the animals to use the humans’ tools, and every

animal participates in the work, each according to his capacity. The resulting harvest exceeds any that the farm has ever known. Only Mollie and

the cat shirk their duties. The powerful and hard-working Boxer does most of the heavy labor, adopting “I will work harder!” as a personal motto.

The entire animal community reveres his dedication and strength. Of all of the animals, only Benjamin, the obstinate donkey, seems to recognize

no change under the new leadership.

Every Sunday, the animals hold a flag-raising ceremony. The flag’s green background represents the fields of England, and its white hoof and

horn symbolize the animals. The morning rituals also include a democratic meeting, at which the animals debate and establish new policies for

the collective good. At the meetings, Snowball and Napoleon always voice the loudest opinions, though their views always clash.
Snowball establishes a number of committees with various goals, such as cleaning the cows’ tails and re-educating the rats and rabbits. Most of these committees fail to accomplish their aims, but

the classes designed to teach all of the farm animals how to read and write meet with some success. By the end of the summer, all of the animals achieve some degree of literacy. The pigs become

fluent in reading and writing, while some of the dogs are able to learn to read the Seven Commandments. Muriel the goat can read scraps of newspaper, while Clover knows the alphabet but cannot

string the letters together. Poor Boxer never gets beyond the letter D. When it becomes apparent that many of the animals are unable to memorize the Seven Commandments, Snowball reduces the

principles to one essential maxim, which he says contains the heart of Animalism: “Four legs good, two legs bad.” The birds take offense until Snowball hastily explains that wings count as legs. The

other animals accept the maxim without argument, and the sheep begin to chant it at random times, mindlessly, as if it were a song.

Napoleon takes no interest in Snowball’s committees. When the dogs Jessie and Bluebell each give birth to puppies, he takes the puppies into his own care, saying that the training of the young

should take priority over adult education. He raises the puppies in a loft above the harness room, out of sight of the rest of Animal Farm.

Around this time, the animals discover, to their outrage, that the pigs have been taking all of the milk and apples for themselves. Squealer explains to them that pigs need milk and apples in order to

think well, and since the pigs’ work is brain work, it is in everyone’s best interest for the pigs to eat the apples and drink the milk. Should the pigs’ brains fail because of a lack of apples and milk,

Squealer hints, Mr. Jones might come back to take over the farm. This prospect frightens the other animals, and they agree to forgo milk and apples in the interest of the collective good.
Analysis: Chapter III

Boxer’s motto, in response to the increased labors on Animal Farm, of “I will work harder” is an exact echo of the immigrant Jurgis
Rudkus’s motto, in response to financial problems, in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Whereas Boxer exerts himself for the common good,
as his socialist society dictates he must, Jurgis exerts himself for his own good, as his capitalist society dictates he must. Both possess
a blind faith that the key to happiness lies in conforming to the existing political-economic system. Committed to socialism, Orwell
would almost certainly have read The Jungle, which, published in its entirety in 1906, was a searing indictment of capitalism and
galvanized the American socialist movement. His appropriation of Jurgis’s motto for Boxer implicitly links the oppression of capitalism
with that of totalitarian communism, as, in each case, the state wholly ignores the suffering of those who strive to be virtuous and work
within the system.

The varying degrees of literacy among the animals suggest the necessity of sharing information in order for freedom to be maintained.
To the pigs’ credit, they do try to teach the other animals the basics of reading and writing, but the other animals prove unable or
unwilling. The result is a dangerous imbalance in knowledge, as the pigs become the sole guardians and interpreters of Animal Farm’s
guiding principles.
The discrepancy among the animals’ capacity for abstract thought leads the pigs to condense the Seven Commandments into one supreme slogan: “Four legs good, two legs bad.” The birds’ objection to the slogan points

immediately to the phrase’s excessive simplicity. Whereas the Seven Commandments that the pigs formulate are a detailed mix of antihuman directives (“No animal shall wear clothes”), moral value judgments (“No animal

shall kill another animal”), and utopian ideals (“All animals are equal”), the new, reductive slogan contains none of these elements; it merely establishes a bold dichotomy that masks the pigs’ treachery. The motto has

undergone such generalization that it has become propaganda, a rallying cry that will keep the common animals focused on the pigs’ rhetoric so that they will ignore their own unhappiness.

In its simplicity, this new, brief slogan is all too easy to understand and becomes ingrained in even the most dull-witted of minds, minds that cannot think critically about how the slogan, while seeming to galvanize the animals’

crusade for freedom, actually enables the pigs to institute their own oppressive regime. The animals themselves may be partially responsible for this power imbalance: on the whole, they show little true initiative to learn—the

dogs have no interest in reading anything but the Seven Commandments, and Benjamin decides not to put his ample reading skills to use.

Though the birds don’t understand Snowball’s long-winded explanation of why wings count as legs, they accept it nonetheless, trusting in their leader. It would be unfair, however, to fault the common animals for their failure to

realize that the pigs mean to oppress them. Their fervor in singing “Beasts of England” and willingness to follow the pigs’ instructions demonstrate their virtuous desire to make life better for one another. The common animals

cannot be blamed for their lesser intelligence. The pigs, however, mix their intelligence with ruthless guile and take advantage of the other animals’ apathy. Their machinations are reprehensible.

Squealer figures crucially in the novel, as his proficiency in spreading lie-filled propaganda allows the pigs to conceal their acts of greed beneath a veneer of common good. His statements and behaviors exemplify the linguistic

and psychological methods that the pigs use to control the other animals while convincing them that this strict regime is essential if the animals want to avoid becoming subject to human cruelty again.

In the opinion of Orwell, the socialist goals of the Russian Revolution quickly became meaningless rhetorical tools used by the communists to control the people: the intelligentsia began to interpret the “good of the state” to

mean the good of itself as a class, and anyone who opposed it was branded an “enemy of the people.” On Animal Farm, Squealer makes himself useful to the other pigs by pretending to side with the oppressed animals and

falsely aligning the common good with the good of the pigs.
Summary: Chapter IV

By late summer, news of Animal Farm has spread across half the county. Mr. Jones lives ignominiously in Willingdon,

drinking and complaining about his misfortune. Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick, who own the adjoining farms, fear that

disenchantment will spread among their own animals. Their rivalry with each other, however, prevents them from working

together against Animal Farm. They merely spread rumors about the farm’s inefficiency and moral reprehensibility.

Meanwhile, animals everywhere begin singing “Beasts of England,” which they have learned from flocks of pigeons sent by

Snowball, and many begin to behave rebelliously.

At last, in early October, a flight of pigeons alerts Animal Farm that Mr. Jones has begun marching on the farm with some of
Pilkington’s and Frederick’s men. Snowball, who has studied books about the battle campaigns of the renowned Roman
general Julius Caesar, prepares a defense and leads the animals in an ambush on the men. Boxer fights courageously, as
does Snowball, and the humans suffer a quick defeat. The animals’ losses amount only to a single sheep, whom they give a
hero’s burial.

Boxer, who believes that he has unintentionally killed a stable boy in the chaos, expresses his regret at taking a life, even
though it is a human one. Snowball tells him not to feel guilty, asserting that “the only good human being is a dead one.”
Mollie, as is her custom, has avoided any risk to herself by hiding during the battle. Snowball and Boxer each receive
medals with the inscription “Animal Hero, First Class.” The animals discover Mr. Jones’s gun where he dropped it in the
mud. They place it at the base of the flagstaff, agreeing to fire it twice a year: on October 12th, the anniversary of the Battle
of the Cowshed—as they have dubbed their victory—and on Midsummer’s Day, the anniversary of the Rebellion.
Analysis
Analysis: Chapter IV
This chapter extends the allegory of the Russian Revolution to Russia’s interwar period. The spread of Animalism to surrounding farms evokes the attempts by
Leon Trotsky to establish communism as an international movement. Trotsky believed, as did Karl Marx, that communism could only achieve its goals if
implemented on a global scale, and he devoted much of his formidable intelligence and eloquence to setting off what Western leaders later called the “Domino
Effect.” The Domino Effect, or Domino Theory, posited that the conversion or “fall” of a noncommunist state to communism would precipitate the fall of other
noncommunist governments in nearby states.

Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson used this theory to justify their military involvement in Greece, Turkey, and Vietnam—countries they
hoped to “save” from the spread of communism. In Animal Farm, the proprietors of the neighboring farms fear a similar contagion, which we might term the
“Snowball Effect.” Just as the West tried to discredit Russian communism, so do Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick spread disparaging rumors about Animal
Farm. Just as diplomatic skirmishes between the West and Russia ended up bolstering Trotsky and his allies, the armed skirmish between humans and animals
ends up strengthening the animals’ hold on the farm.
In this chapter, Orwell makes masterful use of irony, an important component of satirical writing, to illustrate the gap between what the animals are fighting for
and what they believe they are fighting for. All of the animals—except Mollie—fight their hardest in the Battle of the Cowshed, but as Chapter III demonstrates,
they do not fully understand the ideals for which they fight, the principles that they defend. In putting all of their energies toward expelling the humans, the
animals believe that they are protecting themselves from oppression. In reality, however, they are simply and unwittingly consolidating the pigs’ power by muting
the primary threat to the pigs’ regime—the human menace. Moreover, though the animals are prepared to give their lives in defense of Animal Farm, they
appear unprepared to deal with the consequences of their fight: Boxer is horrified when he thinks that he has killed the stable boy.

Snowball’s emphatic declaration after the battle of the need for all animals “to be ready to die for Animal Farm” sets up Orwell’s scrutiny of the motivations

behind mass violence and manipulative leadership. Many readers have assumed that Animal Farm, in its critique of totalitarian communism, advocates the

Western capitalist way of life as an alternative. Yet a closer reading suggests that Orwell may take a more complicated stance. For if the animals represent the

Russian communists and the farmers represent noncommunist leaders, we see that Orwell denounces the communists, but also portrays the noncommunists in

a very harsh light. Mr. Jones proves an irresponsible and neglectful farm owner, and neither Mr. Pilkington nor Mr. Frederick hesitates to quash violently any

animal uprisings that threaten his own supremacy. There is nothing noble in the men’s unprovoked attack on Animal Farm—they undertake this crusade merely

out of self-interest.
Chapter V
Summary: Chapter V

Mollie becomes an increasing burden on Animal Farm: she arrives late for work, accepts treats from men associated with nearby farms, and
generally behaves contrary to the tenets of Animalism. Eventually she disappears, lured away by a fat, red-faced man who stroked her coat and
fed her sugar; now she pulls his carriage. None of the other animals ever mentions her name again.

During the cold winter months, the animals hold their meetings in the big barn, and Snowball and Napoleon’s constant disagreements continue to
dominate the proceedings. Snowball proves a better speaker and debater, but Napoleon can better canvass for support in between meetings.
Snowball brims with ideas for improving the farm: he studies Mr. Jones’s books and eventually concocts a scheme to build a windmill, with which
the animals could generate electricity and automate many farming tasks, bringing new comforts to the animals’ lives. But building the windmill
would entail much hard work and difficulty, and Napoleon contends that the animals should attend to their current needs rather than plan for a
distant future. The question deeply divides the animals. Napoleon surveys Snowball’s plans and expresses his contempt by urinating on them.
Summary: Chapter V continued

When Snowball has finally completed his plans, all assemble for a great meeting to decide whether to undertake the windmill project. Snowball gives a passionate speech, to which Napoleon

responds with a pathetically unaffecting and brief retort. Snowball speaks further, inspiring the animals with his descriptions of the wonders of electricity. Just as the animals prepare to vote, however,

Napoleon gives a strange whimper, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars charge into the barn, attack Snowball, and chase him off the farm. They return to Napoleon’s side, and,

with the dogs growling menacingly, Napoleon announces that from now on meetings will be held only for ceremonial purposes. He states that all important decisions will fall to the pigs alone.

Afterward, many of the animals feel confused and disturbed. Squealer explains to them that Napoleon is making a great sacrifice in taking the leadership responsibilities upon himself and that, as the

cleverest animal, he serves the best interest of all by making the decisions. These statements placate the animals, though they still question the expulsion of Snowball. Squealer explains that

Snowball was a traitor and a criminal. Eventually, the animals come to accept this version of events, and Boxer adds greatly to Napoleon’s prestige by adopting the maxims “I will work harder” and

“Napoleon is always right.”

These two maxims soon reinforce each other when, three weeks after the banishment of Snowball, the animals learn that Napoleon supports the windmill project. Squealer explains that their leader

never really opposed the proposal; he simply used his apparent opposition as a maneuver to oust the wicked Snowball. These tactics, he claims, served to advance the collective best interest.

Squealer’s words prove so appealing, and the growls of his three-dog entourage so threatening, that the animals accept his explanation without question.
Analysis: Chapter V

This chapter illuminates Napoleon’s corrupt and power-hungry motivations. He openly and unabashedly seizes power for himself, banishes Snowball with no

justification, and shows a bald-faced willingness to rewrite history in order to further his own ends. Similarly, Stalin forced Trotsky from Russia and seized

control of the country after Lenin’s death. Orwell’s experience in a persecuted Trotskyist political group in the late 1930s during the Spanish Civil War may

have contributed to his comparatively positive portrayal of Snowball. Trotsky was eventually murdered in Mexico, but Stalin continued to evoke him as a

phantom threat, the symbol of all enemy forces, when he began his bloody purges of the 1930s. These purges appear in allegorized form in the next chapters

of Animal Farm.

Lenin once famously remarked that communism was merely socialism plus the electrification of the countryside, a comment that reveals the importance of

technological modernization to leaders in the young Soviet Union. The centrality of the electrification projects in the Soviet Union inspired the inclusion of the

windmill in Animal Farm. Communist leaders considered such programs absolutely essential for their new nation, citing their need to upgrade an infrastructure

neglected by the tsars and keep up with the relatively advanced and increasingly hostile West. Russia devoted a great deal of brain- and manpower to putting

these programs in place. As suggested by the plot of Animal Farm, Stalin initially balked at the idea of a national emphasis on modern technology, only to

embrace such plans wholeheartedly once he had secured his position as dictator.
This chapter lies near the middle of Orwell’s narrative and, in many ways, represents the climax of the tension that has been building from the beginning.
Since the animals’ initial victory over Mr. Jones, we have suspected the motives of the pig intelligentsia and Napoleon in particular: ever since the revelation in
Chapter III that they have been stealing apples and milk for themselves, the pigs have appeared more interested in grabbing resources and power than in
furthering the good of the farm. Now, when Napoleon sets his dogs on Snowball, he proves that his socialist rhetoric about the common good is quite empty.
The specifics of Napoleon’s takeover bespeak a long period of careful plotting: Napoleon has been deliberating his seizure of power ever since he first took
control of the dogs’ training, in Chapter III. Thus, the banishment of Snowball constitutes the culmination of long-held resentments and aspirations and
climactically justifies our feelings of uneasiness about Napoleon.

In his use of the dogs, Napoleon has monopolized the farm’s sources of defense and protection—the dogs could have guarded the farm and warded off
predators—in order to create his own private secret police. The pigs claim a parallel monopoly on logic. Squealer linguistically transforms Napoleon’s
self-serving act of banishing Snowball into a supreme example of self-sacrifice and manages to convince the animals that no contradiction underlies the
leader’s abrupt about-face on the issue of the windmill. Each of Napoleon’s acts of physical violence thus gains acceptance and legitimacy via a
corresponding exercise of verbal violence. Political subversion depends on a subversion of logic and language. The connection between these two forms of
violence and subversion remained a central concern for Orwell throughout his life, and he examines it both in later chapters of Animal Farm and in his last
major novel, 1984.
Chapter VI
Summary
Chapter VI

For the rest of the year, the animals work at a backbreaking pace to farm enough food for themselves and to build the windmill. The
leadership announces that working on Sundays is voluntary, but sneakily contradicts their own declaration by saying that any animal
who refuses to do so will have their rations cut by half. But because they believe what the leadership tells them—that they are working
for their own good now, not for Mr. Jones’s—they are eager to take on the extra labor. Boxer, in particular, commits himself to Animal
Farm, doing the work of three horses but never complaining.

Even though the farm possesses all of the necessary materials to build the windmill, the project presents a number of difficulties. The
animals struggle over how to break the available stone into manageable sizes for building without picks and crowbars, which they are
unable to use. They finally solve the problem by learning to raise and then drop big stones into the quarry, smashing them into usable
chunks. By late summer, the animals have enough broken stone to begin construction.
Summary continued
Chapter VI

Although their work is strenuous, the animals suffer no more than they had under Mr. Jones. They have enough to eat and can maintain the farm grounds easily
now that humans no longer come to cart off and sell the fruits of their labor. But the farm still needs a number of items that it cannot produce on its own, such as
iron, nails, and paraffin oil. As existing supplies of these items begin to run low, Napoleon announces that he has hired a human solicitor, Mr. Whymper, to assist
him in conducting trade on behalf of Animal Farm. The other animals are taken aback by the idea of engaging in trade with humans, but Squealer explains that
the founding principles of Animal Farm never included any prohibition against trade and the use of money. He adds that if the animals think that they recall any
such law, they have simply fallen victim to lies fabricated by the traitor Snowball.

Mr. Whymper begins paying a visit to the farm every Monday, and Napoleon places orders with him for various supplies. The pigs begin living in the farmhouse,
and rumor has it that they even sleep in beds, a violation of one of the Seven Commandments. But when Clover asks Muriel to read her the appropriate
commandment, the two find that it now reads “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.” Squealer explains that Clover must have simply forgotten the last two
words. All animals sleep in beds, he says—a pile of straw is a bed, after all. Sheets, however, as a human invention, constitute the true source of evil. He then
shames the other animals into agreeing that the pigs need comfortable repose in order to think clearly and serve the greater good of the farm.
Summary continued
Chapter VI

Around this time, a fearsome storm descends on Animal Farm, knocking down roof tiles, an elm tree, and even the flagstaff.
When the animals go into the fields, they find, to their horror, that the windmill, on which they have worked so hard, has
been toppled. Napoleon announces in appalled tones that the windmill has been sabotaged by Snowball, who, he says, will
do anything to destroy Animal Farm. Napoleon passes a death sentence on Snowball, offering a bushel of apples to the
traitor’s killer. He then gives a passionate speech in which he convinces the animals that they must rebuild the windmill,
despite the backbreaking toil involved. “Long live the windmill!” he cries. “Long live Animal Farm!”
Analysis: Chapter VI

Part of the greater importance of the novella owes to its treatment of Animal Farm not as an isolated entity but as part of a network of farms—an analogue to the
international political arena. Orwell thus comments on Soviet Russia and the global circumstances in which it arose. But the tactics that we see the pigs utilizing
here—the overworking of the laboring class, the justification of luxuries indulged in by the ruling class, the spreading of propaganda to cover up government
failure or ineffectiveness—evoke strategies implemented not only by communist Russia but also by governments throughout the world needing to oppress their
people in order to consolidate their power.

Napoleon makes the outrageous claim that Snowball was responsible for the windmill’s destruction in order to shift the blame from his own shoulders.
Governments throughout the world have long bolstered their standing among the populace by alluding to the horrors of an invisible, conspiratorial enemy,
compared to which their own misdeeds or deficiencies seem acceptable. Stalin used this tactic in Russia by evoking a demonized notion of Trotsky, but the
strategy has enjoyed popularity among many other administrations. Indeed, during much of the twentieth century, it was the communists who served as a
convenient demon to governments in the West: both German and American governments used the threat of communism to excuse or cover up their own
aggressive behaviors.
Analysis: Chapter VI

More broadly, the windmill represents the pigs’ continued manipulation of the common animals. They not only force the animals to break their backs to construct the windmill by

threatening to withhold food; they also use the windmill’s collapse—the blame for which, though it is caused by a storm, rests with the pigs for not having the foresight to build

thicker walls—to play on the animals’ general fear of being re-enslaved. By deflecting the blame from themselves onto Snowball, they prevent the common animals from realizing

how greatly the pigs are exploiting them and harness the animals’ energy toward defeating this purported enemy.

In this chapter, Orwell also comments on the cyclical nature of tyranny. As the pigs gain power, they become increasingly corrupt. Soon they embody the very iniquity that Animal

Farm was created to overturn. As many political observers have noted, Stalin and his officials quickly entered into the decadent lifestyles that had characterized the tsars. The

communists themselves had pointed to these lifestyles in maligning the old administration. Orwell parodies this phenomenon by sketching his pigs increasingly along the lines of

very grotesque human beings. Throughout the novel, the pigs increasingly resemble humans, eventually flouting altogether Old Major’s strictures against adopting human

characteristics. With the pigs’ move into the farmhouse to sleep in the farmer’s beds, Orwell remarks upon the way that supreme power corrupts all who possess it, transforming

all dictators into ruthless, self-serving, and power-hungry entities that can subsist only by oppressing others.
Homework /work
Character analysis:

What do we find out about Snowball,Molly and Boxer ?

Write an account of the Battle of the Cowshed for a local newspaper that
sympathises with either the humans or the animals.
Dystopian short stories
The Hunger Games
The Maze runner
The Red Card
The Pedestrian
Examination Day

Poetry of injustice