Animal

Farm
Chapter I
One evening at the Manor Farm, Old Major gathers the farm animals to
impart his wisdom about the oppression by humans, as well as his dream for
animals to one day overthrow the humans. He goes on to tell them of the
various human vices they must avoid, teaches them a song called “Beasts of
England,” and tells them who is considered a comrade and who isn’t. Mr.
Jones, the overseer of the barn, shoots into the side of the barn, propelling
the animals to sleep.

Chapter II
With the help of the cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, the pigs succeed in
rallying the rest of the farm animals and follow through with their rebellion,
ultimately eliminating all signs of Mr. Jones. Snowball renames the farm
“Animal Farm,” and with the help of Napoleon they paint the seven
commandments of Animalism on the barn. When the animals return from
their harvest, the milk that the pigs had earlier taken from the cows has
disappeared.

Chapter III
The animals achieve a bountiful harvest, hold meetings to discuss the
communal good, and create committees. Though the animals become
somewhat literate, Snowball reduces the seven commandments to one
maxim: “four legs good, two legs bad.” Tensions begin to rise after Napoleon
takes Jessie and Bluebell’s puppies to care after himself, and when the
animals discover that the pigs have been taking all the milk and apples.

Chapter IV
Mr. Jones, along with men from neighboring farms, marches on Animal Farm.
Snowball uses his knowledge of the Roman general Julius Caesar to lead the
animals to victory against the humans. The animals retrieve Mr. Jones’s gun,
agreeing to fire on the anniversary of their victory and on the anniversary of
the Rebellion.

Chapter V
Snowball proposes a plan to build a windmill but is met with
opposition by Napoleon who argues that it will require too much
work. When the animals next meet to discuss Snowball’s plan to
build the windmill, Snowball is attacked and chased off the farm by
nine dogs commanded by Napoleon. The animals accept Squealer’s
claim that Snowball was a traitor and that Napoleon is the best
animal suited to lead them. Squealer also reveals that Napoleon
thought that building a windmill was a good idea, but he needed to
oust Snowball

Analysis Chapter 1
Although Orwell aims his satire at totalitarianism in all of its guises—
communist, fascist, and capitalist—Animal Farm owes its structure largely to
the events of the Russian Revolution as they unfolded between 1917 and
1944, when Orwell was writing the novella. Much of what happens in the
novella symbolically parallels specific developments in the history of Russian
communism, and several of the animal characters are based on either real
participants in the Russian Revolution or amalgamations thereof. Due to the
universal relevance of the novella’s themes, we don’t need to possess an
encyclopedic knowledge of Marxist Leninism or Russian history in order to
appreciate Orwell’s satire of them. An acquaintance with certain facts from
Russia’s past, however, can help us recognize the particularly biting quality
of Orwell’s criticism
Because of Animal Farm’s parallels with the Russian Revolution, many
readers have assumed that the novella’s central importance lies in its
exposure and critique of a particular political philosophy and practice,
Stalinism. In fact, however, Orwell intended to critique Stalinism as merely
one instance of the broader social phenomenon of totalitarianism, which he
saw at work throughout the world: in fascist Germany (under Adolf Hitler)
and Spain (under Francisco Franco), in capitalist America, and in his native
England, as well as in the Soviet Union. The broader applicability of the story
manifests itself in details such as the plot’s setting—England. Other details
refer to political movements in other countries as well. The animals’ song
“Beasts of England,” for example, parodies the “Internationale,” the
communist anthem written by the Paris Commune of 1871.
In order to lift his story out of the particularities of its Russian model and give
it the universality befitting the importance of its message, Orwell turned to
the two ancient and overlapping traditions of political fable and animal fable.
Writers including Aesop (Fables), Jonathan Swift (especially in the
Houyhnhnm section of Gulliver’s Travels), Bernard Mandeville (The Fable of
the Bees), and Jean de La Fontaine (Fables) have long cloaked their analyses
of contemporary society in such parables in order to portray the ills of
society in more effective ways. Because of their indirect approach, fables
have a strong tradition in societies that censor openly critical works: the
writers of fables could often claim that their works were mere fantasies and
thus attract audiences that they might not have reached otherwise.
Moreover, by setting human problems in the animal kingdom, a writer can
achieve the distance necessary to see the absurdity in much of human
behavior—he or she can abstract a human situation into a clearly
interpretable tale. By treating the development of totalitarian communism as
a story taking place on a small scale, reducing the vast and complex history
of the Russian Revolution to a short work describing talking animals on a
single farm, Orwell is able to portray his subject in extremely simple
symbolic terms, presenting the moral lessons of the story with maximum
clarity, objectivity, concision, and force.

Old Major’s dream presents the animals with a vision of utopia, an ideal
world. The “golden future time” that the song “Beasts of England”
prophesies is one in which animals will no longer be subject to man’s cruel
domination and will finally be able to enjoy the fruits of their labors. The
optimism of such lyrics as “Tyrant Man shall be o’erthrown” and “Riches
more than mind can picture” galvanizes the animals’ agitation, but
unwavering belief in this lofty rhetoric, as soon becomes clear, prevents the
common animals from realizing the gap between reality and their envisioned
utopia.

Analysis: Chapter II
By the end of the second chapter, the precise parallels between the Russian
Revolution and the plot of Animal Farm have emerged more clearly. The
Manor Farm represents Russia under the part-feudal, part-capitalist system
of the tsars, with Mr. Jones standing in for the moping and negligent Tsar
Nicholas II. Old Major serves both as Karl Marx, who first espoused the
political philosophy behind communism, and as Vladimir Lenin, who effected
this philosophy’s revolutionary expression. His speech to the other animals
bears many similarities to Marx’s Communist Manifesto and to Lenin’s later
writings in the same vein. The animals of the Manor Farm represent the
workers and peasants of Russia, in whose name the Russian Revolution’s
leaders first struggled. Boxer and Clover, in particular, embody the aspects
of the working class that facilitate the participation of the working class in
revolution: their capacity for hard work, loyalty to each other, and lack of
clear philosophical direction opens them up to the more educated classes’
manipulation.
The pigs play the role of the intelligentsia, who organized and controlled the
Russian Revolution. Squealer creates propaganda similar to that spread by
revolutionaries via official organs such as the Communist Party newspaper
Pravda. Moses embodies the Russian Orthodox Church, weakening the
peasants’ sense of revolutionary outrage by promising a utopia in the
afterlife; the beer-soaked bread that Mr. Jones feeds him represents the
bribes with which the Romanov dynasty (in which Nicholas II was the last
tsar) manipulated the church elders. Mollie represents the self-centered
bourgeoisie: she devotes herself to the most likely suppliers of luxuries and
comfort.

The animals’ original vision for their society stems from noble ideals. Orwell
was a socialist himself and supported the creation of a government in which
moral dignity and social equality would take precedence over selfish
individual interests. The Russian revolutionaries began with such ideals as
well; Marx certainly touted notions like these in his writings. On Animal Farm,
however, as was the case in the Russian Revolution, power is quickly
consolidated in the hands of those who devise, maintain, and participate in
the running of society—the intelligentsia.

This class of Russians and their allies quickly turned the Communist Party
toward totalitarianism, an event mirrored in Animal Farm by the gradual
assumption of power by the pigs. After Lenin’s seizure of power, Communist
Party leaders began jockeying for position and power, each hoping to seize
control after Lenin’s death. Snowball and Napoleon, whose power struggle
develops fully in the next chapters, are based on two real Communist Party
leaders: Snowball shares traits with the fiery, intelligent leader Leon Trotsky,
while the lurking, subversive Napoleon has much in common with the later
dictator Joseph Stalin.
Orwell’s descriptions in this chapter of the pre-Rebellion misery of the farm
animals serve his critique of social inequality and the mistreatment of
workers. They also make a pointed statement about humans’ abuse of
animals. Indeed, the same impulse that led Orwell to sympathize with poor
and oppressed human beings made him lament the cruelty that many
human beings show toward other species. He got the idea for Animal Farm
while watching a

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

young boy whipping a cart-horse. His pity for the exploited horse reminded
him of his sympathy for the exploited working class.

Orwell creates a particularly moving scene in portraying the animals’ efforts

to obliterate the painful reminders of their maltreatment: this episode stands
out from much of the rest of the novella in its richness of detail. In the
attention to “the bits, the nose-rings, the dog-chains, the cruel knives,” and a
whole host of other instruments of physical discipline, we see Orwell’s
profound empathy with the lowest of the low, as well as his intense hatred
for physical suffering and its destruction of dignity.

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.

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.