Power & Control

Power & Control

1. Old Major

   • That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, it might be in a week or in a hundred years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner or later justice will be done.
   • Fix your eyes on that, comrades, throughout the short remainder of your lives! And above all, pass on this message of mine to those who come after you, so that future generations shall carry on the struggle until it is victorious. And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray
   • Major raised his trotter for silence
   • Major's speech had given to the more intelligent animals on the farm a completely new outlook on life.
   • The Republic of the Animals which Major had foretold, when the green fields of England should be untrodden by human feet, was still believed in. Some day it was coming: it might not be soon, it might not be with in the lifetime of any animal now living, but still it was coming.

2. Napoleon

   • "Never mind the milk, comrades!" cried Napoleon, placing himself in front of the buckets. "That will be attended to.
   • Napoleon raised his trotter for silence
   • . He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade Napoleon, 'Beasts of England' had been abolished. From now onwards it was forbidden to sing it.
   • . It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune.
   • 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.
   • And finally there was a tremendous baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.
   • "Ah, that is different!" said Boxer. "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right."

3. Pigs

   • These three had elaborated old Major's teachings into a complete system of thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism.
   • The work of teaching and organising the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally recognised as being the cleverest of the animals
   • . The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the others. With their superior knowledge it was natural that they should assume the leadership.
   • It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions. The other animals understood how to vote, but could never think of any resolutions of their own.
   • . 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
   • It had come to be accepted that the pigs, who were manifestly cleverer than the other animals, should decide all questions of farm policy, though their decisions had to be ratified by a majority vote.

4. Snowball

   • After much thought Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced to a single maxim, namely: "Four legs good, two legs bad."
   • The birds did not understand Snowball's long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart.

5. Squealer

   • He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive
   • . The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.
   • Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades, surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?"
   • "Comrades!" he cried. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege?
   • They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting better and better.
   • There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand. For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called "files," "reports," "minutes," and "memoranda."
   • Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones's day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas.
   • For the time being, certainly, it had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always spoke of it as a "readjustment," never as a "reduction"), but in comparison with the days of Jones, the improvement was enormous.
   • Once again this argument was unanswerable.
   • Surely you remember THAT, comrades?" exclaimed Squealer, frisking from side to side