Old Major's

...

with four legs works toward the good of animal farm.

Squealer is the pig that seems to deceive the other animals the most through dialogue. When it was learned that in fact the pigs had taken the milk for themselves, Squealer uses advanced language and concepts, such as “brainworkers,” and “proved by science,” (Orwell 25) to confuse the animals so that they wouldn’t know how to refute his points. Also, he uses fear-mongering to scare the animals to letting them keep the apples to themselves. This is proved when Squealer claims that if pigs fail their duty, “Jones would come back!” (Orwell 25). Squealer may not do as much behind the scenes manipulating as Napoleon, but he is equally dangerous in his way with words to get what he wants.

Chapter 4

Boxer’s role in the battle of the cowshed is purely ironic. First of all, he is the one who fights the hardest and believes that his actions are for the good of the farm. Completely opposite to his belief, he is the one who ends up suffering the most under the power of the pigs that he so bravely consolidated. Moreover, while he is horrified by the thought that he killed the stable boy, this is mainly what caused the animals to win the battle. This ironic because the one who wanted the least to fight ended up being the one who was the most involved in the winning of it.

Chapter 5

Mollie’s contribution to the farm work, or lack thereof, presented the animals with a conflict. This conflict was sourced from her laziness, vanity and materialism. While this was evident since the days before the revolution, when she walked into the barn “chewing at a lump of sugar,” and “flirting her white mane,” (Orwell 3) it worsened after the rebellion when she came to realize that she could exploit the principles of animalism to her advantage. Mollie demonstrates this when she would be “late for work,” had an excellent appetite and even got caught confiscating “a little pile of lump sugar and several bunches of ribbons” (Orwell 33,34). This should be judged in the harshest manner, because parallel to Napoleon, Mollie used the principles of animalism to find herself superior than the other animals. Her actions may be the most relatable to our lives today, as we search for the easiest way to get what we want, even if often it comes at the downfall of others. An example of this is very simply group projects. Often, lazier students will choose a group with hardworking students because they won’t have to do any work. Because the hardworking students care about their own grades, they will do all the work and the lazy students get an A.

Chapter 6

The pigs’ behaviour evolves parallel to their increasing dealings with humans. Napoleon, being the leader, is seen to be the most directly influenced. First, he manipulates the animals into forced labour without seeming like a dictator by presenting the work as “strictly voluntary,” but threatening that “any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half” (Orwell 44). This is an example of his becoming like their own hated Mr Jones, because he begins to force labour upon the animals. Also, when he wants to build a windmill, he proposes to “engage in trade with the neighbouring farms: not, of course, for any commercial purpose, but simply in order to obtain certain materials which were urgently necessary” (Orwell 46-47). This demonstrates he begins to adopt human principles of trade, which go against animalism’s core belief that what is worked for is owned. Lastly, Napoleon uses fear to consolidate his power. For example, when the four pigs protested against him, they were “promptly silenced by a tremendous growling from the dogs” (Orwell 47). While consolidating power was Napoleon’s obvious objective since the rebellion, it can be seen that he begins using oppression as a method of establishing authority, which mimics Mr Jones’ use of chains and whips. Because of these realities, it is foreshadowed that Napoleon will eventually build a tyranny that surpasses the previous oppression of Mr Jones and, because of the fact that he is a four-legged animal, none of the other animals will be able to speak out. Squealer’s behavior evolves as he develops an effect with his vocabulary on the animals. He masters a way of manipulating words very much in the similar way that humans’ hands were described to be “the instrument with which [Mr Jones] does all his mischief” (Orwell 24). He convinces them, with clever turning of words, that there is nothing wrong with sleeping in beds. He mentions that “The rule was against sheets, which are a human invention,” (Orwell 50) so the new rule now is that they can sleep in beds without sheets. Knowing that beds and blankets are a human inventions too, it is clear he begins to secretly indulge in man’s luxuries while averting the other animal’s attention to that matter.

Chapter 7

While it would be easy to say that the pigs, notably Napoleon and Squealer, were single-handedly responsible for the failure of Animal Farm, the reality is not so. Old Major, Boxer, and Benjamin should be held accountable to some degree for the state of affairs after the executions. Old Major’s contribution was his iteration of key concepts that left room for corruption, Boxer’s responsibility lies in in his blind following of Napoleon even after clear signs of his corruption are evident, and Benjamin finds himself responsible because of his apathy towards the situation, even if he was fully aware of the corruption.

Old Major’s speech may have been compelling, and his ideologies utopian, but it was his entire placing of blame on the humans that was the key flaw in his proposition. He convinced the animals that if they “Remove Man from the scene forever,” the “root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever” (Orwell 4). This narrow and biased thinking ignores the fact that all being desire power, and when the rebellion occured, and a power vacuum was created, the theory could be nothing but disproved.

Boxer’s contribution to the downfall of Animal Farm lies in his blind allegiance to power, even in the face of corruption. Boxer was like a willing slave Napoleon and that made it easy for him to make use of the horse. Boxer openly pledged his allegiance to Napoleon when he “adopted the maxim, ‘Napoleon is always right,’ in addition to his private motto of ‘I will work harder.’” (Orwell 41). Furthermore, Boxer led the others to an unwilling submittance to Napoleon. When the animals were unfairly forced to rebuild the windmill, which was a plan set forth by Napoleon to keep the animals overworked to the point