Liz Allen

Claim: Napoleon and Squealer are sneaky and persuasive leaders who use lies and deceit to manipulate and
control the animals on the farm.
"Notes & Comments: September 2015." New Criterion 34.1 (2015): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 22
Feb. 2016.
Page 2: A couple of the more pacific animals noticed that the pigs had taken to walking on their hind legs and
that those who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters. It was at about that time
that the seven commandments mysteriously disappeared and were replaced with just one: All animals are
equal, but some are more equal than others.
Robb, Paul H. "Animal Farm: Overview." Reference Guide to English Literature. Ed. D. L. Kirkpatrick. 2nd ed.
Chicago: St. James Press, 1991. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.
No Page: It was, however, generally recognized that the pigs were the cleverest of the animals, so the work of
organizing for the Rebellion fell naturally to them, especially to three who took over leadership: Napoleon and
Snowball, the two boars of the farm, and Squealer. These three elaborated Old Major's teaching into a complete
system of thought: Animalism. A code of equality, austerity, and hard work was proclaimed and encoded in The
Seven Commandments``an unalterable law.''
No Page: Very soon, however, under the leadership of Napoleon, the techniques and hypocrisies of tyranny
begin to appear. First, there is a strong emphasis on ceremony and ritual. A regular Sunday morning meeting is
set up where Napoleon gives an inspirational address. Slogans are recited in unison. A favorite is their great
affirmation: ``Four legs good-two legs bad!'' When a counter-attack by farmer Jones is beaten off, the great
occasion is proclaimed ``The Battle of the Cowshed,'' and military decorations created including ``Animal
Hero-First Class'' and ``Animal Hero-Second Class.'' Napoleon awards both of these to himself.
No Page: Very soon comes the discrediting of co-leader Snowball. Snowball is the idealist, constantly wanting
to consider the welfare of all the animals while Napoleon is the pragmatist, ready to be brutal to achieve his
purposes. So the technique of the ``big lie'' and contrived evidence results in Snowball's being driven out of
Animal Farm, leaving Napoleon in sole command. And the discredited Snowball is blamed whenever problems
arise.
No Page: Another recognizable technique: revision of the past. The Seven Commandments``unalterable
law''are revised one by one to suit Napoleon's purposes. Also the democratic meetings are changed to
assemblies where Napoleon issues his orders. The workers are often puzzled but they absorb everything they are
told and thus become perfect subjects for manipulation.
No Page: Hypocrisies are numerous, for special privileges for the pigs are decreed and then justified through
Squealer's Doublespeak. And revisions of the Seven Commandments are continually made to suit Napoleon's
personal wishes. The final cynical attitude of all tyrannies is expressed in the ultimate distillation of the Seven
Commandments into one: ``All Animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.''
Patai, Daphne. "Animal Farm Exposes Orwell's Sexism." Readings on Animal Farm. Ed. Terry O'Neill. San
Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1998. 116-126. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 68.
Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.
No Page: When read as a feminist fable, however, Animal Farm has another important message. The origins of
the Seven Commandments of Animalism lie in Major's warnings against adopting Man's ways: "And remember
also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do
not adopt his vices."

Hollis, Christopher. "Animal Farm Is a Successful Animal Fable." Readings on Animal Farm. Ed. Terry O'Neill.
San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1998. 43-49. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 68.
Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.
No Page: The interpretation of the fable is plain enough. Major, Napoleon, Snowball--Lenin, Stalin and
Trotzky--Pilkington and Frederick, the two groups of non-Communist powers--the Marxian thesis, as
expounded by Major, that society is divided into exploiters and exploited and that all the exploited need to do is
to rise up, to expel the exploiters and seize the 'surplus value' which the exploiters have previously annexed to
themselves--the Actonian thesis that power corrupts and the Burnhamian thesis that the leaders of the exploited,
having used the rhetoric of equality to get rid of the old exploiters, establish in their place not a classless society
but themselves as a new governing class--the greed and unprincipled opportunism of the non-Communist states,
which are ready enough to overthrow the Communists by force so long as they imagine that their overthrow will
be easy but begin to talk of peace when they find the task difficult and when they think that they can use the
Communists to satisfy their greed--the dishonour among total thugs, as a result of which, though greed may
make original ideology irrelevant, turning pigs into men and men into pigs, the thugs fall out among themselves,
as the Nazis and the Communists fell out, not through difference of ideology but because in a society of utter
baseness and insincerity there is no motive of confidence.
No Page: Both Chaucer and La Fontaine discovered this in their times, and the trouble with Orwell was that the
lesson which he wished to teach was not ultimately a gay lesson. It was not the lesson that mankind had its
foibles and its follies but that all would be well in the end. It was more nearly a lesson of despair--the lesson that
anarchy was intolerable, that mankind could not be ruled without entrusting power somewhere or other and, to
whomsoever power was entrusted, it was almost certain to be abused.
Grofman, Bernard. "Pig and Proletariat: Animal Farm as History." San Jose Studies 16.2 (Spring 1990): 5-39.
Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 68. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center.
Web. 22 Feb. 2016.
Np Page: However, although Animal Farm rests on an analogy between animals and the exploited underclass
(echoed elsewhere by Orwell in his comparisons of the proles in 1984 to the beasts and of the plongeurs in
Down and Out in Paris and London to imprisoned animals), it is quite absurd to attach undue importance to
Orwell's love of animals as a key to Animal Farm.
No Page: Orwell's choice of pigs as the "brain-worker" elite is biologically well-founded. Pigs are among the
most intelligent of domestic animals. That pigs are also the villains of Animal Farm is consonant with common
folk beliefs about the pig as a dirty, selfish, sluggish, brutish, refuse-eating animal. The terms "pig" and "swine"
symbolize degradation in Christian parables (cf. "The Moral Pigsty" in Small, 1975: Chapter 4) and derivatives
from these terms (e.g., "roadhog," "male chauvinist pig," "pig-headed") are invariably terms of abuse in western
culture.
No Page: That Animal Farm recapitulates in condensed and symbolic form the history of the Soviet revolution
does not prevent its being seized on as a general weapon in any antidictatorial or antitotalitarian cause; and
Orwell's ghost would no doubt chortle with glee at such uses.
Brown, Spencer. "Mealymouthed Critics Ignore Animal Farm's Anticommunist Flavor." Readings on Animal
Farm. Ed. Terry O'Neill. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1998. 70-81. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed.
Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 68. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.
No Page: Few of them, unfortunately, are intelligent enough to do anything but heavy labor, and the direction of
things gradually devolves upon the pigs, who lead a successful defense against Jones's armed intervention. A
struggle for power develops between the two leading pigs, Napoleon (Stalin) and Snowball (Trotsky).

No Page: Napoleon has by this time revised all the egalitarian principles of Animalism, originally enunciated by
Major and codified by Snowball, to read: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."
Having assumed human vices, Napoleon gives a banquet for another neighbor, Pilkington (the English ruling
classes), at which they drink each other's health colossally and cheat each other in a card game. The bewildered
animal slaves, watching from outside the windows, can no longer tell which is man and which is pig.
No Page: As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it
would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they set themselves years ago to work for
the overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to
on that night when old Major first stirred them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it
had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his
capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the
night of Major's speech. Instead--she did not know why--they had come to a time when no one dared speak his
mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces
after confessing shocking crimes.
No Page: All the students except those completely ignorant of modern history recognize that the story parallels
the Russian Revolution. Without assistance they identify Napoleon as Stalin, Jones as the Czar, and Frederick as
Hitler; if they have ever heard of Trotsky, they recognize him at once as Snowball.
Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. "Animal Farm." Encyclopedia of Fable. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, Inc., 1998.
34-39. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 132. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource
Center. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.
No Page: Orwell's elaborate fable parodies the takeover of propagandists, tyrants, and authoritarian
governments that deceive unsuspecting victims. Setting his sheep, horses, cows, pigs, dogs, ducklings, goat,
raven, and donkey amid the idyllic agrarianism of Manor Farm, he builds an allegory that characterizes Adolf
Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Josef Stalin and their cynical plot to uplift then enslave the unwary farmyard.
No Page: Innocent of the dangers of revolt, the rebels find themselves entrenched in a dismaying animal police
state supervised by a porcine praetorian guard. Under a barnyard version of Nazism, fascism, and hard-line
communism, the animals struggle to survive a terrifying opportunism that threatens them with starvation and
overwork.
No Page: In the vacuum of a leaderless state, Orwell predicts the type of demagogues who typically arise from
the frightened citizenry. Old Major's protgs--three opportunistic pigs named Snowball, Napoleon, and
Squealer--list simplistic principles of animalism to guide their dream state. With biblical majesty, they title their
manifesto the Seven Commandments:
No Page: Orwell's fast-paced fable illustrates how quickly good intentions can go awry. Having taught
themselves to read and write, the pigs seize the initiative. In place of Jones, now a porcine troika supervises
labor, challenges other animals to surpass productivity under human management, and retains for the
supervisory elite the fruits of Animal Farm's first harvest. Eventually, Snowball condenses the Seven
Commandments to a single precept: "Four legs good, two legs bad." (Orwell 1946, 41) Moreover, by keeping
the other animals overworked and in a perpetual state of tension and anticipation, the pigs conceal their
duplicity while plotting the next stage of the power play. The episode suggests that gullibility is often a prologue
to victimization.
No Page: Napoleon, a fierce, secretive, taciturn Berkshire boar of 24 stone who sets ambition over principle.
Cunningly self-serving, he deceives his rival, the ingenuous Snowball, and, as a control over minor defections,
trains nine puppies into a parody of a jackbooted hit squad. To the question of Sunday morning meetings he

responds by barring future such incidents of wasted time and empanels a puppet committee of pigs, headed by
himself.
No Page: After wearing himself out with physical labor and misguided devotion to Napoleon, 12-year-old
Boxer longs to retire, but the pigs deceive him and dispatch him to the local knacker. Against the counterpoint
of Squealer reading a readjustment of harvest figures and work goals, the faithful horse drums a feeble tattoo on
the walls of the van to summon his compatriots to action.
No Page: A wry literary tour de force, Orwell's engaging animal fable combines powerful episodes--a litany of
intolerable farm conditions, a revered elder's vision of an animal utopia, waves of revolt and counter-revolt,
undermining of the master plan to make Manor Farm into an animal-run haven, regressive internal strife, and
the coercion of lesser animals by an imperious superstructure.
No Page: By altering truth to shift blame, the pig faction subjugates a gullible, poorly educated nation with
dreams turned to nightmare. Just as animal babies born after the initial overthrow have no direct knowledge of
farm history, Orwell implies that the human generations born after World War II lack an understanding of the
insidious nature of the totalitarianism and fascism that ignited world leaders into global war.
Woodhouse, C. M. "Animal Farm." Times Literary Supplement (6 Aug. 1954): xxx-xxxi. Rpt. in Short Story
Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 68. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
No Page: Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly,
against totalitarianism ... Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was
doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.
No Page: There is something freakish about the idea, anyway, which makes it seem unlikely to stir the emotions
of the common reader; and it is impossible to attach a moral in any familiar sense to Animal Farm, where
wickedness ends in triumph and virtue is utterly crushed.
No Page: For the downtrodden animals there is nothing but misery, cruelty and injustice; and in place of a moral
there is only the tragic chorus of the donkey Benjamin, who held that "life would go on as it had always gone
on--that is, badly." This is not like the kind of moral that tells us to look before we leap or not to count our
boobies before they are hatched. For the animals never had a chance to choose, and if they had it would have
made no difference.
Rodden, John. "Big Rock (Sugar)Candy Mountain? How George Orwell Tramped Toward "Animal Farm.."
Papers On Language & Literature 46.3 (2010): 315-341. Literary Reference Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
Page 329: Of course, in context the allusion is sardonic: Sugarcandy Mountain clearly represents religion as the
opiate of the masses. Given that the lyrics of Beasts of England also reverberate with the echoes of The Big
Rock Candy Mountains, Orwell was arguably contending that socialist utopianism is no less an opiate than
religion: both promise pie in the sky at some indefinite future date, and both promises are empty. And that
suggests that the satirical point of Animal Farm is not merely that the Soviets betrayed their own revolution, but
that all revolutions are ultimately frauds.
Page 331: If the author of Animal Farm and Down and Out ever did hear Ivess recording of The Big Rock
Candy Mountainswhich was a hit tune frequently played on the radio in 1949-50he must have smiled.
Orwell would have immediately recognized that Ives, as if he were a benign Squealer altering The Seven
Commandments of Animalism with a few swabs of his paintbrush, proceeds to whitewash the hobo hymn of
much of its racier street slang and hobo underworld coloration.

Sapakie, Polly. "Freud's Notion Of The Uncanny In ANIMAL FARM." Explicator 69.1 (2011): 10-12. Literary
Reference Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
Page 10: Clovers terror arises because she sees Napoleon walking on his hind legs, carrying a whip in his
trotter. Eerily human-like, the sight of a pig walking on his hind legs obscures the boundaries of reality, fogging
them with fear. This uncanny moment represents the formerly repressed reality of Animal Farm, the reality the
animals have ignoredthe pigs have become oppressors, remade in the image of active evil.
Page 11: No argument is articulated, and the fears of the animals merge with their confusion and uncertainty,
illustrating the presence of Freuds uncanny in this upturned world. As the pigs gain power, unrepentantly
perverting the aims of the rebellion, they use language as a weapon, an uncannily subtle manner in which to
control the animals. The pigs do more than talk, though, by manipulating the reality of Animal/Manor Farm to
the degree that the animals are confounded, sensing that what once was is now misshapen into an
unrecognizable incarnation of the initial rebellion.
Page 12: The animals confront what readers have long known. The supernormal sight of the pig-men supping
with the men-pigs destroys whatever vestige of self-deception the animals may have (Morse 86), with the
repression of the covert fears of the unnatural they have tamped down for years now all too evident. This scene
is uncanny, indeed, with the familiar merging with the fantastic, all beyond the animals ken. Ambiguous and
indefinable, the uncanny is manifested by the self-deception of the animals. The uncertainty of the animals
about the spectacle of the pigs and men combine with the bitter knowledge that their past, regressed selves
predicted and hope.
Page 12: The animals nearly view the pigs as their doubles, and Freud argues that the uncanny is marked by
the fact that the subject identifies himself with someone else, so that he is in doubt as to which his self is (629).
Bringing to light ancient terrors and the apprehension that someone or something has been here before us and
that we are strangers or interlopers, lost in alien terrain (Gentile 30), the betrayals and depredations of the pigs
are particularly devastating because of the unearthly presence of the uncanny.
Peters, Michael. "`Animal Farm' Fifty Years On." Contemporary Review 267.1555 (1995): 90. Literary
Reference Center. Web. 23 Feb. 201
No Page: Orwell was very clear about his intentions in writing the book. During the Spanish Civil War, he had
seen the effects of the repressions and deceptions of Stalinism at first hand. He wished to open people's eyes to
the reality of the Soviet regime 'in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone', even when that
regime had become an ally to Britain and the USA in the fight against German fascism. Such an exposure was
essential, Orwell believed, if a true and democratic form of socialism was to be created.
Jones, Myrddin. "Orwell, Wells and the Animal Fable." English: The Journal of the English Association 33.146
(Summer 1984): 127-136. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 68. Detroit: Gale, 2004.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
No Page: The most significant way in which this later, and more efficient, Frankenstein brainwashes his new
community was by means of a code of laws which they have to memorize and rehearse. The set of laws
remarkably anticipates the Seven Commandment of Animal Farm--another code designed as 'an unalterable law
by which all the animals ... must live forever after.
No Page: The first signs of reversal were the dismembered bodies of rabbits; just as, in Animal Farm the threat
comes in the dog's attack on the rats. Under the influence of the Major, the inhabitants of Animal Farm tried to
arrest the return to nature by voting that 'rats were comrades'; and Moreau's creatures, similarly, follow the
Sayer of the Law--their Squealer, 'a grey, horrible, crooked creature' (M. 117)--in recantations and confessions.

No Page: But there is no hope. Those who do break the Law in following their animal natures are hunted down,
and in each case the fifth commandment, 'Not to chase other men', is abandoned. The same happens on Animal
Farm in the abandonment of their sixth commandment, 'No animal shall kill any other animal'. But while in
Wells the collapse of indoctrination and the return to the state of nature is at last recognized by the
animals--'The House of Pain--there is no House of Pain' (M. 137)--the greater poignancy of Animal Farm, as the
animals return to their subject status, is caught in their continuing acceptance of the propaganda of equality.
No Page: Orwell, however, was writing not about the general nature of man but about the specific issue of the
corrupting nature of absolute power. He needed both to keep separate the images of tyrant and victim, and to
remove the confusing presence of an intermediary, participating, narrator.6 Instead, he adopted the traditional
form of children's fable and gave us two carefully separated images: of animals as victim and of man as tyrant.
No Page: We recall not only Boxer's loyalty and Clover's grief at the loss of her pastoral, but also Benjamin's
alert skepticism about politicians, Mollie's human vanity and the cat's shrewd opportunism. But they do not
adopt the human image: they retain the image of animals. The increasing corruption of the pigs, in contrast, can
be caught in their changing image as they become more and more like dictatorial man. The satire of the
Communist dictatorship is imaged in the one group of animals which insists on its common nature and destiny
with the others but increasingly departs from it.
No Page: It is in his brilliant analysis and presentation of the role of Man that Orwell achieves his most
penetrating satire. 'Only get rid of Man', says the Major, 'and the produce of our labor would be our own.
Almost overnight we could become rich and free'. (AF. 13). Again, the relation to Wells works by contrast not
similarity. In Wells's story, getting rid of Moreau freed the animals from his dictatorial power and they reverted
to their earlier state. But this does not happen on Animal Farm. In Major's proposals there is an unperceived
ambiguity.
No Page: The aspect of human nature that the pigs represent is a permanent part of the picture; and utopia that
starts with the provision 'Only get rid of Man' is shown in its nature to be illusory. The historical allegory thus
allows a separation between the animals and the pigs, and allows Orwell to extend his theme from that of a
satire on a particular political philosophy to a more universal account of the age-old conflict between the
governors and the governed.
Times Literary Supplement. "Untitled." Times Literary Supplement (25 Aug. 1945): 401. Rpt. in Short Story
Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 68. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
No Page: From the first, however, there are inequalities of brain and muscle, and the pigs gradually assume the
intellectual leadership. The revolution changes its shape and form, but lip-service is still paid to its first
precepts; if they become more and more difficult to reconcile with the dictatorial policies of the large Berkshire
boar, Napoleon, such a loyal and simple creature as Boxer, the carthorse, is ready to blame his own stupidity
rather than the will to power working in those who have the means to power in their trotters.
No Page: Even more powerful than Napoleon is Squealer, Napoleon's publicity agent, who justifies every
reactionary decree by arguing that it is really in the animals' own interest and persuades them that to add to the
seventh commandment of the revolution, "All animals are equal," the rider "but some animals are more equal
than others," is not to tamper with the principle of equality.
No Page: Dictatorship is evil, argues Mr. Orwell with a pleasant blend of irony and logic while busily telling his
fairy story, not only in that it corrupts the characters of those who dictate, but in that it destroys the intelligence
and understanding of those dictated to until there is no truth anywhere and fear and bewilderment open the way
for tyranny ferocious and undisguised. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, and his book is as
entertaining as narrative as it is apposite in satire [Animal Farm].

"Overview: Animal Farm." Characters in Young Adult Literature. John T Gillespie and Corinne J. Naden.
Detroit: Gale, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
No Page: With the farmer and his wife chased off the farm, Animalism and its Seven Commandments take over.
Dogs, sheep, and horses are kept in line by the pigs, who justify their power with misleading rhetoric.
No Page: Napoleon revises the Seven Commandments in order to give greater privileges to the pigs. Pretty
soon, the pigs are much like the humans they despised in the first place. The allegory ends with the maxim that
all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. With the revolution betrayed, a
dictatorship develops, a bright vision dims, and the pressure of the status quo represses any new ideas that
threaten to change it,
No Page: Like Snowball, however, Napoleon does share Major's vision and plan and is willing to work to see
the revolution succeed. The main difference is that Napoleon has his own agenda for a successful revolution.
Whereas Snowball wants good for all, Napoleon concentrates on the advantages he can gain for himself; and
whereas Snowball plans activities out in the open, Napoleon plots secretly, as when he covertly trains the dogs.
No Page: Napoleon may be likened to Stalin, the former despotic ruler of the Soviet Union. He is ruthless in
carrying out his plans for his own betterment. Greed is his overall characteristic, a motive that never changes
throughout the novel. Napoleon becomes better and better at satisfying his own goals and needs and in duping
the other animals into believing that he is doing it all for them. Each new project that takes all their energy
keeps them from questioning whether their lives are truly improved. Napoleon is a master of propaganda, as
was Stalin. And like Stalin, Napoleon uses ruthless tactics to gain his objectives.
No Page: Small, fat Squealer with his fine voice is the propagandist of the revolution. Whatever Napoleon
wants, Squealer will do. He even revises the Seven Commandments when it suits Napoleon's aims. As
Napoleon's official spokespig, Squealer is so persuasive that he can cleverly turn ideas and thoughts inside out
until the other animals are no longer sure of what is right or even what has happened. Although Squealer
presents a merry posture, he is an argumentative, vindictive pig. One does not threaten his authority. If one of
the animals objects to something Squealer has said, he merely brings up the threat of Farmer Jones's return.
No Page: Boxer represents the working class in the Marxist theory of revolution. He is a strong and tall horse
who works constantly for others while gaining little for himself from his labors. He has little education or
intelligence and can't fully comprehend the workings of the revolution. He is, however, totally willing to follow
the dictates of others and volunteer for extra work if it needs to be done. He does not quite understand some of
the things that are happening on the farm or the reasons for them. But, above all, Boxer is loyal to the
revolution's leaders.
Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. "An overview of Animal Farm." Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2016.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
No Page: For instance, Snowball's original plans for building the windmill correspond to Lenin's plans for the
electrification of Russia; however, though this plan was not the point on which the Stalin/Trotsky conflict
turned, the ultimate result was the same as that between Napoleon and Snowball: Trotsky was driven from the
country under a death warrant; he was reported to be hiding in various enemy states; he was held responsible for
everything that went wrong under the Stalinist regime; and, ultimately, his supporters were violently purged
from the ranks of the Communist Party.
No Page: It is thus that much more shocking when Squealer (who, as Napoleon's mouthpiece, might be said to
correspond to Pravda, the Soviet propagandist press) announces that the deal Napoleon had been working out to
sell some timber to Pilkington has instead been changed so that the deal will be made with Frederick. This
devastating turn of events corresponds to the revelation in 1939 of the secret Nazi-Soviet anti-aggression pact

which, like the peace between Frederick and Animal Farm, did not last long, but was abruptly ended by Hitler's
attempted invasion of Russia.
No Page: Lee argues that Animal Farm is more than an allegory of twentieth-century Russian politics, and more
even than an indictment of revolutions in general: Orwell is also, claims Lee, painting a grim picture of the
human condition in the political twentieth century, a time which he has come to believe marks the end of the
very concepts of human freedom.
"Napoleon." Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1995.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
No Page: Napoleon Fictional character, a pig who usurps power and becomes dictator over the other animals in
Animal Farm, by George Orwell.
"Overview: Animal Farm." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen and Kevin Hile. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
No Page: Squealer, another pig who serves as Napoleon's functionary, convinces the other animals that
Snowball was a criminal. A few days later, Napoleon declares that the windmill will be built after all, and
Squealer explains that the idea had belonged to Napoleon from the beginning, but that Snowball had stolen the
plans.
No Page: In the days after the purges, the animals seem to recall a commandment prohibiting the killing of
animals, but when they check the barn wall, they discover that it reads No animal shall kill any other animal
without cause.
No Page: Squealer, however, informs the animals that the battle was a victory for the animals. Shortly after, the
pigs discover a case of whiskey in the basement of the farmhouse, and a raucous celebration is heard throughout
the night. The next day, it is announced that Napoleon is near death. When he recovers, the animals discover
that the commandment which they thought said that no animal should drink alcohol in fact reads No animal
shall drink alcohol to excess.
No Page: An old cart-horse, Boxer, who has worked tirelessly for Animal Farm, suddenly takes ill. Napoleon
announces that arrangements have been made to treat Boxer in a hospital in town. However, the truck that
arrives to take Boxer away belongs to a horse slaughterer, and the animals erupt in a great outcry. They are
pacified by Squealer, who tells them that, in fact, the truck has been purchased by the veterinarian but has not
been repainted.
No Page: Then, one day, Napoleon emerges from the house on two legs. The sheep's traditional chant of Four
legs good, two legs bad has now, somehow, been changed to Four legs good, two legs better. And the Seven
Commandments have now all been erased from the barn wall and replaced with a single Commandment: All
animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
No Page: Soon after the revolt of the animals, Napoleon takes nine puppies from their mothers to "educate"
them. The puppies end up being his personal bodyguards and secret police force. He grows increasingly
removed from the other animals, dining alone and being addressed as "our Leader, Comrade Napoleon."
No Page: He is the propaganda chief for the pigs, the equivalent of the Soviet party newspaper Pravda (which
means "Truth" in Russian) in Orwell's allegory. Squealer has an explanation for everything, including why the
pigs need to drink the milk the cows produce, why the commandments of Animalism seem different, and why
the side of the "ambulance" called to take Boxer to the hospital has a sign for a horse slaughterer on its side.