animal farm commandments

An allegory is a story in which the events and characters stand for something besides themselves. The characters and events of Animal Farm represent the real people and events of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. Orwell wrote Animal Farm because he wanted to tell the true story of the Russian Revolution in a way anyone could understand, even if they didn’t know all the historical details. However, Animal Farm is not only an allegory of Russian history. The novella also makes a broader argument about political power and oppression in general.

Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer develop Old Major’s idea that animals have a right to freedom and equality into “a complete system of thought” (Chapter 2) which they call Animalism. The central beliefs of Animalism are expressed in the Seven Commandments, painted on the wall of the big barn. However, as the pigs seize more and more power, they change the Commandments painted on the barn, until Animalism is reduced to a single principle which is virtually the opposite of Old Major’s original idea: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” (Chapter 10).

Napoleon trains a litter of puppies to be loyal to him: when they are fully grown, he uses the dogs to chase Snowball, his main rival, off the farm. Napoleon justifies his takeover by telling the other animals that Snowball was a traitor secretly working for the human farmers. Squealer makes confusing and manipulative arguments to convince most of the animals that Napoleon is telling the truth, while fear of Napoleon’s dogs keeps any doubters from speaking out.

Within Animal Farm’s allegory of Soviet history, Boxer represents the Russian working class. Boxer does most of the work on the farm, and his strength and size give him a great deal of power. However, he is illiterate and trusting, which makes it easy for the pigs to trick him into submitting to their leadership. Orwell believed that something similar had happened to the Russian working class during the Soviet Revolution: the workers were powerful, and did all the work in the Soviet Union, but they were tricked and betrayed by Russian intellectuals.

How does Mr. Frederick trick Napoleon?

Mr. Frederick agrees to pay a high price for Animal Farm’s timber, and encourages Napoleon to insult Mr. Pilkington. Knowing that the animals are not familiar with money, Frederick pays for the timber in forged banknotes. When the forgery is discovered, Frederick attacks Animal Farm and destroys the windmill. The insulted Mr. Pilkington refuses to help the animals defend their farm. This sequence of events roughly parallels the relations between Stalin’s Soviet Union (Napoleon), Nazi Germany (Frederick), and the United Kingdom (Pilkington) during the Second World War.

Mollie leaves Animal Farm because she has never fully embraced its new way of life, and she instead prefers the benefits of being owned by humans. Of all the animals, Mollie has not risen to the demands of Animalism. She sneaks sugar and ribbons, shirks her duties, shows up late to work, and maintains contact with humans. After she leaves Animal Farm, the pigeons see her in town, pulling a dogcart while a human strokes her nose and feeds her sugar. These details show that Mollie chooses to sacrifice her liberty for comfort.

Snowball wants to build a windmill so it can power a machine to create electricity on the farm. Electricity will improve the animals’ comfort by supplying light and heat in their stalls. The electricity also will be used to power numerous machines that can perform the work the animals must do, providing them with more leisure time. With the windmill in operation, all the animals will have more time to relax and to “improve their minds with reading and conversation.”

Snowball is a hero at the Battle of the Cowshed, bravely leading the animals’ defensive operations to decisive victory over Mr. Jones, who tries to retake the farm. Employing what he learned from a book on war campaigns, Snowball launches a series of sham attacks designed to lull the farmers into thinking they’ve won, which end with the farmers running for their lives. After Snowball flees the farm, however, Napoleon and Squealer slowly distort this history. Squealer questions Snowball’s role and motives, suggests Snowball was a traitor, and eventually states that Snowball “had been openly fighting on Jones’s side” and “had actually been the leader of the human forces[.]”

Snowball never appears to return to Animal Farm. Squealer, however, claims that Snowball sneaks back onto the farm to commit sabotage. For example, when the first windmill falls down, Squealer claims that Snowball “has crept here under cover of night and destroyed our work of nearly a year.” Within a short time, “[w]henever anything went wrong [on the farm] it became usual to attribute it to Snowball.” In actuality, no one ever sees Snowball again once he leaves the farm.

While Orwell doesn’t explain why the animals confess to crimes they didn’t commit, readers can infer that the four pigs who are the first to be executed are terrified of the dogs and believe that if they do as Napoleon asks, he will spare their lives—after all, the Commandments stipulate that no animal should harm another. More puzzling might be the hens and the sheep’s confessions since they have seen exactly how Napoleon treats so-called traitors. However, the hens are among the least intelligent animals, so they may lack capacity to process the events. Similarly, the sheep have already proved themselves to be followers with little ability to think or question for themselves.