Animal Farm

Animal Farm

George Orwell

`Mr. Jones feeds us. If he were gone, we should starve to death.'

The very first question she asked Snowball was: `Will there still be sugar after the Rebellion? '

Now if there was one thing that the animals were completely certain of, it was that they did not want Jones back. When it was put to them in this light, they had no more to say. The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too obvious. So it was agreed without further argument that the milk and the windfall apples (and also the main crop of apples when they ripened) should be reserved for the pigs alone.

`Comrades!' cried Squealer, making little nervous skips, `a most terrible thing has been discovered. Snowball has sold himself to Frederick of Pinch eld Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and take our farm away from us! Snowball is to act as his guide when the attack begins. But there is worse than that. We had thought that Snowball's rebellion was caused simply 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 very start! He was Jones's secret agent all the time. It has all been proved by documents which he left behind him and which we have only just discovered. To my mind this explains a great deal, comrades. Did we not see for ourselves how he attempted - fortunately without success - to get us defeated and destroyed at the Battle
of the Cowshed?'
The animals were stupe ed. This was a wickedness far outdoing Snowball's destruction of the windmill. But it was some minutes before they could fully take it in. They all remembered, or thought they remembered, how they had seen Snowball charging ahead of them at the Battle of the Cowshed, how he had rallied and encouraged them at every turn, and how he had not paused for an instant even when the pellets from Jones's gun had wounded his back. At first it was a little difficult to see how this fitted in with his being on Jones's side. Even Boxer, who seldom asked questions, was puzzled. He lay down, tucked his fore hoofs beneath him, shut his eyes, and with a hard effort managed to formulate his thoughts.
`I do not believe that,' he said. `Snowball fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed. I saw him myself. Did we not give him 'Animal Hero, First Class,'immediately afterwards?'
`That was our mistake, comrade. For we know now | it is all written down
in the secret documents that we have found | that in reality he was trying to lure us to our doom.'
`But he was wounded,' said Boxer. `We all saw him running with blood.'
`That was part of the arrangement!' cried Squealer. `Jones's shot only grazed him. I could show you this in his own writing, if you were able to read it.

Napoleon himself, attended by his dogs and his cockerel, came down to inspect the completed work; he personally congratulated the animals on their achievement, and announced that the mill would be named Napoleon Mill.

They found it comforting to be reminded that, after all, they were truly their own masters and that the work they did was for their own benefit.

Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse - hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. 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.