HERR JONESof Manor Farm, had locked the chicken coops for the night but was too drunk to think of closing the loopholes. With the circle of light from his lantern dancing back and forth, he staggered across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, poured a last pint of beer from the keg in the scullery, and made his way to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring .
As soon as the light went out in the bedroom, it stirred and fluttered through the outbuildings. Word had gotten around during the day that the old Major, the award-winning medium white boar, had had a strange dream last night and wanted to share it with the other animals. It had been agreed that they should all meet in the big barn once Mr Jones was safely out of the way. Old Major (so he was always called, although the name he'd been issued under was Willingdon Beauty) was so highly regarded on the farm that anyone was willing to lose an hour's sleep to hear what he was listening to say.
At one end of the large barn, on some sort of raised platform, Major was already perched on his cot under a lantern hanging from a beam. He was twelve years old and had gotten quite strong lately, but he was still a majestic-looking pig with a wise and benevolent air, although his buttocks had never been cut. It wasn't long before the other animals arrived and made themselves comfortable according to their different fashions. First came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher, and then the pigs, who perched on the straw just in front of the platform. The chickens perched on the window sills, the doves fluttered onto the beams, the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and began to chew the cud. The two draft horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very slowly, setting down their huge hairy hooves with great care lest some small animal hide in the straw. Clover was a stocky middle-aged mare who never quite regained her figure after her fourth foal. Boxer was a huge beast, nearly eighteen hands tall, and as strong as two common horses put together. A white stripe on his nose gave him a somewhat silly look, and indeed he was not of the highest intelligence, but he was universally respected for his strength of character and enormous working capacity. After the horses came Muriel the white goat and Benjamin the donkey. Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm and had the worst temper. He rarely spoke, and when he did, he usually made a cynical remark—for example, he said God gave him a tail to keep the flies away, but he would rather have had no tail and no flies. Alone among the animals on the farm, he never laughed. When asked why, he replied that he saw nothing to laugh about. Still, without openly admitting it, he was devoted to Boxer; The two usually spent their Sundays together in the small paddock behind the orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking to each other.
The two horses had just laid down when a brood of ducklings that had lost their mother poured into the barn, chirping faintly and wandering from side to side, trying to find a place where they would not be stepped on. Clover made a kind of wall around her with her big front leg and the chicks snuggled inside and promptly fell asleep. At the last moment, Mollie, the silly pretty white mare who had pulled Mr. Jones's trap, came in dainty and munched on a lump of sugar. She took the front seat and began flirting with her white mane, hoping to draw attention to the red ribbons it was braided with. Last came the cat, who, as usual, looked around for the warmest spot, and finally squeezed in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedly during Major's speech, not listening to a word he said.
All the animals were present now except Moses the tame raven who slept on a perch behind the back door. Seeing that they were all all settled and waiting attentively, Major cleared his throat and began:
“Comrades, you have already heard about the strange dream I had last night. But I'll come to that dream later. I have something to say beforehand. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many more months, and before I die I feel obliged to pass on to you the wisdom I have acquired. I have had a long life, I have had much time to think while lying alone in my stable, and I believe I can say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal alive today. I want to talk to you about that.
“Well, comrades, what is the nature of our life? Let's face it, our lives are miserable, tedious and short. We are born, fed only enough to keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are able are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and just as our usefulness is at an end, we are slaughtered with abominable ferocity. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after it is one year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
“But is that just part of the order of nature? Is it because our country is so poor that it cannot offer its inhabitants a decent life? No, comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its climate good, capable of providing food in abundance for an infinitely greater number of animals than it now inhabits. This one farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep—and they would all live in a comfort and dignity we can hardly imagine now. Then why do we continue in this miserable state? Because almost the entire product of our labor is stolen from us by humans. That, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It can be summed up in one word – man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Take the human out of the picture and the root cause of starvation and overwork is gone forever.
“Humans are the only creature that consumes without producing. He doesn't give milk, he doesn't lay eggs, he's too weak to pull the plow, he can't run fast enough to catch rabbits. And yet he is the master of all animals. He makes them work, he gives them back what they need so they don't starve, and he keeps the rest for himself. Our work tills the soil, our manure fertilizes it, and yet none of us owns more than our bare skin. You cows that I see before me, how many thousands of liters of milk have you given in the last year? And what happened to the milk that should have produced strong calves? Every drop of it went down the throats of our enemies. And you chickens, how many eggs have you laid this past year, and how many of those eggs have ever hatched into chickens? The rest all went to the market to bring in money for Jones and his men. And you, Clover, where are these four foals you gave birth to that should have been your support and joy in your old age? Each one was sold at the age of one - you will never see one of them again. In exchange for your four weeks' imprisonment and all your work in the fields, what have you ever had but your bare rations and a booth?
"And even the miserable life we lead must not reach its natural span. For myself I'm not complaining because I'm one of the lucky ones. I am twelve years old and have over four hundred children. Such is the natural life of a pig. But in the end no animal escapes the cruel knife. You young fattening pigs sitting in front of me, each of you will be screaming your life at the block in a year. We must all come to this horror - cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, everyone. Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate. You boxer, the very day your big muscles lose their strength, Jones will sell you to the skinner, who will slit your throat and boil you for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick around their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond.
"Is it not crystal clear, comrades, that all the evils of our lives spring from the tyranny of men? Just get rid of the human and the product of our labor would be our own. We could become rich and free almost overnight. Then what do we have to do? Work day and night, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race! This is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion! I don't know when this rebellion will come, it could be in a week or a hundred years, but I know as sure as I see that straw under my feet that sooner or later justice will be done. Keep your eyes on it, comrades, for the short rest of your lives! And above all, pass this message of mine on to those who come after you, so that future generations will continue the fight to victory.
“And remember, comrades, your resolve must never waver. No argument should mislead you. Never listen when they tell you that humans and animals have a common interest, that one man's wealth is another's wealth. It's all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature but himself. And among us animals may there be perfect unity, perfect fellowship in battle. All people are enemies. All animals are companions.”
At that moment there was a tremendous uproar. As Major spoke, four large rats had crawled out of their holes and sat on their hind legs listening to him. The dogs had suddenly sighted them, and only by jumping quickly into their holes did the rats save their lives. Major resumed his trot to silence:
“Comrades,” he said, “here is a point that needs clarification. The wild creatures like rats and rabbits - are they our friends or our enemies? Let's vote on this. I propose this question to the congregation: Are rats companions?”
The vote was taken immediately, and it was overwhelmingly agreed that rats were comrades. There were only four dissenters, the three dogs and the cat, who later turned out to have voted for both sides. Major continued:
"I have little more to say. I only repeat, always remember your duty of hostility towards man and all his ways. What walks on two legs is an enemy. What walks on four legs or has wings is a friend. And remember, too, that in fighting man we must not become like him. Even if you have defeated him, do not accept his vices. No animal shall ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or trade. All human habits are evil. And above all, no animal should tyrannize its own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal may ever kill another animal. All animals are equal.
"And now, comrades, I'll tell you about my dream from last night. I cannot describe this dream to you. It was a dream of the earth as it will be when man is gone. But it reminded me of something I had long forgotten.
"Many years ago, when I was a little pig, my mother and the other sows used to sing an old song of which they only knew the melody and the first three words. I had known this melody in my childhood, but it was long gone from my mind. Last night, however, it came back to me in my dream. What's more, the words of the song came back too - words, I'm sure, sung by the animals long ago and forgotten for generations. I will sing this song to you now, comrades. I'm old and my voice is hoarse, but after I've taught you the tune, you'll be better able to sing it yourself. It's called 'Beasts of England'.'
The old major cleared his throat and began to sing. As he had said, his voice was hoarse, but he sang well enough and it was a catchy tune, somewhere between "Clementine" and "La Cucuracha". The words were:
beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
beasts of every land and climate,
Listen to my good news
From the golden age of the future.Sooner or later the day will come
Tyrant Man shall be overthrown,
And the fertile fields of England
Will only be entered by beasts.rings will disappear from our noses,
And the harness from our backs
Teeth and spur shall rust forever,
Cruel whips shall crack no more.Riches more than mind can imagine
wheat and barley, oats and hay,
Clover, beans and chard roots
will be ours in that day.Bright will the fields of England shine,
Its waters shall be purer,
Even sweeter shall his breeze blow
On the day that sets us free.For this day we all have to work,
Though we die before it breaks;
cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
All must toil for the sake of freedom.beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
beasts of every land and climate,
Listen carefully and spread my message
From the golden age of the future.
The singing of this song put the animals in the wildest excitement. Almost before Major had reached the end, they had started singing it to themselves. Even the dumbest of them already got the melody and some of the words, and the clever ones, like the pigs and dogs, had the whole song memorized in a matter of minutes. And then, after a few preliminary tries, the whole farm erupted in one mighty unison into "Beasts of England." The cows roared it, the dogs whined it, the sheep bleated it, the horses whinnied it, the ducks cackled it. They loved the song so much that they sang it five times in a row and might have continued singing it all night if they hadn't been interrupted.
Unfortunately, the uproar woke Mr. Jones, who jumped out of bed and verified that there was a fox in the yard. He grabbed the gun that he always kept in a corner of his bedroom and let a load of number б fly into the darkness. The pellets dug into the wall of the barn and the gathering hastily dispersed. Each fled to his own sleeping place. The birds jumped onto their perches, the animals perched on the straw, and the whole yard fell asleep in no time.
THREE NIGHTS LATERThe old major died peacefully in his sleep. His body was buried at the foot of the orchard.
That was early March. During the next three months there was much clandestine activity. Major's speech had given the more intelligent animals on the farm a whole new outlook on life. They did not know when the rebellion Major foretold would take place, they had no reason to believe it would take place in their own lifetime, but they clearly saw that it was their duty to prepare for it. The task of teaching and organizing the others naturally fell to the pigs, who were generally considered the smartest animals. Outstanding among the pigs were two young boars named Snowball and Napoleon, which Mr. Jones raised for sale. Napoleon was a large, rather wild-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire boar on the farm, not a great talker but with a reputation for having his own way. Snowball was a livelier pig than Napoleon, quicker on the tongue and more inventive, but he was not credited with the same depth of character. All other male pigs on the farm were finishers. The most famous of them was a fat little pig named Squealer with very round cheeks, sparkling eyes, quick movements and a high-pitched voice. He was a brilliant speaker, and when he was arguing a difficult point, he would hop about and wag his tail, which was somehow very persuasive. The others said about Squealer that he can turn black into white.
These three had worked the old Major's teachings into a complete system of thought, which they called animalism. Several nights a week, after Mr. Jones fell asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and explained the principles of animalism to the others. In the beginning they encountered a lot of stupidity and apathy. Some of the animals spoke of their duty of loyalty to Mr. Meier, whom they called "Master", or made elementary remarks such as "Mr. Meier feeds us. If he were gone, we would starve.” Others asked questions like, “Why should we care what happens after we're dead?” or “If this rebellion is going to happen anyway, what difference does it make if we work for it or not ?' and the pigs had a hard time convincing them that this went against the spirit of animalism. Mollie the white mare asked the dumbest questions of all. The very first question she asked Snowball was, "Will there be sugar after the rebellion?"
"No," Snowball said firmly. “We have no way of making sugar on this farm. Also, you don't need sugar. You will have as much oats and hay as you want.”
"And can I still wear ribbons in my mane?" asked Mollie.
"Comrade," said Snowball, "these ribbons, to which you are so devoted, are the badge of slavery. Can't you understand that freedom is worth more than ribbons?"
Mollie agreed, but she didn't sound very convinced.
The pigs had an even harder fight to counter the lies spread by Moses the tame raven. Moses, Mr. Jones' particular favorite, was a spy and a storyteller, but he was also a shrewd speaker. He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious land called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all animals went when they died. It was somewhere up in the sky, a little way behind the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all year round, and sugar cubes and flax cakes grew on the hedges. The animals hated Moses because he told stories and didn't do any work, but some of them believed in the Sugar Candy Mountain and the pigs had to argue very hard to convince them that such a place did not exist.
Her most loyal students were the two draft horses Boxer and Clover. These two had great difficulty imagining anything, but once they accepted the pigs as their teachers, they took everything they were told and passed it on to the other animals through simple arguments. They tirelessly attended the secret gatherings in the barn, leading the singing of "Beasts of England" with which the gatherings always ended.
As it turned out, the rebellion was achieved much sooner and more easily than anyone expected. In the years past, Mr. Jones, though a hard master, had been an able farmer, but lately he had seen bad times. He was very discouraged after losing money in a lawsuit and had started drinking more than was good for him. For days he lounged in his Windsor chair in the kitchen, reading the paper, drinking, and occasionally feeding Moses crusts of bread soaked in beer. His men were lazy and dishonest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted to be roofed, the hedges neglected and the animals malnourished.
June came and the hay was almost ready to be cut. On Midsummer's Eve, a Saturday, Mr Jones went to Willingdon and got so drunk at the Red Lion that he did not return until Sunday noon. The men had milked the cows early in the morning and then gone out to hunt rabbits without bothering to feed the animals. When Mr. Jones returned he fell asleep immediately on the sofa in the drawing-roomNews from all over the worldover his face so that the animals were still unfed in the evening. Finally they couldn't take it anymore. One of the cows broke open the door of the storage shed with her horn and all the animals began to help themselves from the bins. Just then, Mr. Jones woke up. In a moment he and his four men were inside the storage shed, whips in hand, lashing out in all directions. That was more than the hungry animals could endure. Unanimously, although nothing of the sort was planned, they pounced on their tormentors. Jones and his men were suddenly pushed and kicked from all sides. The situation was completely out of their control. They had never seen any animal behave like this before, and this sudden gasp from creatures accustomed to beating and manhandling at will scared them almost to death. After only a moment or two they gave up trying to defend themselves and retreated. A minute later all five were in full flight down the cart path that led to the main street, the animals pursuing them in triumph.
Mrs Jones looked out the bedroom window, saw what was happening, hastily tossed some belongings into a holdall and slipped out of the farm by a different route. Moses jumped down from his perch and flapped after her, croaking loudly. Meanwhile the animals had chased Jones and his men into the street and slammed the five-barred gate behind them. And so, almost before they knew what was happening, the rebellion had been successfully carried out; Jones was expelled and the Manor Farm was theirs.
In the first few minutes, the animals could hardly believe their luck. Their first act was to gallop around the farm's boundaries together, as if to make absolutely sure there was no human hiding anywhere on it; then they ran back to the farm buildings to erase the last traces of Jones's hated reign. The harness room at the end of the stables was broken open; the bits, the nose rings, the dog chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had castrated the pigs and lambs were all hurled down the well. The reins, the halters, the blinders, the degrading nose bags were thrown onto the garbage fire burning in the yard. Likewise the whips. All the animals jumped for joy as they saw the whips burst into flames. Snowball also threw into the fire the ribbons that were usually used to decorate horses' manes and tails on market days.
"Ribbons," he said, "should be viewed as garments that are the hallmark of a person. All animals should go naked.”
Hearing this, Boxer took out the little straw hat he wore in the summer to keep the flies away from his ears and threw it on the fire with the others.
In no time the animals had destroyed everything that reminded them of Mr. Jones. Napoleon then led them back to the storage shed and served everyone a double ration of corn, with two biscuits for each dog. They then sang "Beasts of England" from end to end seven times in a row, and after that they settled in for the night and slept like they had never slept before.
But they woke up at dawn, as usual, and suddenly they remembered the wonderful thing that had happened, and they all ran out into the pasture together. A little further down the pasture was a rise overlooking most of the farm. The animals rushed to the top and looked around in the clear morning light. Yes, it was theirs - everything they could see was theirs! In the ecstasy of that thought, they jumped about and about, throwing themselves into the air in great leaps of excitement. They rolled in the dew, they cut morsels of sweet summer grass, they churned up clumps of black earth and sniffed its rich fragrance. Then they made an inspection tour of the whole farm and surveyed the farmland, the hay meadow, the orchard, the pond, the scrub with speechless admiration. It was as if they had never seen these things before, and even now they could hardly believe they were all their own.
Then they walked back to the farm buildings and stood in silence outside the farmhouse door. That was theirs too, but they were afraid to go inside. After a moment, however, Snowball and Napoleon shouldered the door open, and the animals filed in and exited with extreme caution, afraid of disturbing anything. They tiptoed from room to room, afraid to speak over a whisper, and looked with a kind of awe at the incredible luxury, at the beds with their feather mattresses, the mirrors, the horsehair sofa, the Brussels carpet, the lithograph of the Queen Victoria above the mantelpiece in the drawing room. They were just coming down the stairs when Mollie went missing. When they went back, the others found that she was left in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones' dressing table and was holding it to her shoulder, admiring herself in the mirror in a very foolish way. The others reproached her sharply and left. Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial, and the beer keg in the scullery was branded with a kick from Boxer's hoof, otherwise nothing in the house was touched. On the spot, it was unanimously decided to keep the farmhouse as a museum. Everyone agreed that no animal should ever live there.
The animals ate breakfast, and then Snowball and Napoleon called them back together.
'Comrades,' said Snowball, 'it's half past six and we have a long day ahead of us. Today we start with the hay harvest. But there is one other thing that needs to be done first.”
The pigs have now revealed that for the past three months they have been teaching themselves to read and write from an old spelling book that had belonged to Mr Jones' children and which had been thrown on the rubbish heap. Napoleon sent for pots of black and white paint and led the way to the five-barred gate that opened onto the main street. Then Snowball (because it was Snowball who was the best at writing) took a brush between the knuckles of his painted trotterAGRICULTUREfrom the top bar of the gate and painted in its placeTIERFARM.That's what the farm was to be called from then on. Then they went back to the farm buildings, where Snowball and Napoleon sent for a ladder, which they put against the front wall of the big barn. They explained that through their studies over the past three months, the pigs have reduced the principles of animalism to seven precepts. These seven commandments would now be engraved on the wall; They would form an immutable law by which all animals on Animal Farm must live forever. With some difficulty (because it's not easy for a pig to balance on a ladder), Snowball climbed up and set to work, while Chatterbox held the paint pot a few rungs below him. The commandments were written on the tarmac wall in large white letters that could be read a hundred feet away. They ran like this:
1. What walks on two legs is an enemy.
2. What walks on four legs or has wings is a friend.
3. No animal may wear clothing.
4. No animal may sleep in a bed.
5. No animal may drink alcohol.
6. No animal may kill another animal.
7. All animals are equal.
It was very neatly written and apart from the fact that "friend" was spelled "friend" and one of the S's was upside down, the spelling was correct throughout. Snowball read it out loud for the benefit of them. Other. All the animals nodded in agreement, and the wiser ones immediately began to memorize the commandments.
"Well, comrades," cried Snowball, throwing down the brush, "to the hayfield! Let's take credit for getting into the harvest faster than Jones and his men could.”
But at that moment the three cows, who had seemed uncomfortable for some time, roared loudly. They hadn't been milked for twenty-four hours and their udders were nearly bursting. After some thought, the pigs sent for buckets and milked the cows quite successfully, their trotters well suited for this task. Soon there were five buckets of foaming creamy milk, which many of the animals were looking at with great interest.
"What do you want to do with all the milk?" someone asked.
"Jones used to mix some of this into our porridge," said one of the chickens.
"Don't worry about the milk, comrades!" cried Napoleon, standing in front of the buckets. "We'll take care of that. The harvest is more important. Comrade Snowball will lead the way. I'll follow in a few minutes. Forward, comrades! The hay is waiting.”
So the animals marched to the hay meadow to start harvesting, and when they came back in the evening, you noticed that the milk was gone.
HOW YOU WORK AND SWEATto get the hay in! But their efforts were rewarded, because the harvest was an even greater success than they had hoped.
Sometimes the work was hard; The devices were intended for humans, not animals, and it was a major disadvantage that no animal was able to use a tool that required standing on its hind legs. But the pigs were so clever that they came up with a way out of every difficulty. As for the horses, they knew every inch of the field, and actually knew the business of mowing and raking far better than Jones and his men ever did. The pigs didn't actually work, but directed and supervised the others. With their superior knowledge, it was natural that they should take the lead. Boxer and Clover hitched themselves to the cutter or horse rake (no bits or bridles needed today, of course) and trudged steadily around the field, while a pig ran after, calling, "Up, comrade! ' or 'Whoa back mate!' as the case might be. And every animal down to the lowest worked to turn the hay and gather it. Even the ducks and chickens toiled back and forth in the sun all day, carrying tiny hay hairs in their beaks. They ended up finishing the harvest in two days less time than it normally took Jones and his men. It was also the largest harvest the farm had ever seen. There was no waste at all; the hens and ducks had picked up the very last straw with their keen eyes. And not one animal on the farm had stolen a morsel.
All summer long, work on the farm went like clockwork. The animals were happy in a way they never thought possible. Each morsel of food was an acute, positive pleasure now that it was truly their own food, produced by and for themselves and not distributed to them by a reluctant Master. With the worthless parasitic humans gone, there was more for everyone to eat. There was also more free time, as inexperienced as the animals were. They encountered many difficulties - for example, later in the year when they were harvesting the corn they had to tread it the old way and blow the chaff away with their breath, since the farm had no threshing machine - but the pigs with their cleverness and boxers with his mighty muscles they always pulled through. Boxer was the admiration of all. He had been a hard worker in Jones' day, but now he seemed more like three horses than one; there were days when all the work of the farm seemed to rest on his mighty shoulders. From morning to night he pushed and pulled, always where the work was hardest. He had made an arrangement with one of the roosters to call him half an hour earlier than everyone else in the morning and do volunteer work for whatever seemed most needed before the regular day's work began. His answer to every problem, every setback was “I will work harder!” – that was his personal motto.
But everyone worked according to their means. The chickens and ducks, for example, saved five bushels of corn at harvest by collecting the stray kernels. No one stole, no one grumbled about their rations, the bickering and biting and jealousy that used to be part of life had all but disappeared. No one shied away from it - or almost no one. Although Mollie wasn't good at getting up in the morning and had a habit of leaving work early because she had a stone in her hoof. And the behavior of the cat was a little strange. It soon became apparent that the cat was never to be found when it came to work. She would disappear for hours and then reappear at mealtimes or in the evening after work as if nothing had happened. But she always apologized so excellently and purred so lovingly that it was impossible not to believe her good intentions. Old Benjamin the donkey seemed pretty much unchanged since the rebellion. He got the job done in the same slow, persistent way he had in Jones' day, never shying away from or volunteering for extra work. He declined to comment on the rebellion and its results. When asked if he wasn't happier now that Jones was gone, he simply replied, "Donkeys live long. None of you have ever seen a dead donkey,” and the others had to settle for this cryptic answer.
There was no work on Sundays. Breakfast was an hour later than usual, and after breakfast there was a ceremony that was observed every week without exception. First came the raising of the flag. Snowball had found an old green Mrs. Jones tablecloth in the pantry and had painted a hoof and horn in white on it. This was hoisted on the flagpole in the cottage garden every Sunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the hoof and horn symbolized the future republic of animals that would come into being when the human race was finally overthrown. After the flag was raised, all the animals flocked to the great barn for a general assembly known as a meeting. Here the work of the coming week was planned and resolutions were introduced and debated. It was always the pigs who made the decisions. The other animals understood how to vote, but could not come up with their own decisions. Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates. But it has been noted that these two never saw eye to eye: whatever suggestion either of them made, the other could be relied upon to oppose it. Even when it was decided, in principle no one objected, to use the little paddock behind the orchard as a convalescent home for disused animals, there was a great deal of debate about the correct retirement age for each class of animal. The meeting always ended with singing “Beasts of England”, and the afternoon was devoted to rest.
The pigs had reserved the harness room for their headquarters. Here they learned blacksmithing, carpentry and other necessary arts in the evenings using books they had brought from the farmhouse. Snowball was also busy organizing the other animals into so-called animal committees. In this he was tireless. He founded the Egg Production Committee for the chickens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the Wild Comrades' Reeducation Committee (the purpose of this committee was to tame the rats and rabbits), the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and more others, alongside the introduction of literacy classes. Overall, these projects were a failure. For example, attempts to tame the wild creatures failed almost immediately. They continued to behave much like before and simply took advantage of being treated with generosity. The cat joined the reform committee and was very active there for a few days. She was seen one day sitting on a roof talking to some sparrows that were just out of her reach. She told them that all the animals were companions now, and that any sparrow that wished could come and perch on their paw; but the sparrows kept their distance.
However, the reading and writing classes were a great success. By the fall almost every animal on the farm was literate to some extent.
As for the pigs, they could already read and write perfectly. The dogs learned to read fairly well, but were not interested in reading anything other than the Seven Commandments. Muriel the goat could read a little better than the dogs and sometimes read to the others in the evenings from scraps of newspaper she found on the rubbish heap. Benjamin could read as well as any pig, but never practiced his ability. As far as he knew, he said, there was nothing worth reading. Clover learned the whole alphabet but couldn't put words together. Boxer couldn't get past the letter D. He would draw A, B, C, D in the dust with his big hoof and then stare at the letters with ears flattened, sometimes shaking his forelock and trying all his could to remember what came next, and never had Success. In fact, on several occasions he learned E, F, G, H, but when he knew them, he always turned out to have forgotten A, B, C, and D. Eventually he decided to settle for the first four letters, writing them down once or twice a day to refresh his memory. Mollie refused to learn anything but the five letters of her own name. She fashioned these very neatly from pieces of twig and then adorned them with a flower or two and walked around admiring them.
None of the other animals on the farm got further than the letter A. It was also revealed that the dumber animals like sheep, chickens and ducks could not memorize the Seven Commandments. After much thought, Snowball explained that the Seven Commandments could indeed be reduced to a single maxim, namely: "four-legged good, two-legged bad". This, he said, contained the essential principle of animalism. Anyone who understood it thoroughly was safe from human influences. The birds initially protested, thinking they had two legs too, but Snowball proved that they didn't.
"A bird's wing, comrades," he said, "is an organ of propulsion, not an organ of manipulation. It should therefore be considered a leg. The distinguishing mark of man is theHand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.”
The birds did not understand Snowball's lengthy words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals went to work to memorize the new maxim.FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD,was written on the front wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in larger letters. Once they had memorized it, the sheep developed a great fondness for this maxim, and often as they lay in the pasture they all began to bleat: "Four-legged good, two-legged bad! Four-legged good, two-legged bad!” and keep it up for hours without getting tired.
Napoleon was not interested in Snowball's committees. He said that educating the youth is more important than anything that can be done for the adults. It so happened that Jessie and Bluebell had both given birth shortly after the hay harvest and together gave birth to nine vigorous puppies. Once they were weaned, Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would hold himself responsible for their upbringing. He took her to an attic accessible only by a ladder from the pantry, and kept her so secluded that the rest of the farm soon forgot her existence.
The mystery of where the milk went was soon solved. It was mixed into the pork porridge every day. The early apples were ripening now, and the grass of the orchard was strewn with fallen fruit. The animals naturally assumed that these would be distributed evenly; One day, however, the order was given that all the fallen fruit should be collected and taken to the harness room for the pigs to use. Some of the other animals mumbled at this, but it was no use. All the pigs were in complete agreement on this point, even Snowball and Napoleon. Squealer was sent to give the others the necessary explanations.
"Comrades!" he shouted. "You don't think, I hope, that we pigs do this out of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually don't like milk and apples. I don't like her myself. Our only goal in taking these things is to maintain our health. Milk and apples (this has been proven by science, comrades) contain substances that are absolutely necessary for a pig's well-being. We pigs are brain workers. The entire administration and organization of this farm depends on us. Day and night we watch over your well-being. It is foryourthat we drink this milk and eat these apples. You know what would happen if we pigs didn't do our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades,” cried Swashbuckler, almost pleadingly, hopping from side to side and wagging his tail, “surely there is none of you who would like to see Jones come back?”
If there was one thing the animals were absolutely certain of, it was that they didn't want Jones back. When it was presented to them in that light, they had nothing more to say. The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too evident. So it was agreed, without further arguments, that the milk and the fallen fruit apples (and also the main crop of ripe apples) should be reserved for the pigs alone.
UNTIL LATE SUMMERword of what had happened at Animal Farm had spread halfway across the county. Every day, Snowball and Napoleon would send out flocks of pigeons whose instructions were to mingle with the animals on neighboring farms, tell them the story of the rebellion, and teach them the tune of "Beasts of England."
Most of the time Mr. Jones had sat in the common room of the Red Lion in Willingdon, complaining to anyone who would listen about the monstrous injustice he had suffered when he was driven from his property by a pack of useless animals. The other peasants sympathized in principle, but did little to help him at first. Secretly, each of them wondered if they couldn't somehow turn Jones' misfortune to their own advantage. It was fortunate that the owners of the two farms that bordered Animal Farm had a persistently bad relationship. One of them, called Foxwood, was a large, neglected, old-fashioned farm, heavily overgrown with woods, with all its pastures worn and its hedges in a sorry state. Its owner, Mr Pilkington, was an easy-going gentleman farmer who spent most of his time fishing or hunting, depending on the season. The other farm, called Pinchfield, was smaller and better maintained. Its owner was a Mr. Frederick, a tough, smart man, perpetually involved in litigation and with a reputation for tough deals. These two liked each other so much that they found it difficult to come to terms, even when it came to defending their own interests.
Despite this, they were both very afraid of the rebellion at Animal Farm and were very careful not to let their own animals know too much about it. At first they pretended to laugh to despise the idea of animals running a farm for themselves. It was said that the whole thing would be over in a fortnight. They stated that the animals on the farm (they insisted on calling it a farm; they would not tolerate the name "animal farm") fought constantly and also quickly starved to death. As time passed and the animals obviously hadn't starved, Frederick and Pilkington changed their minds and began talking about the terrible malice that was now flourishing on Animal Farm. It was rumored that the animals there practiced cannibalism, tortured each other with red-hot horseshoes, and shared their mates. This is the result of rebellion against the laws of nature, said Frederick and Pilkington.
However, these stories have never been fully believed. Rumors of a wonderful farm where the people were evicted and the animals mind their own affairs continued to circulate in vague and distorted forms, and a wave of rebellion swept the country throughout the year. Bulls that had always been docile suddenly went wild, sheep tumbled down hedges and devoured clover, cows kicked over the bucket, hunters refused their fences and shot their riders to the other side. Especially the melody and even the lyrics of "Beasts of England" were known everywhere. It had spread with amazing speed. People couldn't contain their anger when they heard this song, even though they pretended to find it ridiculous. They couldn't understand, they said, how even animals could bring themselves to sing such contemptuous nonsense. Any animal caught singing was whipped on the spot. And yet the song was irrepressible. The blackbirds whistled it in the hedges, the doves cooed it in the elms, it got mixed up with the noise of the forges and the ringing of church bells. And when the people heard it, they secretly trembled, because they heard in it a prophecy of their future doom.
At the beginning of October, when the corn had been cut and stacked and some of it had already been threshed, a flock of pigeons whirled through the air and landed in the yard of Animal Farm in the wildest excitement. Jones and all his men, along with half a dozen others from Foxwood and Pinchfield, had entered through the five-barred gate and were coming up the cart track that led to the farm. They all carried sticks except for Jones, who was marching ahead, gun in hand. Obviously they wanted to try to take back the farm.
This had been long awaited and all preparations had been made. Snowball, who had studied an old book on Julius Caesar's campaigns that he found in the farmhouse, was in charge of the defensive operations. He gave his orders quickly, and in a few minutes each animal was at its post.
As humans approached the farm buildings, Snowball launched his first attack. All the pigeons, thirty-five in all, flew back and forth over the men's heads, dropping their dung from the air; and while the men were at it, the geese, which had been hiding behind the hedge, rushed out and pecked violently at their calves. However, this was only a light skirmishing maneuver intended to create a bit of disorder, and the men easily chased the geese away with their sticks. Snowball now launched his second line of attack. Muriel, Benjamin, and all the sheep, with Snowball in the lead, charged forward, poking and poking the men on all sides, while Benjamin turned and swatted at them with his tiny hooves. But once again the men with their sticks and their spiked boots were too strong for them; and suddenly, at a squeak of snowballs, which was the signal to retreat, all the animals turned and fled through the gate into the yard.
The men let out a shout of triumph. They saw, as they imagined, their enemies fleeing, and they hastened after them in disorder. That's exactly what Snowball had intended. No sooner were they far in the yard than suddenly the three horses, the three cows and the rest of the pigs that had been lying in wait in the cowshed appeared behind them and cut off their path. Snowball gave the signal to attack. He himself rushed straight at Jones. Jones saw him coming, raised his gun and fired. The bullets left bloody streaks on Snowball's back and one sheep dropped dead. Without pausing for a moment, Snowball threw his fifteen stone at Jones' legs. Jones was thrown into a dung heap and his gun flew out of his hands. But the most terrifying spectacle of all was Boxer rearing up on his hind legs and striking like a stallion with his great iron-shod hooves. His very first blow caught a Foxwood stable hand in the skull, laying him lifeless in the mud. Seeing this, several men dropped their sticks and tried to run away. They panicked and the next moment they were chasing all the animals around the yard together. They were impaled, kicked, bitten, trampled on. There wasn't an animal on the farm that didn't take revenge on them in its own way. Even the cat suddenly jumped off a roof onto a cowman's shoulders and sank its claws into his neck, at which he roared horribly. In a moment when the opening was clear the men were glad enough to rush out of the yard and make a deadbolt for the main street. And so, within five minutes of their invasion, they found themselves in ignominious retreat the way they had come, with a flock of geese chasing after them, all the while pecking at their calves.
All but one of the men had disappeared. Back in the yard, Boxer pawed his hoof at the stable boy, who was lying face down in the mud, trying to turn him over. The boy didn't move.
"He's dead," Boxer said sadly. "I had no intention of doing that. I forgot I was wearing iron shoes. Who will believe I didn't do this on purpose?"
"No sentimentality, comrade!" Snowball cried, blood still dripping from his wounds. “War is war. The only good man is a dead man.”
"I don't want to take a life, not even a human life," repeated Boxer, and his eyes filled with tears.
"Where's Mollie?" someone called.
Mollie was actually missing. For a moment there was great concern; It was feared that the men might have harmed her in some way or even taken her away. In the end, however, she was found hiding in her stable, her head buried in the hay of the manger. She had fled as soon as the gun went off. And when the others came back from looking for her, it turned out that the stable boy, who was really just stunned, had already recovered and made off.
The beasts were now reassembled in the wildest excitement, each loudly recounting his exploits in battle. Immediately, a spontaneous victory celebration took place. The flag was raised and "Beasts of England" was sung several times, then the slain sheep was given a solemn burial and a hawthorn bush planted on its grave. At the grave, Snowball gave a little speech emphasizing that all animals must be willing to die for Animal Farm if necessary.
The animals unanimously decided to create an Animal Hero First Class military award to be presented on the spot to Snowball and Boxer. It consisted of a brass medal (it was really some old horse brasses found in the harness room) to be worn on Sundays and holidays. There was also "Animal Hero Second Class" awarded posthumously to the dead sheep.
There was much debate as to what the battle should be called, in the end it was called the Battle of the Cowshed as that was where the ambush was struck. Mr Jones' gun had been found lying in the mud and there was known to be a stash of cartridges at the farmhouse. It was decided to place the gun like an artillery piece at the foot of the flagpole and fire it twice a year - once on October 12, the anniversary of the Battle of the Cowshed, and once on Midsummer's Day, the anniversary of the Rebellion.
WHILE THE WINTER DRAWNMollie was getting more and more annoying. She was late for work every morning, apologizing that she overslept and complaining of mysterious pains, although her appetite was excellent. Using every excuse, she ran away from work and went to the drinking basin, where she stood foolishly, gazing at her own reflection in the water. But there were also rumors of something more serious. One day Mollie was happily strolling into the yard, flirting with her long tail and chewing on a haystack. Clover took her aside.
"Mollie," she said, "I have something very serious to say to you. This morning I saw you looking over the hedge separating Animal Farm from Foxwood. One of Mr Pilkington's men was standing on the other side of the hedge. And - I was far away, but I'm almost sure I saw that - he was talking to you, and you allowed him to stroke your nose. What does that mean, Mollie?”
"He does not have! It was not me! That's not true!' Mollie cried and started frolicking and pawing at the ground.
"Mollie! look me in the face Do you give me your word of honor that this man didn't rub your nose?”
'That's not true!' repeated Mollie, but she couldn't look Shamrock in the face, and the next moment she turned back and galloped away into the field.
A thought occurred to Clover. Without saying anything to the others, she went to Mollie's stable and turned over the straw with her hoof. Hidden under the straw were a heap of sugar cubes and several bundles of different colored ribbons.
Three days later, Mollie disappeared. No other whereabouts were known for a few weeks, then the pigeons reported seeing them on the other side of Willingdon. She was between the shafts of an elegant dog cart painted red and black, parked in front of a tavern. A fat, red-faced man in plaid pants and leggings who looked like an innkeeper sniffed her nose and fed her sugar. Her cloak was freshly cut and she wore a scarlet ribbon around her forelock. She seemed to be enjoying herself, the pigeons said. None of the animals ever mentioned Mollie again.
Bitterly hard weather came in January. The earth was like iron and there was nothing to be done in the fields. Many meetings were held in the big barn and the pigs were busy planning the work for the coming season. It had become common practice that the pigs, obviously smarter than the other animals, should decide all questions of agricultural policy, but their decisions had to be ratified by majority vote. This arrangement would have worked well had it not been for the disputes between Snowball and Napoleon. These two disagreed on every point where disagreement was possible. If one suggested sowing a larger area with barley, the other would surely ask for a larger area of oats, and if one of them said that this or that field was just right for cabbage, the other would declare it useless except everything Root. Each had their own following, and there was some heated debate. At meetings, Snowball often won the majority with his brilliant speeches, but Napoleon was better at enlisting support in between. He was particularly successful with the sheep. Of late, the sheep had begun to bleat, "four-legged good, two-legged bad," both in season and out of season, and they often interrupted the meeting with that. They were found to be particularly prone to bursting into "four-legged good, two-legged bad" at crucial moments in Snowball's speeches. Snowball had carefully studied some of The's earlier numbersfarmers and ranchersthat he had found in the farmhouse and was full of plans for innovations and improvements. He spoke eruditely about farm runoff, silage, and bottom slag, and had devised an intricate plan whereby all the animals dropped their manure directly onto the fields at a different spot each day, saving the labor of the cart. Napoleon did not come up with any plans of his own, but calmly said that Snowball's plan would go nowhere and appeared to be biding his time. But of all their controversies, none was so bitter as that which took place over the windmill.
In the long pasture, not far from the outbuildings, there was a small hill, which was the highest point of the farm. After measuring the ground, Snowball explained that this was just the right place for a windmill that could run a dynamo and provide electricity for the farm. This would light the stables and warm in winter, and would operate a circular saw, a shredder, a chard cutter, and an electric milking machine. The animals had never heard of anything like it (for the farm was old-fashioned and had only the most primitive machines), and they listened in amazement while Snowball conjured up images of fantastic machines that would do their work for them while they grazed leisurely in the fields or improved their intellect through reading and conversation.
Within weeks, Snowball's plans for the windmill were complete. The mechanical details came largely from three books that Mr. Jones had heard - OneA thousand useful things to do about the house, every man his own mason, andstream for beginners. Snowball's study was in a shed that had previously been used for incubators, with a smooth wooden floor suitable for drawing. He was locked in there for hours. With his books propped open by a rock and a piece of chalk between the knuckles of his foot, he paced quickly, drawing line after line and letting out an excited whimper. Gradually the plans grew into an intricate mass of cranks and gears covering more than half of the floor, which the other animals found completely incomprehensible but very impressive. Everyone came at least once a day to look at Snowball's drawings. Even the chickens and ducks came, struggling not to step on the chalk marks. Only Napoleon stayed away. He had spoken out against the windmill from the start. However, one day he came unexpectedly to examine the plans. He walked clumsily around the shed, examining every detail of the plans and sniffing at them once or twice, then stood for a while looking at them out of the corner of his eye; then he suddenly lifted his leg, urinated over the plans and walked out without saying a word.
The whole court was deeply divided over the windmill issue. Snowball didn't deny that construction would be a difficult business. Stones would have to be broken and built into walls, then the sails would have to be made and after that dynamos and cables would be needed. (How these were to be obtained, Snowball didn't say.) But he did claim it could all be done in a year. And after that, he explained, so much labor would be saved that the animals would only have to work three days a week. On the other hand, Napoleon argued that at the moment there was an urgent need to increase food production and that if they wasted their time on the windmill they would all starve. The animals formed into two factions under the slogans "Vote for Snowball and the three-day week" and "Vote for Napoleon and the full crib". Benjamin was the only animal not to side with either faction. He refused to believe that food would become more plentiful or that the windmill would save labor. Windmill or not, he said, life would go on as it always had, which was bad.
In addition to the arguments about the windmill, the defense of the farm was at stake. It was perfectly clear that, although the humans had been defeated at the Battle of the Cowshed, they might make another and more determined attempt to retake the farm and reinstate Mr. Jones. They had all the more reason to do so when the news of their defeat had spread across the country and made the animals on the neighboring farms more restless than ever. As usual, Snowball and Napoleon were at odds. According to Napoleon, the animals had to obtain firearms and be trained in their use. According to Snowball, they must send out more and more pigeons and stir up the animals on the other farms to rebel. Some argued that if they could not defend themselves they would have to be conquered, others argued that if rebellions broke out everywhere they would not have to defend themselves. The animals listened first to Napoleon, then to Snowball, and couldn't decide which was right; yes, they always found themselves at one with the one who was speaking.
The day finally came when Snowball's plans were accomplished. At the meeting on the following Sunday, a vote was to be taken on whether or not to start work on the windmill. When the animals had gathered in the big barn. Snowball got up and, though occasionally interrupted by the bleating of the sheep, explained his reasons for building the windmill. Napoleon then got up to answer. He said very quietly that the windmill was nonsense and advised no one to vote for it, and immediately sat down again; He had spoken barely thirty seconds and seemed almost indifferent to the effect he was producing. At this Snowball sprang up, and the sheep, who had begun to bleat again, roared down and broke out in an impassioned appeal on behalf of the windmill. Until now, the animals' sympathies had been about equally divided, but for a moment, Snowball's eloquence had carried them away. In glowing sentences, he painted a picture of Animal Farm as it could be if the dirty work was taken off the animals' backs. His imagination was now far beyond the chopper and beet cutter. Electricity, he said, could run threshers, ploughs, harrows, rollers and reapers and trusses, and also provided each stall with its own electric light, hot and cold water, and electric heater. When he finished his speech, there was no doubt about the direction the vote would take. But just then, Napoleon stood up and gave Snowball a strange sideways glance and let out a high-pitched whimper the likes of which had never been heard before.
Then there was a terrible barking outside, and nine huge dogs with brass collars came running into the barn. They ran straight for Snowball, who jumped out of his seat just in time to escape their snapping jaws. In a moment he was out the door and they were after him. Too amazed and scared to speak, all the animals crowded through the door to watch the hunt. Snowball raced across the long pasture that led to the road. He ran as only a pig can run, but the dogs were hot on his heels. Suddenly he slipped and it seemed certain they had him. Then he was on his feet again, running faster than ever, then the dogs caught up with him again. One of them nearly closed its jaws on Snowball's tail, but Snowball brushed it free just in time. Then he gave an extra sprint and slipped through a hole in the hedge with a lead of a few centimeters and was not seen again.
Silent and frightened, the animals crept back into the barn. A moment later the dogs came bounding back. At first, no one could imagine where these creatures came from, but the problem was soon solved: it was the puppies that Napoleon took from their mothers and raised privately. Although they were not yet fully grown, they were huge dogs and looked as ferocious as wolves. They stuck close to Napoleon. It was noticeable that they wagged their tails at him in the same way that the other dogs were used to doing at Mr. Jones.
Napoleon now, with the hounds behind him, mounted the elevated part of the ground where Major had previously stood to deliver his speech. He announced that the Sunday morning meetings would end from now on. They were unnecessary, he said, and a waste of time. From now on, all issues related to the farm's work would be dealt with by a special pig committee chaired by him. These would meet privately and then share their decisions with the others. The animals still gathered on Sunday morning to salute the flag, sing "Beasts of England" and take their orders for the week; but there would be no more debates.
Despite the shock of Snowball's eviction, the animals were dismayed by the announcement. Some of them would have protested if they had found the right arguments. Even Boxer was a little concerned. He laid his ears back, shook his forelock several times, and tried hard to organize his thoughts; but in the end he couldn't think of anything to say. However, some of the pigs themselves were more articulate. Four young fattening pigs in the first row let out shrill cries of disapproval, and all four jumped up and began to speak at once. But suddenly the dogs sitting around Napoleon let out a low, menacing growl, and the pigs fell silent and sat down again. Then the sheep broke out in a tremendous bleating of "four-legged good, two-legged bad!" that lasted for almost a quarter of an hour and put an end to any discussion.
After that, Schwatzwurst was sent around the farm to explain the new arrangement to the others.
“Comrades,” he said, “I trust every animal here appreciates the sacrifice Comrade Napoleon made in taking on this extra work. Do not think, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your own decisions. But sometimes you may make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? Suppose you had chosen to follow Snowball out of windmills with his moonlight—Snowball, who we now know was no better than a criminal?”
"He fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed," someone said.
"Courage is not enough," said Schwatzwurst. “Loyalty and obedience are more important. And as for the Battle of the Cowshed, I believe there will come a time when we will find that Snowball's role in it was much exaggerated. Discipline, comrades, iron discipline! That's the catchphrase for today. One wrong step and our enemies would be upon us. Surely, comrades, you don't want Jones back?"
Once again, this argument was unanswerable. Surely the animals didn't want Jones back; If holding debates on Sunday mornings could bring him back, then the debates must stop. Boxer, who had now had time to think, expressed the general sentiment by saying:
"If Comrade Napoleon says so, it must be true." And from then on, in addition to his private motto "I will work harder", he adopted the maxim "Napoleon is always right".
By this time the weather had changed and spring plowing had begun. The shed where Snowball had drawn his plans of the windmill had been closed and the plans were believed to have been rubbed off the ground. Every Sunday morning at ten o'clock the animals would gather in the big barn to take their orders for the week. The old major's fleshless skull had been removed from the orchard and placed on a tree stump at the foot of the flagpole by the gun. After hoisting the flag, the animals had to reverently file past the skull before entering the stall. These days they didn't all sit together like they used to. Napoleon sat at the front on the raised platform with Chatterbox and another pig named Minimus, who had a remarkable talent for composing songs and poems, while the nine puppies formed a semicircle around them and the other pigs sat behind. The rest of the animals sat across from them in the main part of the barn. Napoleon read out the orders for the week in a gruff soldier's style, and after a single chant of "Beasts of England" all the animals scattered.
On the third Sunday after Snowball's eviction, the animals were somewhat surprised when Napoleon announced that the windmill should be built after all. He gave no reason for changing his mind, merely warning the animals that this extra task would be very hard work; it might even be necessary to reduce their rations. However, the plans were all prepared down to the smallest detail. A special committee of pigs had been working on them for the past three weeks. The construction of the windmill, with various other improvements, was to take two years.
That evening, Squealer explained privately to the other animals that Napoleon had never really been against the windmill. On the contrary, it had been he who initially advocated it, and the plan Snowball had drawn on the floor of the incubator shed had in fact been stolen from Napoleon's papers. The windmill was actually Napoleon's own creation. Then why, someone asked, did he speak out so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked very smart. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon's ruse. He hadseemeddefying the windmill simply as a maneuver to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and bad influence. Now that Snowball was out of the way, the plan could go ahead without his interference. That, Squealer said, is something called tactics. He repeated several times, "Tactics, comrades, tactics!", hopping around and wagging his tail with a merry laugh. The animals weren't sure what the word meant, but Schwatz spoke so convincingly and the three dogs that happened to be with him growled so menacingly that they accepted his explanation without further question.
ALL THE YEAR LONGthe animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work; they spared neither effort nor sacrifice, for they were well aware that everything they did was for their own benefit and those of their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving humans.
Throughout the spring and summer they worked a 60-hour week, and in August Napoleon announced that he would also work Sunday afternoons. This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal that refrained from doing it had its ration cut in half. Despite this, it was found necessary to leave certain tasks undone. The harvest was slightly less successful than the previous year and two fields that should have been seeded with roots in early summer were not seeded because plowing was not completed soon enough. It was foreseeable that the coming winter would be tough.
The windmill presented unexpected difficulties. There was a good limestone quarry on the farm, and plenty of sand and cement had been found in one of the outbuildings, so all building materials were to hand. But the problem the animals couldn't solve at first was how to break the stone into pieces of appropriate size. This seemed impossible except with pickaxes and crowbars, which no animal could use because no animal could stand on its hind legs. It was only after weeks of fruitless effort that someone came up with the right idea, namely to use gravity. Huge boulders, far too large to be used, littered the bottom of the quarry. The animals tied ropes around it, and then all together, cows, horses, sheep, any animal that could grasp the rope - even the pigs sometimes joined in at critical moments - dragged them with desperate slowness up the slope to the top of the quarry , where they were thrown over the edge to shatter into pieces below. The transport of the once broken stone was comparatively easy. The horses carried it off in wagonloads, the sheep hauled blocks by the block, even Muriel and Benjamin harnessed themselves to an old governess's cart and did their part. By late summer a sufficient supply of stone had accumulated, and then construction began under the supervision of the pigs.
But it was a slow, arduous process. It often took a whole day of arduous effort to haul a single boulder to the top of the quarry, and sometimes it didn't break when pushed over the edge. Nothing could have been accomplished without Boxer, whose strength seemed to rival that of all other animals combined. When the boulder began to slide and the animals cried out in despair at finding themselves being dragged down the hill, it was always Boxer who braced himself against the rope and brought the boulder to a halt. Watching him work inch by inch up the slope, his breathing fast, the tips of his hooves scraping the ground and his thick flanks sweating, filled everyone with admiration. Clover would sometimes warn him not to overexert himself, but Boxer would never listen to her. His two slogans "I will work harder" and "Napoleon is always right" seemed to be a sufficient answer to all problems. He had made an appointment with the rooster to call him three quarters of an hour earlier in the morning than half an hour. And in his free time, of which there were not many these days, he would go to the quarry alone, collect a load of crushed stone and haul it down to the windmill site unaided.
Despite the hardship of their work, the animals did not fare badly throughout the summer. If they didn't have more to eat than they had. had in Jones' days, at least they had no less. The benefit of only having to support yourself and not also supporting five extravagant people was such that it would have taken a lot of omissions to outweigh it. And in many ways, the animal way of doing things was more efficient and labor-saving. Jobs like pulling weeds, for example, could be done with a thoroughness impossible for humans. And since animals no longer stole, there was no need to separate pastures from arable land, which saved a lot of work in maintaining hedges and gates. Nevertheless, various unforeseen bottlenecks became noticeable over the course of the summer. Paraffin oil, nails, twine, dog biscuits and irons for the horseshoes were required which could not be produced on the farm. Later, in addition to various tools, seeds and artificial fertilizers and finally the machines for the windmill were needed. Nobody could imagine how these should be procured.
One Sunday morning, as the animals gathered to take their orders, Napoleon announced that he had decided on a new policy. From now on, Animal Farm would trade with neighboring farms: not for commercial purposes, of course, but simply to procure certain materials that were badly needed. The needs of the windmill must override everything else, he said. He therefore made arrangements to sell a stack of hay and part of the current year's wheat harvest, and if more money was later needed it had to be replenished by selling eggs, for which there was always a market at Willingdon. The chickens, Napoleon said, should welcome this sacrifice as their special contribution to the construction of the windmill.
Once again the animals felt a vague uneasiness. Never to deal with people, never to trade, never to use money—wasn't that among the earliest resolutions made at that first triumphant meeting after Jones' ouster? All animals remembered making such decisions: or at least they thought they remembered. The four young pigs, who had protested when Napoleon abolished the meetings, raised their voices timidly, but were immediately silenced by a tremendous growling of the dogs. Then the sheep burst out, as usual, "four-legged good, two-legged bad!" and the momentary awkwardness was smoothed out. Finally Napoleon silenced his trotter and announced that he had already made all the arrangements. It would not require any of the animals to come into contact with humans, which would clearly be highly undesirable. He intended to take the whole burden on his own shoulders. A Mr Whymper, a Willingdon-based solicitor, had agreed to act as an intermediary between the animal farm and the outside world and visited the farm every Monday morning to take his instructions. Napoleon ended his speech with his usual exclamation of “Long live Animal Farm!” and after the singing of “Beasts of England” the animals were released.
After that, chatter guard made a tour of the farm and calmed the animals down. He assured them that the resolution against trade and use of money had never been passed or even proposed. It was pure imagination, probably initially due to lies spread by Snowball. A few animals were still feeling slightly doubtful, but Schwartzwurst asked them slyly, "Are you sure you didn't dream that, comrades? Do you have records of such a decision? Is it written down somewhere?” And since there was certainly nothing of the sort in writing, the animals were content that they were wrong.
Every Monday Mr Whymper visited the farm as agreed. He was a smart-looking little man with whiskers, a lawyer in a very small business, but smart enough to realize before anyone else that Animal Farm needed a real estate agent and that the commissions would be worth it. The animals watched his comings and goings with a kind of fear and avoided him as best they could. However, the sight of Napoleon on all fours delivering orders to the bipedal Whymper roused her pride and partly reconciled her to the new arrangement. Her relationships with humanity were not quite the same now as they had been before. People didn't hate Animal Farm any less now that it was thriving, they hated it more than ever. Every man considered it an article of faith that sooner or later the farm would go bankrupt, and above all; that the windmill would fail. They would meet at the taverns and use diagrams to prove to each other that the windmill was bound to fall or that if it stood up it would never work. And yet, against their will, they had developed a certain respect for the efficiency with which the animals went about their own business. One symptom of this was that they had started calling Animal Farm by its real name and stopped pretending it was called Manor Farm. They had also dropped their championship from Jones, who had given up hope of getting his farm back and moved to another part of the county. There was as yet no contact between Animal Farm and the outside world other than through Whymper, but rumors abounded that Napoleon was going to make a definitive deal with either Mr Pilkington of Foxwood or Mr Frederick of Pinchfield - but it was never realised, with either simultaneously.
It was around this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse and took up residence there. Again the animals seemed to remember that a decision had been made against it in the early days, and again Chattel Warden was able to convince them that this was not the case. It's absolutely essential, he said, that the pigs, who are the brains of the farm, have a quiet place to work. It also befitted the leader's dignity (for lately he had begun to speak of Napoleon under the title "leader") to live in a house rather than in a mere stable. Nevertheless, some animals were disturbed when they heard that the pigs not only ate their meals in the kitchen and used the living room as a lounge, but also slept in the beds. Boxer did his usual "Napoleon is always right!" but Clover, thinking she remembered a definite decision against Betten, walked to the end of the barn and tried to decipher the Seven Commandments inscribed there. Unable to read more than a single letter, she went to get Muriel.
"Muriel," she said, "read me the Fourth Commandment. Doesn't that say something about never sleeping in a bed?”
Muriel was able to spell it with some difficulty.
"It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bedwith sheets' she finally announced.
Oddly enough, Clover hadn't remembered that the Fourth Commandment mentioned bed sheets; but since it was there on the wall, it must have been. And Schwatzwurst, who happened to be passing by at that moment, accompanied by two or three dogs, was able to put the whole thing into perspective.
'So you heard, comrades,' he said, 'that we pigs now sleep in the farmhouse beds? And why not? They certainly didn't assume there was ever a verdict against itbeds? A bed is just a place to sleep. A pile of straw in a stable is actually a bed. The rule was againstleaves, which are a human invention. We have removed the sheets from the peasant beds and sleep between blankets. And they are very comfortable beds too! But not more comfortably than we need, I can tell you that, comrades, given all the mental work we have to do these days. Surely you don't want to rob us of our peace, comrades? You wouldn't be too tired to take our dudes out? Surely none of you want to see Jones again?”
The animals immediately reassured him on this point, and nothing more was said about the pigs sleeping in the farmer's beds. And when it became known a few days later that the pigs would now get up an hour later in the morning than the other animals, no one complained about that either.
In the fall, the animals were tired but happy. They had had a rough year and after selling some of the hay and grain the food supplies for the winter weren't too plentiful, but the windmill made up for everything. It was almost half built now. After the harvest the weather was clear and dry for a stretch, and the animals worked harder than ever, finding it worth trudging blocks of stone all day if it could put the walls up another foot. Boxer even came out at night and worked alone for an hour or two in the light of the autumn moon. In their free moments, the animals would walk around the half-finished mill, admiring the strength and squareness of its walls, and marveling that they should ever have been able to build something so imposing. Only old Benjamin refused to get excited about the windmill, though, as always, he made nothing but the cryptic remark that donkeys live long.
November came with strong south-west winds. Construction had to be stopped because it was now too wet to mix the cement. Finally a night came when the storm was so violent that the farm buildings swayed on their foundations and several cubes were blown off the barn roof. The chickens woke up screaming in fear because they had all dreamed at the same time of hearing a gun going off in the distance. In the morning the animals came out of their pens to find that the flagpole had been blown down and an elm at the foot of the orchard had been plucked like a radish. They had just noticed this when a cry of desperation broke from the throats of all the animals. A horrible sight had presented itself to them. The windmill lay in ruins.
Unanimously they rushed to the spot. Napoleon, who rarely got out of the aisle, ran ahead of them all. Yes, there it lay, the fruit of all their struggles leveled to the ground, the stones they had broken and carried so laboriously scattered everywhere. Unable to speak at first, they stood and stared sadly at the debris of fallen stones. Napoleon paced in silence, occasionally sniffing the ground. His cock had stiffened and was jerking sharply from side to side, a sign of intense mental activity within him. Suddenly he stopped as if he had made up his mind.
"Comrades," he said quietly, "do you know who is responsible for this? Do you know the enemy who came in the night and overthrew our windmill?SNOWBALL!' he suddenly roared in a thunderous voice, 'Snowball made that thing! Out of sheer malice, intent on thwarting our plans and avenging his shameful expulsion, this traitor snuck here under cover of night and destroyed nearly a year of work. Comrades, here and now I pronounce the death sentence on Snowball. "Animal Hero, Second Class" and half a bushel of apples for every animal that brings him to justice. A full bushel to anyone who takes him alive!”
The animals were shocked beyond measure to learn that even Snowball could be guilty of such an act. There was a cry of indignation and everyone started thinking of ways to catch Snowball if he ever came back. Almost immediately, a pig's footprints were spotted in the grass a short distance from the rise. They could only be followed for a few yards, but seemed to lead to a hole in the hedge. Napoleon sniffed them deeply and declared they were Snowballs. He stated, in his opinion, that Snowball probably came from the direction of Foxwood Farm.
"No more delays, comrades!" exclaimed Napoleon when the footprints had been examined. ‘There is work to be done. We'll start rebuilding the windmill this morning, and we'll be building all winter long, rain or shine. We're going to teach this wretched traitor that he can't easily undo our work. Remember, comrades, nothing can be changed in our plans: they will be carried out to the day. Forward, comrades! Long live the windmill! Long live Animal Farm!”
IT WAS A BITTER WINTER.The blustery weather was followed by sleet and snow, and then a hard frost that didn't set in until well into February. The animals continued to rebuild the windmill as best they could, knowing that the outside world was watching and that the envious humans would be happy and triumphant if the mill was not finished on time.
Out of defiance, people pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who destroyed the windmill: they said it fell because the walls were too thin. The animals knew that this was not the case. Nevertheless, it had been decided to build the walls three feet thick this time, instead of eighteen inches as before, which meant collecting much larger amounts of stone. For a long time the quarry was covered in snowdrifts and nothing could be done. Some progress was made in the ensuing dry freezing weather, but it was cruel work and the animals could not be as hopeful as before. They were always cold and mostly hungry. Only Boxer and Clover never lost heart. Squealer gave excellent speeches about the joy of service and the dignity of work, but the other animals found more inspiration in Boxer's strength and his never-ending cry, "I'll work harder!"
Food was scarce in January. The corn ration was cut drastically and it was announced that an extra potato ration would be issued to compensate. Then it was found that most of the potato crop was iced up in the piles that weren't covered thick enough. The potatoes were soft and discolored, and few were edible. For days the animals had nothing to eat but chaff and scarcity. Hunger seemed to be staring them in the face.
It was vital to hide this fact from the outside world. Encouraged by the collapse of the windmill, people invented new lies about Animal Farm. Once again it was talked about that all the animals died of starvation and disease and that they constantly fought among themselves and resorted to cannibalism and infanticide. Napoleon, aware of the bad consequences that might ensue if the true facts of the food situation were known, decided to use Mr. Whympers to convey the opposite impression. Previously, during his weekly visits, the animals had had little or no contact with Whymper; but now a few chosen animals, mostly sheep, were instructed to remark casually in his ears that the rations had been increased. Additionally. Napoleon ordered the nearly empty bins in the storage shed to be filled almost to the brim with sand, which was then covered with the remains of grain and flour. Under suitable pretense, Whymper was shown around the storage shed and allowed a glimpse of the rubbish bins. He was deceived and continued to report to the outside world that there was no food shortage at the animal farm.
Nevertheless, towards the end of January it became apparent that some grain still had to be procured somewhere. In those days, Napoleon rarely appeared in public, spending all his time in the farmhouse, guarded at every door by ferocious-looking dogs. When he did come out, it was done in a ceremonial manner, with an escort of six dogs surrounding him tightly, growling if anyone got too close. He often didn't even show up on Sunday mornings, giving his orders through one of the other pigs, usually chatter guards.
One Sunday morning, Schwazwächter announced that the hens who had just come back to lay eggs had to give up their eggs. Napoleon had accepted a contract through Whymper for four hundred eggs a week. The price for this would be enough grain and flour to keep the farm going until summer came and conditions were easier.
When the hens heard this, they uttered a terrible cry. They had been warned beforehand that this sacrifice might be necessary, but had not believed it would actually happen. They were preparing their clutches for the spring session and protested that it would be murder to take the eggs away now. For the first time since Jones was ousted, there was something resembling a rebellion. Led by three young black Menorca hens, the hens made a determined attempt to thwart Napoleon's wishes. Their method was to fly to the rafters and deposit their eggs there, which smashed on the ground. Napoleon acted quickly and ruthlessly. He ordered the hens to stop rationing and decreed that any animal that gave a hen a grain of grain should be punished with death. The dogs ensured that these orders were carried out. The hens held out for five days, then they gave up and went back to their nest boxes. Nine chickens had died in the meantime. Their bodies were buried in the orchard and it was published that they had died of coccidiosis. Whymper heard nothing of this affair and the eggs were duly delivered and a grocery delivery truck drove to the farm once a week to collect them.
Snowball hadn't been seen the whole time. He was rumored to be hiding out on one of the neighboring farms, either Foxwood or Pinchfield. Napoleon at this point had somewhat better relations with the other peasants than before. It happened that in the yard there was a pile of wood that had been piled up there ten years ago when clearing a beech bark. It was well seasoned, and Whymper had advised Napoleon to sell it; Both Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick were anxious to buy it. Napoleon hesitated between the two, unable to make up his mind. It has been noted that whenever Snowball seemed about to come to terms with Frederick, he was hiding at Foxwood, while when Snowball was leaning towards Pilkington he was at Pinchfield.
Suddenly, early in the spring, something disturbing was discovered. Snowball secretly visited the farm at night! The animals were so confused that they could hardly sleep in their boxes. Every night, it was said, he crept in under the cover of darkness and fomented all sorts of mischief. He stole the grain, he killed the milk pails, he broke the eggs, he trampled on the seedbeds, he gnawed the bark off the fruit trees. When things went wrong, it became common to blame Snowball. If a window was broken or a drain clogged, someone was sure to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key to the storage shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown him in the Spring. Curiously, they continued to believe so after the misplaced key was found under a sack of flour. The cows unanimously declared that Snowball had crawled up their stalks and milked them while they slept. The rats, who had been a nuisance this winter, are also said to have been in league with Snowball.
Napoleon decreed that it should be a full investigation into Snowball's activities. With his dogs in company, he set out on a careful inspection of the farm buildings, the other animals following at a respectful distance. Every few steps Napoleon would stop and sniff the ground for traces of Snowball's footsteps, which he said he could tell by smell. He sniffed in every corner, in the barn, in the cowshed, in the chicken coops, in the vegetable garden, and found traces of Snowball almost everywhere. He pressed his snout to the ground, sniffed deeply several times and cried out in a terrible voice: "Snowball! He was here! I can smell it clearly!” and at the word “snowball” all the dogs let out bloodthirsty growls and showed their posterior teeth.
The animals were terrified. It seemed to them that Snowball was some kind of invisible influence that permeated the air around them, threatening them with all sorts of dangers. In the evening, Chatterbox called them all together and, with a troubled look on his face, informed them that he had something serious to report.
“Comrades!” cried Schwatzwischer and made little nervous hops, “something really terrible has been discovered. Snowball sold himself to Frederick from Pinchfield Farm who even now is planning to attack us and take our farm away from us! Snowball is to act as his guide when the attack begins. But there are worse things. We thought Snowball's rebellion was simply caused by his vanity and ambition. But we were wrong, comrades. Do you know what the real reason was? Snowball was in league with Jones from the start! He was Jones' secret agent the whole time. All of this is proven by documents he left behind that we have only just discovered. I think that explains a lot, comrades. Didn't we see for ourselves how he tried - luckily without success - to defeat and destroy us at the Battle of the Cowshed?"
The animals were stunned. This was malice far surpassing Snowball's destruction of the windmill. But it took them a few minutes to fully absorb it. They all remembered, or thought they remembered, how they had seen Snowball charge ahead of them at the Battle of the Cowshed, how he had gathered and encouraged them at every turn, and how he had not stopped for a moment, even as the shotgun pellets wounded his back from Jones' rifle. At first it was a little difficult to see how that fitted in with his presence on Jones' side. Even Boxer, who rarely asked questions, was confused. He lay down, pulled his front hooves under him, closed his eyes, and with great effort managed to form his thoughts.
"I don't think so," he said. "Snowball fought valiantly in the Battle of the Cowshed. I saw him myself. Didn't we give him "Animal Hero, First Class" right after that?"
“That was our mistake, comrade. Because we now know - it's all in the secret documents we found - that he was actually trying to lure us to our undoing.”
"But he was wounded," Boxer said. "We all saw him run from blood."
"That was part of the deal!" cried Schwartzwurst. 'Jones' shot just grazed him. I could show you that in his own writing if you could read it. The plot saw Snowball give the signal to flee at the critical moment, leaving the field to the enemy. And he almost succeeded - I would even say, comrades, hewantwould have succeeded if it had not been for our heroic leader, Comrade Napoleon. Don't you remember how exactly the moment Jones and his men entered the yard. Snowball suddenly turned and fled, and many animals followed him? And don't you also remember that just at that moment, when panic was spreading and all seemed lost, Comrade Napoleon leapt forward with a cry of "Death to mankind!"? and sink his teeth into Jones' leg? Surely you rememberthe'Comrades?' shouted Screecher, groping from side to side.
Now, as Squealer described the scene so vividly, the animals seemed to remember it. Anyway, they remembered that at the critical moment of the battle, Snowball had turned to flee. But Boxer was still a little uneasy.
"I don't think Snowball was a traitor to begin with," he finally said. “What he has done since then is different. But I think he was a good comrade at the Battle of the Cowshed.”
"Our leader, Comrade Napoleon," Schwatzwischer announced very slowly and firmly, "has stated categorically - categorically, comrade - that Snowball was Jones' agent from the beginning - yes, and long before the rebellion was even thought of."
"Ah, that's different!" said Boxer. "If Comrade Napoleon says so, it must be true."
"That's the true spirit, comrade!" cried Schwatzwischer, but it was noticeable that he gave Boxer a very ugly look with his small sparkling eyes. He turned to go, then paused and added forcefully, "I warn every animal on my farm to keep their eyes very wide open. Because we have reason to believe that some of Snowball's secret agents are lurking among us at this very moment!"
Four days later, late afternoon. Napoleon ordered all animals to gather in the courtyard. When they were all assembled, Napoleon emerged from the farmhouse with his two medals (for he had recently decorated himself as "Beast Hero First Class" and "Beast Hero Second Class"), while his nine enormous dogs scampered around him, roaring and snarling , which sent shivers down the spines of all animals. They all hunkered down in silence, seeming to know in advance that something terrible was about to happen.
Napoleon stood looking sternly at his audience; then he let out a high-pitched whimper. Immediately the dogs sprang forward, grabbed four of the pigs by the ear and, shrieking in pain and terror, dragged them at Napoleon's feet. The pigs' ears were bleeding, the dogs had tasted blood, and for a few moments they seemed to go mad. To everyone's astonishment, three of them threw themselves on Boxer. Boxer saw them coming and stretched out his big hoof, catching a dog in midair and pinning it to the ground. The dog cried out for mercy and the other two fled, tails tucked. Boxer looked at Napoleon to know whether to crush the dog to death or let go. Napoleon seemed to change his stance and sharply ordered Boxer to let go of the dog, whereupon Boxer lifted his hoof and the dog slunk off, injured and howling.
Meanwhile the tumult died down. The four pigs waited, trembling, guilt in every line of their features. Napoleon now asked them to confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs Napoleon protested against when Napoleon abolished Sunday meetings. Without further prompting, they confessed that they had been secretly associated with Snowball since his eviction, that they had worked with him in destroying the windmill, and that they had reached an agreement with him to hand over the animal farm to Mr. Frederick. They added that Snowball had privately admitted to them that he had been Jones' secret agent for the past few years. When they had finished their confession, the dogs immediately gaped at their throats, and in a terrible voice Napoleon asked if any other animal had anything to confess.
The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted egg rebellion now came forward and said that Snowball had appeared to them in a dream and had incited them to disobey Napoleon's commands. They too were slaughtered. Then a goose came out and confessed to having dropped six ears of corn during last year's harvest and eaten them in the night. Then one sheep confessed to urinating in the drinking basin—urged to do so, she said, by Snowball—and two other sheep confessed to murdering an old ram, a particularly devoted supporter of Napoleon, by chasing him around the campfire, when he was suffering from a cough. They were all killed on the spot. And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until a heap of corpses lay at Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood unknown there since Jones was driven out.
When it was all over, the remaining animals, except for the pigs and dogs, crawled away in one body. They were shaken and miserable. They didn't know what was more shocking - the betrayal of the animals who had allied with Snowball or the cruel retribution they had just witnessed. In the past there had often been scenes of bloodshed just as terrible, but now that it was happening among them it seemed far worse to all of them. To this day, no animal had killed another animal since Jones left the farm. Not even a rat had been killed. They had made their way to the little rise where the half-finished windmill stood, and in unison they all lay down as if snuggling up to each other for warmth--Clover, Muriel, Benjamin, the cows, the sheep, and a whole flock of geese and chickens – all of them, really, except for the cat, who suddenly disappeared just before Napoleon ordered the animals to assemble. For a while nobody spoke. Only Boxer stayed on his feet. He wriggled back and forth, wagging his long black tail against his sides and occasionally letting out a small whinny of surprise. Finally he said:
'I do not get it. I would not have believed that something like this could happen in our yard. It must be a fault within ourselves. I see the solution in working harder. From now on I shall get up a full hour earlier in the morning.” And he set off at his ponderous trot and set off for the quarry. Once there, he collected two consecutive loads of rocks and hauled them down to the windmill before retiring for the night.
The animals crowded around Clover in silence. The hill on which they lay gave them a wide view of the country. Most of the animal farm was in sight - the long pasture that stretched down to the main road, the hay meadow, the spider, the drinking basin, the plowed fields where the young wheat was thick and green, and the red ones Roofs of farm buildings smoke curls from chimneys. It was a clear spring evening. The grass and the crumbling hedges were gilded by the even rays of the sun. Never had the farm - and with a kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm, every inch of it their property - seemed such a coveted place to the animals. As Clover looked down the hill, her eyes filled with tears. If she could have voiced her thoughts, it would have been to say that that was not the goal when they set out to work to overthrow humanity years ago. Those scenes of horror and carnage were not what they had been looking forward to that night when the old Major first called them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it was of a company of animals freed from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working to the best of his ability, the strong protecting the weak as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her Foreleg on the night of Major's speech. Instead—she didn't know why—they had entered a time when no one dared speak their mind, when wild, snarling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you watched your comrades be ripped to pieces after committing shocking crimes had stood. She had no thoughts of rebellion or disobedience. She knew that even so much better off than in Jones's day, it was necessary to prevent the return of the humans before anything else. Whatever happened, she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out orders given to her and accept Napoleon's leadership. But still she and all the other animals had not hoped for it and had struggled. They hadn't built the windmill and faced the bullets from Jones' cannon for that. Those were her thoughts, though she didn't have the words to express them.
Eventually she felt that in some way this was a substitute for the words she couldn't find and started singing "Beasts of England". The other animals sitting around them picked it up and sang it through three times - very melodiously, but slowly and sadly, in a way they had never sung before.
They had just finished singing it for the third time when Schwatzwurst, accompanied by two dogs, approached them with an air of having something important to say. He announced that "Beasts of England" had been abolished by a special decree of Comrade Napoleon. From now on it was forbidden to sing it.
The animals were surprised.
"Why?" Muriel exclaimed.
"It's no longer needed, comrade," Shrieker said stiffly. “Beasts of England was the song of rebellion. But the rebellion is now over. The execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final act. The enemy without and the enemy within have been defeated. In "Beasts of England" we expressed our longing for a better society in the coming days. But this society has now established itself. Obviously this song has no purpose anymore.”
Although frightened, some of the animals might have protested, but at that moment the sheep started their usual bleat of "four-legged good, two-legged bad" that lasted for several minutes and ended the discussion.
So "Beasts of England" was no longer heard. In its place, the poet Minimus had composed another song, which began:
animal farm animal farm,
You shall never be harmed by me!
and this was sung every Sunday morning after the raising of the flag. But somehow neither the words nor the melody ever seemed to match the animals to "Beasts of England".
A FEW DAYS LATER,When the terror caused by the executions had subsided, some of the animals remembered - or thought they remembered - that the sixth commandment was: "No animal shall kill another animal." The pigs or the dogs, it was felt that the killings that had taken place were inconsistent with this. Clover asked Benjamin to read her the Sixth Commandment, and when Benjamin said, as usual, that he refuses to interfere in such matters, Muriel fetched her. Muriel read her the commandment. It read: “No animal shall kill another animalfor no reason.' Somehow the animals had slipped the last two words from their memories. But they now saw that the commandment had not been violated; for there was clearly a good reason for killing the traitors who had allied with Snowball.
Throughout the year, the animals worked even harder than the year before. Rebuilding the windmill with walls twice as thick and completing it on schedule, along with the regular work of the farm, was an enormous job. There were times when the animals seemed as if they worked longer and ate no better than in Jones' day. On Sunday morning, Schwatzwischer, pressing down a long strip of paper with his foot, read them lists of numbers proving that the production of each class of food had increased by two hundred percent, three hundred percent, or five hundred cents, if applicable. The animals saw no reason to him unbelievable, since they couldn't remember exactly how things had been before the rebellion. Still, there were days when they felt they'd rather have fewer figures and more food.
All orders were now given by Squealer or one of the other pigs. Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as every two weeks. When he appeared, he was not only accompanied by his entourage of dogs, but also by a black rooster, who marched in front of him and acted as a sort of trumpeter, letting out a loud "rooster-a-scribble-doo" before Napoleon spoke. Even in the farmhouse, it was said, Napoleon lived in separate apartments from the others. He ate his meals alone, with two dogs to look after him, and always ate from the Crown Derby dinner service that had been in the glass cabinet in the drawing room. It was also announced that the gun would be fired each year on Napoleon's birthday, as well as the other two anniversaries.
Napoleon was never spoken of simply as "Napoleon" anymore. He was always formally referred to as "our leader, comrade Napoleon," and the pigs liked to invent for him such titles as "father of all animals," "terror of mankind," "protector of the sheepfold," "friend of the ducklings," and the like . In his speeches, Squealer spoke with tears streaming down his cheeks of Napoleon's wisdom, the kindness of his heart and the deep love he had for all animals around the world, even and especially the unfortunate animals that were still in ignorance and slavery lived on other farms. It had become customary to give Napoleon credit for every successful achievement and stroke of luck. One hen was often heard saying to the other: "Under the direction of our leader, Comrade Napoleon, I laid five eggs in six days"; or two cows, enjoying a sip at the pond, exclaimed: “Thanks to Comrade Napoleon’s guidance, how excellent this water tastes!” The general mood on the farm was expressed in a poem entitled Comrade Napoleon which was composed by Minimus and ran as follows:
Friend of the fatherless!
Fountain of Happiness!
Lord of the Dish Bucket! Oh, how is my soul
Fire when I look at yours
calm and commanding eye,
like the sun in the sky,
Comrade Napoleon!You are the giver of
Everything your creatures love
Twice a day a full belly, clean straw to roll;
Any animal big or small
sleeps quietly in his stable,
you watch over everything
Comrade Napoleon!If I had a suckling pig
Before he got that big
Also available as a pint bottle or as a rolling pin,
He should have learned
faithful and faithful to you,
Yes, his first squeak should be
"Comrade Napoleon!"
Napoleon approved this poem and had it hung on the wall of the great barn opposite the Seven Commandments. It was surmounted by a portrait of Napoleon in profile, executed in white paint by Squealer.
Meanwhile, through the mediation of Whymper, Napoleon was engaged in complicated negotiations with Frederick and Pilkington. The pile of wood was still unsold. Of the two, Friedrich was the most eager to get hold of it, but he didn't want to offer a reasonable price. At the same time there were renewed rumors that Friedrich and his men were planning an attack on the animal farm and the destruction of the windmill whose construction had aroused furious jealousy in him. Snowball was known to still be prowling around Pinchfield Farm. In the middle of summer, the animals were startled to hear that three chickens had come forward and confessed that, inspired by Snowball, they had plotted to assassinate Napoleon. They were immediately executed and new arrangements made for Napoleon's safety. Four dogs guarded his bed at night, one on each corner, and a young pig named Pinkeye was given the task of tasting all of his food before eating it lest it become poisoned.
About the same time it became known that Napoleon wished to sell the pile of wood to Mr. Pilkington; he would also enter into a regular product exchange agreement between Animal Farm and Foxwood. Relations between Napoleon and Pilkington, though conducted only through Whymper, were now almost friendly. The animals distrusted Pilkington as a human but preferred him to Frederick, whom they both feared and hated. As summer wore on and the windmill neared completion, rumors of an impending treacherous attack grew. Friedrich, it was said, wanted to turn twenty men armed with guns against them, and he had already bribed the judges and police so they would not ask questions once he could get his hands on the Animal Farm flood charters. Also, horrifying stories leaked out of Pinchfield about the cruelty Frederick practiced on his animals. He had whipped an old horse to death, he starved his cows, he had killed a dog by throwing it in the oven, he amused himself in the evenings by making roosters fight with razor shards tied to their spurs. The animals' blood boiled with anger to hear these things being done to their comrades, and sometimes they clamored to go out in a body and attack Pinchfield Farm, driving the people away and releasing the animals. But Schwatzwurst advised them to avoid hasty actions and to trust in Comrade Napoleon's strategy.
Nevertheless, the mood against Friedrich continued to boil. Napoleon appeared in the barn one Sunday morning and declared that he had never thought of selling the pile of wood to Frederick; he considered it beneath his dignity, he said, to deal with villains of this nature. The doves, still being sent out to spread word of the rebellion, were banned from entering Foxwood and also ordered to drop their previous slogan "Death to Mankind" in favor of "Death to Frederick". In late summer, another of Snowball's machinations was uncovered. The wheat crop was full of weeds, and Snowball was discovered to have mixed weed seeds with the seed grain on one of his nocturnal visits. A gander, privy to my conspiracy, had confessed his guilt to Squealer and immediately committed suicide by swallowing deadly nightshade berries. The animals also learned that Snowball had never received the Order of Animal Hero First Class, as many of them previously believed. This was merely a legend spread by Snowball himself some time after the battle in the Cowshed. Far from being decorated, he had been censured for showing cowardice in battle. Once again, some of the animals heard this with some confusion, but Schwatzwurst was soon able to convince them that their memories were to blame.
In the autumn, the windmill was completed with a tremendous, arduous effort - because the harvest had to be brought in almost simultaneously. The machinery still had to be installed and Whymper negotiated the purchase, but the structure was complete. Despite all the difficulties, despite inexperience, primitive equipment, bad luck and Snowball's betrayal, the work was done to the day! Tired but proud, the animals circled their masterpiece, which they thought was even more beautiful than when it was first built. In addition, the walls were twice as thick as before. Nothing short of explosives would bring them down this time! And as they thought of how they had labored, what discouragements they had overcome, and what a tremendous difference their lives would make when the sails turned and the dynamos ran - as they thought of it all, their weariness left them and they raged about around the windmill and let out shouts of triumph. Napoleon himself, accompanied by his hounds and rooster, came down to inspect the finished work; He personally congratulated the animals on their achievement and announced that the mill would be named Napoleon Mill.
Two days later, the animals were called to a special meeting in the barn. They were speechless with surprise when Napoleon announced that he had sold the woodpile to Friedrich. Tomorrow Frederick's wagons would arrive and begin the removal. Throughout his apparent friendship with Pilkington, Napoleon had actually been in secret agreement with Frederick.
All ties with Foxwood were severed; insulting messages had been sent to Pilkington. The pigeons had been told to avoid Pinchfield Farm and change their slogan from "Death to Frederick" to "Death to Pilkington". At the same time, Napoleon assured the animals that the stories of an imminent attack on the animal farm were entirely false and that the stories of Frederick's cruelty to his own animals had been greatly exaggerated. All of these rumors were likely started by Snowball and his agents. It now turned out that Snowball was not hiding at Pinchfield Farm after all, and indeed had never been there in his life: he lived - in considerable luxury, it was said - at Foxwood, and had in fact been a pensioner from Pilkington for years .
The pigs were in ecstasy at Napoleon's ruse. Apparently being kind to Pilkington, he had forced Frederick to increase his price by twelve pounds. But the superior quality of Napoleon's spirit, Schwatzwurst said, is demonstrated by the fact that he doesn't trust anyone, not even Frederick. Frederick had wanted to pay for the lumber with what was called a check, which appeared to be a piece of paper with a promise to pay. But Napoleon was too smart for him. He had asked for payment in real five pound notes to be handed over before the timber was taken away. Frederick had already paid; and the sum he had paid was just enough to buy the machinery for the windmill.
Meanwhile, the wood was being transported away at high speed. When everything was gone, another special meeting was held in the barn for the animals to inspect Friedrich's banknotes. Smiling happily and clad in his two decorations, Napoleon reclined on a bed of straw on the platform, the money at his side, neatly stacked on a china plate from the farmhouse kitchen. The animals walked by slowly and everyone was fed up. And Boxer stuck his nose out to sniff the bills, and the thin white things moved and rustled with his breath.
Three days later there was a terrible roar. Whymper came racing up the path on his bike, face pale as death, threw it into the yard and stormed straight into the farmhouse. In the next moment, a choking roar of rage came from Napoleon's chambers. News of what had happened spread around the farm like wildfire. The banknotes were fake! Friedrich got the wood for free!
Napoleon immediately summoned the animals and in a terrible voice proclaimed the death sentence on Frederick. If captured, he said, Friedrich should be boiled alive. At the same time, he warned them that the worst was to be expected after this treacherous act. Frederick and his men could launch their long-awaited attack at any moment. Guards have been placed at all entrances to the farm. In addition, four pigeons were sent to Foxwood with a conciliatory message which it was hoped could restore good relations with Pilkington.
The attack came the very next morning. The animals were at breakfast when the lookouts rushed in with the news that Frederick and his followers had already come through the five-barred gate. The animals charged boldly enough to meet them, but this time they did not have the easy victory they had won at the Battle of the Cowshed. There were fifteen men with half a dozen guns, and they opened fire as soon as they got within fifty yards. The animals could not withstand the terrible explosions and the stabbing bullets, and despite Napoleon's and Boxer's efforts to rally them, they were soon driven back. Some of them were already wounded. They sought refuge in the outbuildings, cautiously peering out of cracks and knotholes. The whole great pasture, including the windmill, was in enemy hands. For the moment even Napoleon seemed at a loss. He paced wordlessly, his cock stiff and twitching. Wistful looks were sent towards Foxwood. If Pilkington and his men would help them, the day might yet be won. But at that moment the four pigeons that had been sent out the day before returned, one with a slip from Pilkington. It said in pencil, "Serves you right."
Meanwhile Friedrich and his men had halted at the windmill. The animals watched them, and a dismayed murmur went around. Two of the men had produced a crowbar and a sledgehammer. They wanted to tear down the windmill.
"Impossible!" exclaimed Napoleon. “We built the walls much too thick for that. They couldn't tear it down in a week. Courage, comrades!”
But Benjamin carefully watched the movements of the men. The two with the hammer and crowbar drilled a hole near the base of the windmill. Slowly and almost amused, Benjamin nodded his long snout.
"I thought so," he said. "Don't you see what they're doing? Another moment they will put explosive powder in this hole.”
The animals waited in fear. It was now impossible to venture beyond the shelter of the buildings. After a few minutes, the men could be seen running in all directions. Then there was a deafening roar. The doves whirled through the air, and all the animals, except Napoleon, threw themselves flat on their bellies and hid their faces. When they got up again, there was a huge plume of black smoke where the windmill had been. The wind slowly blew it away. The windmill had ceased to exist!
At this sight, the beasts' courage returned. The fear and desperation they had felt a moment before were drowned in their anger at this heinous, despicable act. A mighty cry of vengeance went up, and without waiting for further orders, they rushed in a body and straight at the enemy. This time they ignored the cruel bullets that swept over them like hail. It was a wild, bitter fight. The men kept firing, hitting them with their sticks and heavy boots when the animals got close. A cow, three sheep and two geese were killed and almost all injured. Even Napoleon, directing operations from behind, had his tail's DP struck by a bullet. But the men were not left unscathed either. Three of them had their heads broken by blows from Boxer's hooves, another had his stomach impaled on a cow horn, and another had Jessie and Bluebell's pants almost ripped off. And when the nine dogs of Napoleon's own bodyguard, whom he had ordered to make a detour under the cover of the hedge, suddenly appeared on the men's flank, barking wildly, they panicked. They saw that they were in danger of being surrounded. Friedrich shouted at his men to get out while things were going well, and the next moment the cowardly enemy ran for his life. The animals chased them to the end of the field, giving them last kicks as they made their way through the thorn hedge.
They had won, but they were tired and bleeding. Slowly they began limping back to the yard. The sight of their dead comrades on the grass moved some of them to tears. And for a little while they stood in sad silence where the windmill had once stood. Yes, it was gone, almost the last trace of her work was gone! Even the foundations were partially destroyed. And when rebuilding, this time they could not use the fallen stones as before. This time the stones were gone too. The force of the explosion had thrown them hundreds of meters away. It was as if the windmill had never existed.
As they neared the farm, Squealer, who had inexplicably been absent during the fighting, sprang at them, tail wagging and beaming with satisfaction. And the animals heard the solemn roar of a cannon from the direction of the farm buildings.
"What's that gun firing for?" said Boxer.
"To celebrate our victory!" Shrieker shouted.
"What victory?" said Boxer. His knees were bleeding, he'd lost a shoe and split his hoof, and a dozen pellets had lodged in his hind leg.
"What victory, comrade? Have we not driven the enemy from our soil—the sacred soil of Animal Farm?”
“But they destroyed the windmill. And we had been working on it for two years!”
'Which matter? We will build another windmill. We'll build six windmills if we feel like it. You don't appreciate, comrade, what we have achieved. The enemy occupied this very ground on which we stand. And now – thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon – we have regained every inch of it!”
"Then we regained what we had before," Boxer said.
"This is our victory," Squealer said.
They hobbled into the yard. The beads under the skin of Boxer's leg burned painfully. He envisaged the hard work of rebuilding the windmill from scratch, and mentally he braced himself for the task. But for the first time it occurred to him that he was eleven years old and maybe his big muscles weren't quite what they used to be.
But when the animals saw the green flag waved and heard the gun fire again—it was fired a total of seven times—and heard Napoleon's speech congratulating them on their conduct, it seemed to them that they had a great one won victory. The animals killed in battle were solemnly buried. Boxer and Clover pulled the wagon that served as a hearse, and Napoleon himself led the procession. Two whole days were devoted to celebrations. There were songs, speeches and more gunfire, and each animal was given an apple as a special gift, with two ounces of corn for each bird and three biscuits for each dog. It was announced that the battle would be called the Battle of the Windmills and that Napoleon had created a new decoration, the Order of the Green Banner, which he had bestowed on himself Forgotten.
A few days later, the pigs found a case of whiskey in the basement of the farmhouse. When the house was first occupied, it had been overlooked. That night, loud singing erupted from the farmhouse, mixed in with the sounds of "Beasts of England" to everyone's surprise. At about nine-thirty Napoleon could clearly be seen, wearing an old Mr. Jones bowler hat, emerge from the back door, cantered quickly around the yard and disappeared back inside. But in the morning a deep stillness lay over the farmhouse. Neither pig seemed to move. It was almost nine o'clock when Gossiper showed up, slow and dejected, with bleary eyes, a limp tail hanging back and by all appearances seriously ill. He called the animals together and told them he had terrible news to deliver. Comrade Napoleon was dying!
A wail rang out. Straw was laid out in front of the farmhouse doors and the animals tiptoed. With tears in their eyes, they asked each other what to do if their leader was taken away from them. It was rumored that Snowball managed to fill Napoleon's food with poison after all. At eleven o'clock Squealer came out to make another call. As his last act on earth. Comrade Napoleon had promulgated a solemn decree: drinking alcohol was to be punished with death.
However, until the evening. Napoleon seemed to be doing a little better, and Schwatzwischer was able to tell them the next morning that he was on the way to recovery. That evening Napoleon was back at work, and the next day it was learned that he had instructed Whymper to go to Willingdon to buy some pamphlets on brewing and distilling. A week later, in the small paddock behind me, Napoleon ordered the plowing up of an orchard that had previously been intended to be used as grazing land for unemployed animals. It was published that the pasture was exhausted and had to be resown: but it was soon known that Napoleon intended to sow it with barley.
It was around this time that a strange incident happened that hardly anyone could understand. One night around twelve o'clock there was a loud crash in the yard and the animals fell out of their stalls. It was a moonlit night. At the foot of the front wall of the great barn where the Seven Commandments were written lay a ladder broken in two. Squealer, temporarily stunned, lay beside it, and nearby were a lantern, a brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. The dogs immediately made a ring around Squealer and escorted him back to the farmhouse as soon as he could walk. None of the animals had any idea what that meant, except for old Benjamin, who nodded his snout knowingly and seemed to understand, but said nothing.
But a few days later, as Muriel read through the Seven Commandments, she noticed that there was another one that the animals had misremembered. They had thought the fifth commandment was "No animal shall drink alcohol," but there were two words they had forgotten. Actually, the commandment was: “No animal should drink alcoholexcessive.’
Boxer's cloven hoofbeen in healing for a long time. The day after the victory celebrations ended, they had started to rebuild the windmill. Boxer refused to take even a day off and made it a point to not show he was in pain. In the evening he privately confessed to Cloverleaf that the hoof worried him a lot. Clover treated the hoof with poultices made from herbs that she prepared by chewing, and both she and Benjamin urged Boxers to work less hard. "A horse's lungs don't last forever," she told him. But Boxer wasn't listening. He has, he said, only one real ambition left - to see the windmill in full swing before he reaches retirement age.
When the Animal Farm Laws were first formulated, the retirement age was fixed at twelve for horses and pigs, fourteen for cows, nine for dogs, seven for sheep, and five for chickens and geese. Generous old-age pensions have been agreed. Until now, no animal had retired, but lately the topic has been discussed more and more often. Now that the small field behind the orchard was destined for barley, rumor had it that a corner of the large pasture was to be fenced off and turned into a pasture for aged animals. For a horse, it was said, the rent would be five pounds of corn a day, and fifteen pounds of hay in the winter, and a carrot on a holiday, or perhaps an apple. Boxer's twelfth birthday would be in late summer of the following year.
Life was hard now. The winter was as cold as the last, and the meal was even shorter. Again all rations were reduced except for the pigs and dogs. Too strict an equality of rations, Schwatzwurst explained, would have contradicted the principles of animalism. In any case, he had no trouble proving to the other animals that it was themNotactually short of food, whatever the appearance. For the time being, while it had proved necessary to readjust rations (Squealer always spoke of "readjustment," never "reduction"), the improvement compared to Jones' days was enormous. He read them the numbers in a shrill, rapid voice and proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than in Jones' day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they worked longer hours lived, that a larger proportion of their young survived infancy and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas. The animals believed every word he said. To tell the truth, Jones and everything he stood for had almost vanished from her memories. They knew that life was harsh and bleak these days, that they were often hungry and often cold, and that when they were not sleeping they usually worked. But no doubt it had been worse before. They were happy to believe that. Besides, they had been slaves then and they were free now, and that made all the difference, as Squealer didn't fail to point out.
There were a lot more mouths to feed now. By the fall, the four sows had all tossed about at once, producing a total of thirty-one young piglets. The young pigs were piebald, and since Napoleon was the only boar on the farm, it was possible to guess their parentage. It was announced that later, when bricks and timber were purchased, a schoolroom would be built in the cottage garden. The young pigs were initially taught by Napoleon himself in the farmer's kitchen. They pursued their exercise in the garden and were prevented from playing with the other young animals. About this time it was also established as a rule that when a pig and any other animal met on the way, the other animal had to step aside: and also that all pigs, whatever their grade, should have the privilege of carrying on Sundays green loops on the tail.
The farm had had a fairly successful year, but money was still tight. Bricks, sand and lime had to be purchased for the classroom, and savings had to be made again for the machines for the windmill. Then there was lamp oil and candles for the house, sugar for Napoleon's own table (he forbade the other pigs because it made them fat) and all the usual things like tools, nails, twine, coal, wire, scrap iron and dog biscuits. A stump of hay and part of the potato crop were sold, and the contract for eggs was increased to six hundred a week, so the hens hatched scarcely enough chicks that year to keep their numbers at the same level. Radons, which were reduced in December, were reduced again in February, and lanterns in stalls were banned to save oil. But the pigs seemed comfortable enough and actually tended to gain weight. One late February afternoon, a warm, rich, appetizing scent such as the animals had never smelled before wafted across the yard from the small brewhouse that had been shut down in Jones's day and stood behind the kitchen. Someone said it was the smell of cooked barley. The animals sniffed the air hungrily, wondering if a warm porridge was being prepared for their supper. But no warm porridge appeared, and the following Sunday it was announced that from now on all the barley would be reserved for the pigs. The field behind the orchard was already sown with barley. And word soon trickled out that each pig was now getting a daily ration of a pint of ale, with half a gallon for Napoleon himself, which was always served to him in the Crown Derby soup tureen.
But if there were hardships to be endured, they were partially offset by the fact that life now had a greater dignity than it once had. There were more songs, more speeches, more processions. Napoleon had ordered that a so-called spontaneous demonstration should be held once a week, the aim of which was to celebrate the struggles and triumphs of Animal Farm. At the appointed time, the animals left their work and marched around the farm grounds in military formation, with the pigs first, then the horses, then the cows, then the sheep, and then the fowl. The dogs flanked the procession, and at the head of them all marched Napoleon's black rooster. Boxer and Clover always carried between them a green banner with the hoof and the horn and the inscription: "Long live Comrade Napoleon!" After this there were recitations of poems written in honor of Napoleon and a speech by Squealer detailing reported about recent increases in food production, and occasionally a gunshot rang out. The sheep were the biggest supporters of the spontaneous demonstrations, and when someone complained (which a few animals sometimes did when there were no pigs or dogs around) that they were wasting time and meant a lot of standing in the cold, the sheep agreed sure to silence him with a mighty bleat of "four-legged good, two-legged bad!" but on the whole the animals enjoyed the celebrations. They found comfort in being reminded that they really were their own masters, after all, and that the work they did was for their own benefit. So that with the songs, the parades, the squealer numbers, the roar of the cannons, the crowing of the rooster and the fluttering of the flag, they could forget that their bellies were empty, at least part of the time.
In April, Animal Farm was proclaimed a republic and it became necessary to elect a president. There was only one candidate. Napoleon, who was elected unanimously. That same day, it was announced that new documents had been discovered that revealed more details about Snowball's complicity with Jones. It now emerged that Snowball had not, as the animals had previously assumed, merely attempted to lose the Battle of the Cowshed by ruse, but had openly fought on Jones' side. In fact, he had been the actual leader of the human forces, and had gone into battle with the words "Long live humanity!" on his lips. The wounds on Snowball's back, which some of the animals remembered seeing, had been inflicted by Napoleon's teeth.
In the middle of summer, Moses the raven suddenly reappeared at the farm after an absence of several years. He was quite the same, still not working, and talking about Sugarcandy Mountain with the same tension he always had. He sat on a stump, flapped his black wings, and talked for hours to whoever would listen. "Up there, comrades," he said solemnly, pointing toward the sky with his great beak--"up there, just behind that dark cloud you can see--there it lies, Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy land where we poor animals are meant to be rest forever from our labors!” He even claimed to have been there on one of his higher flights and seen the everlasting fields of clover and the flax cakes and sugar cubes growing on the hedges. Many of the animals believed him. They argued that their lives were now hungry and weary; wasn't it right and simple that there should be a better world somewhere else? One thing that was difficult to determine was the pigs' attitude towards Moses. They all scornfully declared that his Sugarcandy Mountain stories were lies, yet allowed him to stay on the farm without working, on a gill of beer a day.
After his hoof healed, Boxer worked harder than ever. In fact, all animals worked like slaves that year. Besides the regular work of the farm and the rebuilding of the windmill, there was the schoolhouse for the young pigs, which started in March. Sometimes the long hours of insufficient food were hard to endure, but Boxer never faltered. Nothing he said or did indicated that his strength wasn't what it used to be. Only his appearance had changed a little; his skin was less shiny than it used to be, and his large hips seemed to have shrunk. The others said, "Boxer will catch up when the spring grass comes"; but the spring grass came and Boxer didn't get fatter. Sometimes, as he braced his muscles against the weight of a huge boulder on the slope leading to the top of the quarry, it seemed as if nothing but the will to keep going would keep him on his feet. At such moments, his lips formed the words "I'll work harder"; he no longer had a voice. Once again, Clover and Benjamin warned him to take care of his health, but Boxer ignored him. His twelfth birthday was approaching. He didn't care what happened as long as a good stockpile of bricks was amassed before he retired.
Late one summer evening, a rumor spread around the farm that something had happened to Boxer. He had gone out alone to haul a load of stones down to the windmill. And indeed the rumor was true. A few minutes later, two pigeons flew in with the message:
"Boxer has fallen! He's lying on his side and can't get up!”
About half of the animals on the farm rushed to the hill where the windmill stood. There lay Boxer between the shafts of the cart, neck stretched out, unable even to lift his head. His eyes were glazed, his sides covered with sweat. A thin stream of blood had oozed from his mouth. Clover dropped to his knees at his side.
"Boxer!" she called, "how are you?"
"Those are my lungs," Boxer said weakly. 'It does not matter. I think you will be able to complete the windmill without me. A pretty good supply of stones has accumulated. I only had a month left anyway. To be honest, I was looking forward to my retirement. And maybe, since Benjamin is getting old too, they'll let him retire and be a companion to me at the same time.”
"We need to get help right away," Clover said. "Run, someone, and tell babble what happened."
All the other animals immediately ran back to the farmhouse to break the news to chatter. Only Clover remained and Benjamin, who lay down next to Boxer and wordlessly protected him from the flies with his long tail. After about fifteen minutes, Squealer appeared, full of sympathy and concern. He said that Comrade Napoleon had learned with the deepest sorrow of the misfortune of one of the farm's most loyal workers and was already in the process of sending Boxer to Willingdon Hospital for treatment. The animals felt a little uncomfortable. Apart from Mollie and Snowball, no other animal had ever left the farm, and they did not like the thought of their sick comrade being in human hands. However, Squealer easily convinced her that the vet in Willingdon could treat Boxer's case more satisfactorily than the farm could. And about half an hour later, when Boxer had recovered somewhat, he struggled to his feet and managed to hobble back to his stables, where Clover and Benjamin had prepared a good bed of straw for him.
For the next two days, Boxer stayed in his stable. The pigs had mailed a large bottle of pink medicine they found in the bathroom medicine cabinet, and Clover gave it to Boxer twice a day after meals. At night she lay in his stable and talked to him while Benjamin kept the flies away. Boxer had no regrets about what had happened. If he recovered well, he could expect to live three more years, and he looked forward to the peaceful days he would spend in the corner of the great pasture. It would be the first time he had leisure to study and improve his mind. He plans, he said, to devote the rest of his life to learning the remaining twenty-two letters of the alphabet.
However, Benjamin and Clover could only be at Boxer's after hours, and it was the middle of the day when the van came to pick him up. The animals were all busy weeding turnips under the supervision of a pig when they were amazed to see Benjamin galloping from the direction of the farm buildings, roaring at the top of his lungs. It was the first time they had seen Benjamin excited - in fact, it was the first time anyone had seen him gallop. "Hurry, hurry!" he shouted. "Come right away! They're taking boxers away!” Without waiting for the pig's orders, the animals stopped working and ran back to the farm buildings. Indeed, there in the yard was a large closed van, pulled by two horses, with writing on the side and a sly looking man with a low bowler hat sitting in the driver's seat. And Boxer's booth was empty.
The animals crowded around the van. "Goodbye, boxers!" they chorused, "goodbye!"
'Fool! Fools!” cried Benjamin, dancing around her and stamping his tiny hooves on the ground. 'Fool! Don't you see what's written on the side of that van?"
That stopped the animals and it became quiet. Muriel started to spell the words. But Benjamin brushed them aside and read in a dead silence:
"Alfred Simmonds, Horse Butcher and Glue Cooker, Willingdon. Merchant of hides and bone meal. Kennels provided.” Don't you understand what that means? They're taking boxers to the knacker!'
A cry of terror broke out from all the animals. At that moment the man on the box whipped up his horses and the van moved out of the yard at a graceful trot. All the animals followed and screamed at the top of their lungs. Clover pushed his way forward. The delivery truck picked up speed. Clover tried to stimulate her powerful limbs to gallop and managed a gallop. "Boxers!" she cried. 'Boxer! Boxer! Boxer!” And right then, as if he heard the commotion outside. Boxer's face, with the white stripe across its nose, appeared in the small window at the back of the van.
"Boxer!" Clover exclaimed in a terrible voice. 'Boxer! Go out! Quickly out! They will kill you!”
All the animals took the call “Get out! Boxer, get out!” But the van was already picking up speed and moving away from them. It was uncertain whether Boxer understood what Clover said. But a moment later, his face disappeared out the window and a tremendous pounding of horses' hooves could be heard from inside the van. He tried to work his way out. It had been a time when a few kicks from Boxer's hooves would have smashed the van to matchsticks. But unfortunately! his strength had deserted him; and in a few moments the sound of pounding hooves grew weaker and died away. In desperation, the animals began to accost the two horses that were pulling the van to a stop. "Comrades, comrades!" they cried. "Don't take your own brother with you to your death!" But the stupid brutes, too ignorant to comprehend what was happening, just laid back their ears and quickened their steps. Boxer's face did not reappear at the window. Too late someone thought of rushing ahead and shutting the gate with the five bars; but the next moment the van was through and disappeared quickly down the street. Boxer was never seen again.
Three days later it was revealed that he had died at Willingdon Hospital, despite being given all the attention a horse could have. Squealer came to break the news to the others. He was, he said, present in Boxer's final hours.
"That was the most moving sight I've ever seen!" said Schwatzwischer, lifting his trotter and wiping away a tear. "I was last at his bedside. And at the end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered in my ear that his only grief would be over before the windmill was finished. "Forward, comrades!" he whispered. "Forward in the name of rebellion. Long live animal farm! Long live Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is always right.” Those were his very last words, comrades.”
This is where Squealer's behavior suddenly changed. He fell silent for a moment, his small eyes darting wary glances from side to side before continuing.
He learned, he said, that a stupid and nasty rumor had been circulating at the time of Boxer's removal. Some of the animals had noticed that the van picking up Boxer was marked "Horse Butcher" and had actually concluded that Boxer was being sent to the skinner. It was almost unbelievable, said Schwatzwischer, that any animal could be so stupid. Surely, he cried indignantly, wagging his tail and hopping from side to side, didn't they know their beloved leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that? But the explanation was really very simple. The van had previously been owned by the skinner and had been purchased by the vet, who hadn't colored in the old name yet. That's how the error came about.
The animals were enormously relieved to hear this. And as Squealer related more vivid details of Boxer's deathbed, the admirable care he had received, and the expensive medicines paid for by Napoleon regardless of the cost, her last doubts and the sorrow they felt at the death of her vanished Comrade was tempered by the thought that at least he died happy.
Napoleon himself appeared at the gathering the following Sunday morning and made a short speech in Boxer's honor. It was not possible, he said, to bring the remains of their defendant comrade back to the farm for burial, but he ordered a large wreath to be tied from the laurels in the farmhouse garden and placed on Boxer's grave. And in a few days, the pigs were going to hold a memorial banquet in honor of Boxer. Napoleon ended his speech by recalling Boxer's two favorite maxims, "I will work harder" and "Comrade Napoleon is always right" - maxims, he said, that every animal should embrace.
On the day appointed for the banquet, a grocer's van drove up from Willingdon and delivered a large wooden crate to the farmhouse. That night there was loud singing, followed by what sounded like a heated argument, ending around eleven o'clock with a tremendous glass crash. The following day before noon nobody stirred in the farmhouse. And word got around that the pigs had gotten the money from somewhere to buy another case of whisky.
YEARS PASSED.The seasons came and went, the short lives of animals fled. There came a time when no one remembered the old days before the rebellion except for Clover, Benjamin, Moses the raven, and some pigs.
Muriel was dead. Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher were dead. Jones was dead too—he'd died in a drunk's house in another part of the county. Snowball was forgotten. Boxer was forgotten except by the few who had known him. Clover was a stocky old mare now, stiff in the joints and prone to tears in her eyes. She was two years past retirement age, but in fact no animal had ever really retired. The talk of keeping a corner of the pasture free for disused animals had long since been dropped. Napoleon was now a full-grown boar of twenty-four stones. Squealer was so fat he could barely see out of his eyes. Only old Benjamin was pretty much the same as ever, except he was a little grayer around the muzzle, and more dour and silent than ever since Boxer's death.
There were many more creatures on the farm now, although the increase was not as great as might have been expected in previous years. Many animals had been born for whom rebellion was only a vague, oral tradition, and others had been bought who had never heard of it before they arrived. The farm now owned three horses in addition to Clover. They were beautiful, upright beasts, willing workers and good companions, but very stupid. None of them were able to learn the alphabet beyond the letter B. They accepted anything they were told about the rebellion and the principles of animalism, especially from Clover, for whom they had almost childlike respect; but it was doubtful whether they understood very much of it.
The farm was now more prosperous and better organized; it had even been extended by two fields bought from Mr. Pilkington. The windmill was finally successfully completed, the farm had its own threshing machine and hay elevator and was supplemented by various new buildings. Whymper had bought a dog cart. However, the windmill had not been used to generate electricity. It was used to grind corn and made a handsome profit. The animals were busy building another windmill: when it was finished, it was said, the dynamos would be installed. But the luxuries that Snowball had once taught the animals to dream about, the stables with electric lights, hot and cold water, and the three-day week, were no longer spoken of. Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of animalism. True happiness, he said, lies in working hard and living frugally.
Somehow it seemed as if the farm had gotten richer without making the animals themselves richer - apart from the pigs and the dogs, of course. Maybe that was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It wasn't that these creatures didn't work their way. There was, as Schwatzwischer never tired of explaining, endless work in supervising and organizing the farm. Much of this work was of a nature that the other animals were too ignorant to understand. For example. Squealer told them that the pigs had to do tremendous work every day on mysterious things called "files," "reports," "minutes," and "memorandums." These were large sheets of paper which had to be densely covered with writing, and once so covered they were burned in the kiln. This is paramount to the welfare of the farm, Squealer said. But still neither pigs nor dogs produced food by their own labor; and there were a great many of them, and their appetites were always good.
As far as the others were concerned, as far as they knew, their life was as it had always been. They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pond, they worked in the fields; in winter they were plagued by the cold and in summer by flies. Sometimes the older ones would agonize over their somber memories, trying to figure out if the early days of the Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was not long ago, were better or worse than they are now. They couldn't remember. There was nothing to compare their present lives to: they had nothing to rely on except tally lists of numbers, which inevitably showed things were getting better and better. The animals found the problem insoluble; at least they had little time now to speculate about such things. Only old Benjamin claimed to remember every detail of his long life, and to know that things had never been, and never could be, much better or much worse--hunger, want, and disappointment were, he said, the immutable laws of the life.
And yet the animals never gave up hope. Also, they never lost, not even for a moment, their sense of honor and privilege of being members of Animal Farm. They were still the only farm in the whole country - in all of England! — owning and operating animals. None of them, not even the youngest, not even the newcomers brought from farms ten or twenty miles away, ever ceased to wonder. And when they heard the guns roar and saw the green flag flutter at the top of the mast, their hearts swelled with undying pride, and the talk was always of the old heroic days, the expulsion of Jones, the writing of the Seven Commandments, the great battles where the human invaders had been defeated. None of the old dreams had been given up. People still believed in the Republic of Animals, which Major had prophesied when the green fields of England would be untrodden by human feet. One day she would come: she might not be soon, she might not be in the lifetime of any animal lived now, but it was yet to come. Even the tune of "Beasts of England" might have been hummed surreptitiously here and there: the fact was that every animal on the farm knew it, although no one would have dared sing it out loud. It may be that her life was hard and that not all her hopes were fulfilled; but they were aware that they were not like other animals. If they starved, it wasn't because they fed tyrannical people; If they've worked hard, they've at least worked for themselves. Not a creature among them walked on two legs. No creature called another creature "master." All animals were the same.
One day in early summer, Gossip Warden ordered the sheep to follow him and led them out onto a piece of fallow land at the far end of the farm, overgrown with birch saplings. The sheep spent the whole day there grazing the leaves under Squealer's supervision. In the evening he returned to the farmhouse himself, but as it was warm weather he told the sheep to stay where they were. They ended up staying there for a whole week during which the other animals didn't see them. Squealer was with them almost every day. He said he is teaching them to sing a new song that requires privacy.
Shortly after the sheep returned, on a pleasant evening as the animals had finished their work and were making their way back to the farm buildings, a startled whinnying of a horse sounded from the yard. The animals stopped, startled. It was Clover's voice. She whinnied again, and all the animals galloped and rushed into the yard. Then they saw what Clover had seen.
It was a pig walking on its hind legs.
Yes, it was Squealer. A little awkwardly, as if unaccustomed to carrying his considerable bulk in that position, but with perfect balance, he sauntered across the yard. And a moment later, out the door of the farmhouse came a long line of pigs, all walking on their hind legs. Some were better off than others, one or two even a little wobbly and looking like they would have liked to use a stick, but each successfully made their way around the yard. And finally there was a mighty bark of dogs and a shrill crowing of the black rooster, and out came Napoleon himself, majestically erect, casting haughty looks from side to side, and his dogs playing about him.
He carried a whip in his trotter.
There was dead silence. The animals huddled together, amazed and frightened, as the long chain of pigs slowly marched around the yard. It was like the world had turned upside down. Then came the moment when the initial shock wore off and in spite of everything - despite their fear of the dogs and the habit developed over many years of never complaining, never criticizing, no matter what happened - they might have a word of protest expressed. But just at that moment, as if at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating—
"Four legs good, two legsbetter! Four-legged good, two-leggedbetter! Four-legged good, two-leggedbetter!’
It went on for five minutes without a break. And when the sheep had calmed down, the opportunity to protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.
Benjamin felt a nose sniff his shoulder. He looked around. It was clover. Her old eyes looked darker than ever. Without saying anything, she gently tugged at his mane and led him to the end of the big barn where the Seven Commandments were written. They stood there for a minute or two, staring at the tarred wall with its white lettering.
"My eyesight is failing," she finally said. “Even when I was young I couldn't have read what was written there. But it seems to me that this wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?”
For once, Benjamin agreed to break his rule and read her what was written on the wall. Now there was nothing but a single bid. It ran:
After that, it didn't seem strange when the next day, the pigs supervising work on the farm all wore whips in their trotters. It didn't seem strange to learn that the pigs had bought a wireless device, installed a phone, and taken out subscriptionsto John Bull, little thingsand thedaily mirror. It was not surprising to see Napoleon walking in the cottage garden with a pipe in his mouth - no, not even when the pigs took Mr Jones's clothes out of the closet and put them on, Napoleon himself appeared in a black coat, Pied Piper, trousers and leather spats , while his favorite sow appeared in the soaked silk dress that Mrs. Jones used to wear on Sundays.
A week later, in the afternoon, several dog carts pulled up to the yard. A delegation of neighboring farmers had been invited to a tour of inspection. They were shown all over the courtyard and expressed great admiration for everything they saw, especially the windmill. The animals weeded the turnip field. They worked diligently, barely lifting their faces from the ground, not knowing whether to be more afraid of the pigs or the human visitors.
Loud laughter and outbursts of singing erupted from the farmhouse that evening. And suddenly, at the sound of the mixed voices, curiosity gripped the animals. What could happen in there, now that animal and human beings met as equals for the first time? With one accord they began to crawl into the cottage garden as quietly as possible.
They stopped at the gate, half afraid to move on, but Clover led the way. They tiptoed toward the house, and animals large enough peered through the dining-room window. There sat around the long table half a dozen peasants and half a dozen of the more respectable pigs, Napoleon himself taking pride of place at the head of the table. The pigs seemed perfectly comfortable in their chairs. The company had been enjoying a game of cards, but interrupted for the moment, apparently to toast. A large jug was in circulation, and the jugs were filled with beer. No one noticed the puzzled faces of the animals staring in through the window.
Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood had stood up, mug in hand. In a moment, he said, he would ask the company present to have a toast. But before he did, there were a few words he felt it was his duty to say.
It was a great satisfaction for him, he said - and certainly also for everyone else present - to feel that a long period of mistrust and misunderstandings had now come to an end. There had been a time--not that he, or anyone in contemporary society, shared such sentiments--but there had been a time when the respected owners of Animal Farm had, he wouldn't say, looked on with hostility, but perhaps with one have received a degree of concern from their human neighbors. Unfortunate incidents had happened, misconceptions had spread. It was felt that the existence of a farm owned and operated by pigs was somehow unusual and potentially having an unsettling effect on the neighborhood. Too many farmers had assumed, without proper inquiry, that a spirit of licentiousness and indiscipline would prevail on such a farm. They had been nervous about the effects on their own animals, or even their human employees. But all these doubts were now cleared. Today he and his friends had visited Animal Farm and inspected every inch of it with their own eyes, and what did they find? Not just state-of-the-art methods, but a discipline and order that should be an example to all farmers everywhere. He thought he was right when he said that the lower animals on Animal Farm worked harder and received less food than any animal in the county. Indeed, he and his fellow visitors had observed many features today that they immediately wanted to introduce to their own farms.
He would end his remarks, he said, by reiterating the friendly feelings that existed and should exist between Animal Farm and its neighbors. There has never been or need be any conflict of interest between pigs and humans. Their struggles and their difficulties were one. Wasn't the labor problem the same everywhere? Here it was evident that Mr. Pilkington was about to throw a carefully prepared joke at the company, but for a moment he was too amused to utter it. After a long gagging, during which his various chins turned purple, he got it out: "If you struggle with your lower animals," he said, "we have our lower classes!" Thisright wordSet the table in a roar; and Mr. Pilkington once more congratulated the pigs on the low rations, the long hours of work, and the general lack of pampering which he had observed at the animal farm.
And now, he finally said, he would ask the company to get up and make sure their glasses were full. "Gentlemen," concluded Mr. Pilkington, "Gentlemen, I toast you: to the prosperity of Animal Farm!"
There was enthusiastic cheering and stamping of feet. Napoleon was so pleased that he left his seat and came around the table to clink his cup with Mr. Pilkington's before draining it. When the cheers had died down, Napoleon, who remained on his feet, indicated that he too had a few words to say.
Like all of Napoleon's speeches, it was short and to the point. He too is glad that the time of misunderstandings is over. There had long been rumors - spread, he had reason to believe, by a malevolent enemy - that there was something subversive and even revolutionary in the attitude of himself and his colleagues. They have been credited with attempting to stir up rebellion among animals on neighboring farms. Nothing is further from the truth! Their only desire was to live in peace and in normal business dealings with their neighbors, now and in the past. This farm, which he has the honor to control, is a cooperative enterprise, he added. The tide charts that were in his own possession belonged to me pigs in common.
He didn't think, he said, any of the old suspicions remained, but there had been certain changes in the farm's routine lately that should have an even more confidence-inspiring effect. Up until now, the animals on the farm had a rather foolish habit of calling each other "comrade". This should be suppressed. There had also been a very strange custom, the origin of which was unknown, of marching past a boar's skull nailed to a post in the garden every Sunday morning. This too would be suppressed, and the skull was already buried. Visitors may also have noticed the green flag flying from the top of the mast. If so, they might have noticed that the white hoof and horn that had previously marked it had now been removed. From now on it would be a simple green flag.
He has only one criticism of Mr Pilkington's excellent and neighborly speech, he said. Mr Pilkington had spoken of 'animal farm' throughout. He could not know, of course - for he, Napoleon, was only now announcing it for the first time - that the name Animal Farm had been abolished. Henceforth the farm was to be known as 'The Manor Farm' - which he thought was the correct and original name.
"Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I shall offer 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!”
There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the jars were emptied to the ground. But as the animals outside surveyed the scene, it seemed to them that something strange was happening. What had changed in the pigs' faces? Clover's old dull eyes darted from face to face. Some had five chins, some four, some three. But what seemed to melt and change? Then, when the applause was over, the company picked up their cards again and resumed the interrupted game, and the animals silently crawled away.
But they hadn't gone twenty yards when they stopped abruptly. A babble of voices came from the farmhouse. They hurried back and looked through the window again. Yes, there was a heated argument going on. There was shouting, table hangings, sharp suspicious looks, angry denials. The cause of the trouble seemed to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had played the ace of spades at the same time.
Twelve voices screamed in anger and they were all the same. No question what happened to the pigs' faces. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and again from pig to man: but it was already impossible to tell which was which.
November 1943 - February 1944
THE END
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GEORGE ORWELL: "ANIMAL FARM: A FAIRY TALE"; A NOVEL
First published by Secker and Warburg, London 1945.
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Diese Version: © 2000 Penguin Classic
ISBN 0141182709
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OCR: Mikhail V. Chernyshev
Email:[Email Protected]
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Machine-readable version and verification: O. Dag
Email:[Email Protected]
URL: https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/
Last modified: 07.01.2020
FAQs
What is the message of the song in Animal Farm? ›
Old Major teaches the animals the song "Beasts of England" to inspire a rebellion and give them hope for a human-free farm. The song is about a future in which animals overthrow humans and take over farms, leaving the animals to reap the fruits of their own hard labor.
What is the main story of Animal Farm? ›It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.
What is the true meaning of Animal Farm? ›The grand theme of Animal Farm has to do with the capacity for ordinary individuals to continue to believe in a revolution that has been utterly betrayed. Orwell attempts to reveal how those in power—Napoleon and his fellow pigs—pervert the democratic promise of the revolution.
What is the most impactful scene in Animal Farm? ›I think that the most memorable and effective scene was when Napoleon called in his nine dogs to attack Snowball during their last debate together about the windmill. This is a key turning point in the book, because this scene shows Napoleon's first move towards his new government of the farm, which is communism.
How is Animal Farm a fairy story? ›Animal Farm is set on a farm in the countryside. This type of setting is often used in a fairy tale. These are often perceived to be neat, tidy and quaint as well as the clich of little hedgerows, brick barns with stacked hay piles along with a windmill dominating the view of the surrounding fields.
What is Animal Farm a metaphor for? ›Animal Farm is itself a metaphor of the totalitarian system or the Soviet Union respectively, the pigs represent a metaphor for the authorities of the society and each of the other characters in the work implicitly serve as metaphors for other instances as well.
What are the five main themes in Animal Farm? ›Themes in Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Corruption Of Communism. Social Class Structure. Forced Naivety of Working-Class Individuals. Rhetoric as a Political Tool.
Animal Farm shows key importance in the development of today's modern day society as it gives a political and metaphorical standpoint on how people as a community act. It shows how humans are able to deceive and change their ways in order to get what they want.
Why is the ending of Animal Farm important? ›The book's final image expresses the animals' realization that the pigs have become as cruel and oppressive as human farmers. The ending also makes the argument that political power is always the same, whoever has it and whatever ideology is used to justify it.
What is the most famous line from the story Animal Farm? ›“Four legs good, two legs bad.” This phrase, which occurs in Chapter III, constitutes Snowball's condensation of the Seven Commandments of Animalism, which themselves serve as abridgments of Old Major's stirring speech on the need for animal unity in the face of human oppression.
What do the dogs in Animal Farm symbolize? ›
In the allegory Animal Farm, Orwell argues that governments can be corrupt; mostly seen through the symbolism of the dogs, the hens, and Boxer. Orwell uses the dogs to symbolize how governments use military force to intimidate society. Stalin used brutal military force to strike fear into his people.
Why were the animals killed in Animal Farm? ›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 dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders. They, too, were slaughtered.
What is the most important symbol in Animal Farm? ›What are the important symbols in Animal Farm? The important symbols in Animal Farm are Mr. Jones, the windmill, the Battle of Cowshed, and the various animals. Each represents some aspect of the Soviet Union.
What are the two most important events in Animal Farm? ›Napoleon reduces the rations and rights of the animals and starts breaking the commandments. There is another invasion by the men and the windmill is blown up.
Why is Animal Farm a fairytale? ›A fairy tale has a hero, a moral message and overcoming evil, plus more. Although Animal Farm does have some of the essentials of a fairy tale, it is not one. Animal Farm does have characteristics of fairy tales, such as a moral message, obstacles, set during hard times, a rule to follow and the leaving of a leader.
Why are animals used in fairy tales? ›The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss commented that animals were "bons à penser" (good to think with), and fairytales speak through beasts to explore common experiences – fear of sexual intimacy, terror and violence and injustice, struggles for survival.
Can fairy tales be about animals? ›Whether Puss in Boots, the Frog Prince or the Town Musicians of Bremen: animals are an essential part of fairy tales and you hardly find one without them. It is often the animal protagonists who help the fairy-tale heroes reach the solution of their problems and thus achieve their goals.
What are three themes in Animal Farm? ›George Orwell's Animal Farm is a political allegory about revolution and power. Through the tale of a group of farm animals who overthrow the owner of the farm, Animal Farm explores themes of totalitarianism, the corruption of ideals, and the power of language.
What do the characters in Animal Farm symbolize? ›Animal Farm represents the Russian Revolution of 1917. Old Major represents Karl Marx, Snowball represents Leon Trotsky, Napoleon represents Josef Stalin, Squealer represents propaganda, and Boxer is a representation for all the Russian laborers and workers.
What is ironic in Animal Farm? ›In Animal Farm, George Orwell utilizes situational irony, displaying the pigs as corrupt leaders, to support Lord Acton's quote: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Situational irony is displayed when the pigs are ordering the animals to work, because it contradicts what most readers would ...
Who was the real hero of Animal Farm and why? ›
Type of Hero
Boxer is the protagonist of the 1945 novel, Animal Farm. He also serves as the deuteragonist of the 1954 film adaptation and the 1999 film adaptation. He is described as the farm's most dedicated and loyal laborer.
"All animals are equal" is the foundational principle of Animalism. It is the only commandment left at the end of the story, but it is changed to: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." By this, Napoleon and his minions mean that some pigs are more equal.
What is the last sentence of Animal Farm? ›My favorite last line is from Animal Farm by George Orwell. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Who is alive at the end of Animal Farm? ›Benjamin is a donkey in George Orwell's 1945 novel Animal Farm. He is also the oldest of all the animals (he is alive in the last scene of the novel).
What was the final rule in Animal Farm? ›The final commandment in Animal Farm states the following: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." This statement contains an inequality among animals and implies a class system.
What is the motto of Animal Farm? ›The motto Old Major gives to the animals in the novella Animal Farm comes in the form of two similar quotes. The first is ''All men are enemies. All animals are comrades. '' The second reads ''Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Who does snowball symbolize in Animal Farm? ›Snowball represents Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was a political theorist, revolutionary and a leader of the Red Army. After the Revolution he was involved in Russian foreign affairs and policy making. He opposed Stalin's decisions and eventually was forced into exile from the Soviet Union in 1929.
Who does Mr Jones symbolize in Animal Farm? ›Mr. Jones symbolizes Tsar Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia whose neglect and subjugation of his people led to their revolts, and eventually to his assassination in 1918. His passing made way for communists led by Lenin and Stalin to take the nation, which Orwell warns is also subject to corruption.
What does the windmill in Animal Farm symbolize? ›From an allegorical point of view, the windmill represents the enormous modernization projects undertaken in Soviet Russia after the Russian Revolution.
Who was drinking the milk in Animal Farm? ›Answer and Explanation: The pigs are taking the milk in Animal Farm.
Who does the cat represent in Animal Farm? ›
Answer and Explanation: The cat in Animal Farm represents the Russian upper class. She is accustomed to being pampered by Mr. Jones and his family, since she offers them a valuable service and is adept at winning their affection.
Does Animal Farm have a sad ending? ›By the end of Animal Farm, pigs are walking on two legs, Seven Commandments have become one, and the pigs insist to the other humans that all they wanted all along was to "to live at peace and in normal business relations" (10.27). R.I.P., rebellion.
Are the pigs evil in Animal Farm? ›The novel Animal Farm, by George Orwell, is demonstrating how the pigs are corrupt in Animal Farm. Old Major's speech began a rebellion, but ultimately the pigs corrupt to become human into their own advantage by removing the principles of Animalism.
Who killed the pigs in Animal Farm? ›One day in spring, Napoleon calls a meeting of all the animals, during which he forces confessions from all those who had questioned him (such as the four pigs in Chapters 5 and 6 and the three hens who lead the protest) and then has them murdered by the dogs.
What do the 7 Commandments in Animal Farm symbolize? ›The Seven Commandments - written on the barn wall - are the basic principles of animalism and described originally as "unalterable laws" by which the animals were to live. They were meant to keep the animals equal and to ensure that all animals were true to their own nature.
What does Animal Farm teach us about power? ›Orwell explores the idea of power leading to corruption. Many of the characters in the novel are eventually corrupted by the power they have, particularly the pigs, as they manipulate their position of leadership to exploit other animals.
What are the three conflicts in Animal Farm? ›Society, Character vs. Nature, or Character vs. Technology.
What is the message the song? ›"The Message" is a song by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It was released as a single by Sugar Hill Records on July 1, 1982, and was later featured on the group's debut studio album of the same name. "The Message" was an early prominent hip hop song to provide a social commentary.
What is the message and function of song Ai hay? ›Description. Ai Hai Yo is a Chinese folk song used as a blessing towards a bountiful harvest and a good year.
What is the meaning of the poem song? ›'Song' by T.S Eliot is a beautiful poem reflecting the importance of expressing love and making the most of the love in our life. Eliot uses imagery and metaphoric elements to describe the importance of expressing our love to our loved ones and not procrastinating our feelings.
What purpose do the songs and ceremonies play on Animal Farm? ›
Animal Farm is filled with songs, poems, and slogans, including Major's stirring “Beasts of England,” Minimus's ode to Napoleon, the sheep's chants, and Minimus's revised anthem, “Animal Farm, Animal Farm.” All of these songs serve as propaganda, one of the major conduits of social control.
What is The Message of poem? ›Theme is the lesson or message of the poem.
What is the meaning of Where is the Love by Black Eyed Peas? ›In June 2003, the Black Eyed Peas released hit song "Where Is the Love?" in response to the 9/11 terror attacks. Its lyrics addressed issues including terrorism, racism, gang crime, pollution, war, intolerance, and violence against LGBT people.
What was the first rap? ›The Sugar Hill Gang's 12-inch single "Rapper's Delight" - released in 1979 - became the first rap song to be played on the radio.
Why was the song the message so important? ›“The Message” has a place in history that is more than a reminder of the true roots of hip-hop, but rather a landmark of socially conscious rap. “The Message” was one of the first commercially successful rap songs providing heavy social commentary.
Why is the message song important? ›"The Message," issued July 1, 1982, set the pattern for all the hip-hop records that came after. It is, arguably, the single most important hip-hop title ever released. A claim that Rolling Stone Magazine bolstered in 2012 by making "The Message" No. 1 in its cover story, "The 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time."
What does the song help the poet do? ›(b) What does the song help the poet do? Ans: The song helps the poet to overcome his feelings of despair. He does not find the nights 'dark' or the days 'long' if he sings.
What is the poem metaphor about? ›“Metaphors” is a poem about the weirdness and wonder of being pregnant. The speaker uses a series of inventive metaphors to describe her changing body, which has become huge and unwieldy.
What is the difference between a poem and a song? ›The main difference between song and poem is that a poem is a written or spoken piece of literature that is not set to music, whereas a song is a composition that is set to music. In simple words, a poem set to music is a song, while a song that does not involve music is a poem.
Who cleft the Devil's foot? ›The first part, “Or who cleft the Devil's foot”, emphasizes how getting a virtuous woman is as easy or difficult as clinging on the devil's foot. It is impossible to get hold of the devil; consequently, it is impossible to get a chaste woman.
What are 3 themes in Animal Farm? ›
George Orwell's Animal Farm is a political allegory about revolution and power. Through the tale of a group of farm animals who overthrow the owner of the farm, Animal Farm explores themes of totalitarianism, the corruption of ideals, and the power of language.
What are the major themes in Animal Farm? ›- The Corruption of Socialist Ideals in the Soviet Union. ...
- The Societal Tendency Toward Class Stratification. ...
- The Danger of a Naïve Working Class. ...
- The Abuse of Language as Instrumental to the Abuse of Power. ...
- Corruption. ...
- The Failure of Intellect. ...
- The Exploitation of Animals by Humans.