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Foreword
This is one of my all-time favourite books. I read it for the first time back in class 10th and it is hands down one of the best books to begin your journey of reading. So, the book is very easy and simple to read but it has a lot of symbolism and “read between the lines” stuff in it. I will write the summary along with the related symbolism and hidden meaning (some of which are my interpretation.) The summary is written in normal font while the symbolism part along with my thoughts is written in italics. And also, read carefully as there is a quiz for you by the end of the summary. And apologies for not sending the last month’s edition because I was busy with my exams.
If you read the last mail, don’t worry nothing is different except for the link in the last one. It was not working in previous post. It is working now! :D
Summary
The book begins with the description of Manor Farm and its animals. The farm had three dogs Bluebell, Jessie and Pincher; two horses Boxer and Clover (mare); Clover four foals; Muriel, the white goat; Benjamin, the donkey; Mollie, the foolish white mare; Moses, the tame raven; Old Major, a big and respected boar; Three prominent pigs, Napoleon, Snowball, and Squealer.
One night Old Major called every animal for a meeting. Everyone gathers around and he begins to tell how a few days ago he had a dream in which he saw that all the animals of England rebelled against their owners and overthrew men. In his world, animals were free and they ruled themselves. He talked about how animals do so much work but they only get enough food and water to keep them breathing. And when they cease being useful, they are slaughtered to be eaten. Man is the real enemy of the animals. He asks them to start a rebellion. He ends his speech by saying that “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon two legs, or has wings, is friend. And in our fighting against Man, we must not resemble him. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All habits of men are evil. And above all, no animal should tyrannise over its own kind. We all are brothers. No animal must kill any other animal. All animals are equal. After the speech ends all the animals sing ‘Beasts of England’."
This speech is similar to what a visionary person gives when the people are under tyrannical rule. People who are under a tyrant need hope. When they see someone giving them hope, their spirits rise. This stirs up rebellion and starts a revolution that later overthrows the tyrant.
Three months later, Old Major died. After the speech, all the animals had started preparing for a rebellion that no one knew when would happen. The responsibility of handling the rebellion fell on the shoulders of the pigs who were the cleverest of all animals. They organised regular meetings to talk about the rebellion and sang ‘Beasts of England.’
A few years later, due to a major loss of money in a lawsuit, Mr Jones, owner of Manor Farm, was not feeding his animals for a long time. This stirred a rebellion and finally, all the animals were successfully able to remove every human from the farm. Now, the Manor Farm was renamed Animal Farm.
The animals of the farm had been planning for a long time for this rebellion and not getting fed was the breaking point for animals. The same is true for humans. Most humans would somehow manage under tyranny if they can have enough food to keep them alive and other necessities. If they don’t get that they start a rebellion.
A few months before the rebellion, Napoleon and Snowball taught themselves how to read and write from Mr Jones’s old books. So, after the rebellion, they wrote The Seven Commandments on the wall.
They even had a flag. It was of green colour with hooves on it. Green colour represented the green fields of England and hooves represented the republic of animals that would arrive when the human race would have been successfully overthrown.
Now, since no human was there to tell them what to do, pigs were asked to take the charge of managing the farm. They told each animal what work they would do and when they would do it, how food was distributed, etc. After taking charge pigs made sure that everyone can learn how to read and write. Some animals like Benjamin and Muriel were able to learn how to read, animals like Boxer and Clover couldn’t learn past four alphabets, and dumb animals like sheep, hens, etc couldn’t learn anything. Pigs wanted that everyone could remember all the seven commandments but they were not able to make it happen. So, to make it easier for everyone, especially dumb animals like sheep, the seven commandments were just reduced to one maxim “FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD”. This maxim was especially loved by sheep as they would just randomly start bleating it. Pigs learned to do basic farm jobs from different books and taught other animals how to do it. They even learned how to milk cows. But mysteriously enough this milk always disappeared when animals were not around.
All the animals now are of different classes. Pigs are the elite ruling class. They are smart and are at the top of the hierarchy, they control the people below them. They are in the places of power. Animals like Boxer who are strong but not very smart are the worker class. They are smart enough to do what they are told to do on their own. They are the backbone of society. Dumb animals like sheep are at the bottom of the hierarchy. They can’t think of anything on their own and always need a superior to tell them what to do or not to do. They are the followers and will follow anything without even thinking about it. These classifications will be much clearer after reading the summary further. :D
In the beginning, everything on the farm was working fine. Everyone was working their given work at the given time. They even enjoyed the privilege of slacking a little on the work. Sunday was off for all the animals. They were getting better and more food now since there was no human to leech off their food.
The first harvest after the rebellion was good. Everyone was happy. By this time, the apples on the apple tree had started to fall off the tree after ripping or due to wind. All the animals were then instructed not to eat a single apple as apples would be reserved for the pigs. When other animals questioned why would only pigs eat it. Squealer told everyone that no pig likes the taste of apples, they despise it. But the only reason they eat it is that it is proven by science that eating apples makes animals smart. And since pigs do so much thinking and planning for the farm, it is apt that they eat it. All of the animals should believe that they don’t eat out of pleasure but out of necessity. When some animals were still not convinced by the reasoning. Squealer said, “If we don’t plan carefully Jones would be back and none of us wants that to happen right?” And no animal wanted that to happen and they were happy to let the pigs eat all the apples. Also, the stolen milk was used to mix with the pigs’ mash.
Squealer is the pig form of what you would call Chief of propaganda/PR/Media. His job is to convey messages from elites to the common and cover up their mistakes. He justifies everything the pigs do wrong. His goal is just to make sure that animals always see pigs in a good light. Things have started becoming dark, haha. Things have started getting interesting now.
Snowball was more focused on the plans like building windmills and optimising the farm. While Napoleon believed that focusing on the young minds was much more important. This is why he took the nine puppies to whom Jessie and Bluebell gave birth to a loft that was only accessible through the ladders. Only pigs were able to climb the ladders. Over time the animals forgot about the existence of the puppies.
One day Mr Jones along with five other men came back to the farm to claim back the farm. He was armed with a rifle but others had just a stick. The animals were expecting this so they were prepared. They attacked the men and within five minutes they were able to defeat all the men and chase them out of the farm. Animals suffered injuries like Snowball had gotten injured from the pellets fired by Mr Jones on his back. But men were seriously injured. Mr Jones had gotten bit by Snowball on his calf. Boxer had accidentally killed a man by stepping on him and crushing him. For this, Boxer was very sentimental but Snowball told him that there is no need to be sentimental as men are the real enemy. Funnily enough, it was found out that the man had just got stunned and was very much alive. He just eloped as soon as the animals went away. This victory was celebrated. Awards were given to those who fought in the battle and it was named The Battle of Cowshed.
Napoleon and Snowball always got into debates as they disagreed on everything. Snowball used to back his arguments using facts but Napoleon just opposed it. An interesting pattern was noted by the animals that every time Napoleon started to seem to lose the argument, sheep would start chanting “Four legs good, two legs bad” and the meeting would be disrupted. One day during the debate about the windmill, Napoleon came with 9 dogs with bronze stud collars. These are the same dogs that Napoleon took with him when they were puppies. Then Napoleon used these dogs to chase out the Snowball, who just escaped saving his life.
The dogs here are the muscle power. With them, Napoleon and the other pigs just made sure their place in the hierarchy remains unchallenged. He can get his orders executed because every animal is scared of the dogs.
After kicking out Snowball for proposing to build a windmill, Napoleon decided to build the windmill. Windmill was finally built years later. It had gotten destroyed twice. First by a thunderstorm at which stage it was just half-built. The second time it was destroyed using explosives by Mr Frederick and other men (discussed later on with a little more detail). Building it took a lot of effort. Most of which was done by Boxer. He started believing that with him working harder everything would turn out fine and he believed Comrade Napoleon is always right.
Boxer is the kind of person who lives in a dark fantasy world. He believed that if he worked harder then he would be able to fix the condition of the farm and it was his fault. These people suffer a lot in real life as they are exploited by their superiors.
Both of the times Snowball was accused of somehow being responsible for destroying the windmills.
All of the commandments felt like they were being changed. For example one day it was found out that Napoleon had started living in the farmhouse and sleeping in bed. Later, when the commandments were checked it was found out that the 4th commandment was a little different than what they remembered. It was “No animal shall sleep in bed with sheets.” When animals were still sceptical, Squealer came there to explain that beds are natural. Even a stack of straws was a bed. It is not wrong. But sleeping in bed with sheets is wrong as sheets are man-made and men are evil.
Things went darker in the future, more rules were changed. Ration and food for all the animals except for pigs and dogs were readjusted. It was always termed readjusted as reduced is not a good word. Animals were doing much worse than they did earlier. They were working way more than they did when it was still Manor farm and were eating way less than they did. They believed that their condition was better because the data Squealer showed them data that proved that things were better. Clever tactics were used to fool outsiders too that the farm was doing better than before. Empty cans would be filled with sand and topped with grains to show that there was an excess of food.
Pigs had even started drinking (it was allowed because the fifth commandment was no animal shall drink alcohol to excess) and trading with humans. Trading was done so that they could acquire the equipment required to build the windmill. New enemies of the farms kept on being announced. Over time Napoleon got more and more popular. Animals were killed too because the commandment was no animal shall be killed without cause.
When a country is under a dictatorship or it is in a state where the population is doubtful of the leader, making an enemy of the state is an amazing way to unite the people together. They forget the differences and focus on the external enemy. This has been done countless times by so many dictators. If you wonder how I know this, well I read. Even you can even learn these things. Subscribe to the newsletter if you already haven’t and keep on reading summaries of the books to learn different things.
A big trade was made with Mr Frederick of the neighbouring farm. But he cheated the animals by giving them counterfeit currency. He later attacked the farm along with 15 other men armed with guns, killed animals and destroyed the windmills by using explosives. The animals were afraid to fight because they would get killed and injured. But after they saw that the men destroyed the windmill. They were enraged and started fighting back and were able to chase out the men.
Pigs now had started getting a separate status. Their kids didn’t play with other animals. If any animal encountered a pig on its path, the animal would have to stop on its path, get aside and let the pig go first. Pigs were allowed to wear ribbons while other animals weren’t. Poems and speeches were given weekly called Spontaneous Demonstration. Whenever Napoleon came out in public he was escorted by dogs.
The worst that happened was with Boxer. When Boxer was about to reach his retirement age, he got injured while he was working to get the windmill built. He was then sold off to a horse slaughterhouse but pigs told everyone he was sent to the hospital. The cart was just bought by the doctor and he was unable to repaint it and that’s why this misunderstanding happened.
One day squealer took the sheep with him to a separate portion of the farm and kept them there for a week, saying that it is for a new song that they were teaching them. Later on, one day all the animals freaked out when they saw that Squealer was walking on two legs and had a whip in his trotters. Before any animal could question him, the sheep flocked the place and started bleating “FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BETTER.” And they didn’t stop till the animals went away. It was then Clover who asked Benjamin to read out The Seven Commandments as it seemed to have changed a little. Benjamin had made a promise to himself that he would never tell anyone what the commandments read or what was going on on the farm because apart from pigs only he remembered everything that happened. To tell Clover, he broke this promise. He said that all the commandments had been erased and only one commandment was written. “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”
The book ends with animals looking at pigs and men sitting together in the farmhouse and fighting each other. The same men and pigs were earlier sitting together and having a celebration. The animals kept looking from men to pigs and pigs to men but they were not able to understand who was who.
Power corrupts people and it is shown here perfectly. Pig is also used as a degrading term for someone greedy. Pigs realised that they can easily exploit the other gullible animals and they started exploiting them from the beginning. They stole milk, made up excuses to eat apples. They had found out that animals would do anything just to make sure that Mr Jones would stay and they did. The changes happened and they were big changes like pigs had started drinking alcohol. They were normalised and happened because the changes were made in small steps and over years. The sheep were the blind followers who let these changes happen. Their blindness towards everything and the habit of disturbing others were exploited by pigs. Snowball was chased out because his thoughts didn’t match that of Napoleon. And dictators don’t like getting challenged by anyone. If Napoleon might not have taken those puppies and trained them, then maybe things would have turned a little different.
Quiz (Surprise!)
I have made a quiz based on the book too!
You can check it here
Click here to take the quiz
Very aptly written summary. Your well put thoughts give an insight on how politics works, through symbolism.