ANIMAL FARM, George Orwell SHORT SUMMARY

CHARACTERS:

(RUSSIAN REVOLUTION characters depicted are in PARENTHESES)

OLD MAJOR; boar, wise, starts the rebellion (MARX/LENIN)

MR. JONES: human farmer, drunk, cruel to animals (CZAR NICHOLAS II)

SNOWBALL: pig, intellectual leader, smart (TROTSKY)

NAPOLEON: pig, power-hungry, cruel, human wannabe (STALIN)

SQUEALER: pig, with lies convinces animals of antyhing (PRAVDA NEWS)

FREDERICK: human farmer, neighbor, astute (HITLER)

BOXER: horse, faithful, hard-worker (RUSSIAN WORKER)

PLOT:

OLD MAJOR, knowing he's going to die, calls a meeting of all of

animals on Manor Farm.

He tells them they have been abused and exploited by the human MR.

JONES for too long.

A few days later, the drunk farmer forgets to feed the animals. The

animals attack him and drive all humans away from the farm.

The pigs become leaders, they rename the farm as ANIMAL FARM and set

about organizing the animals to work by themselves.

They state 7 rules. Basically they say that all humans are bad and

the animals will not have any contact with them or imitate them.

All animals accept the pigs SNOWBALL and NAPOLEON as leaders, and even

understand that they need to have certain special privileges.

The humans try to reinvade the farm, but are turned away in a bloody

fighting. SNOWBALL is the hero of the battle.

NAPOLEON, who wants all the power for himself, drives SNOWBALL away

from the farm with a pack of vicious dogs. Now he's the only ruler.

SQUEALER, the lying pig, convinces the animals that getting rid of

Snowball is good for everybody.

NAPOLEON plans to build a windmill (actually SNOWBALL originally had

the idea, and NAPOLEON scoffed at it) and realizes that he needs

to get in contact with neighbor humans for supplies.

The pigs, led by NAPOLEON, move into the farmhouse and start sleepingin beds.

The animals recall that those things were forbidden, but SQUEALER

convinces them otherwise.

The windmill is destroyed by a storm. NAPOLEON blames SNOWBALL for it,

and calls him a traitor.

Several animals, who are too friendly to Snowball, are executed.

A second windmill is built, but the neighbor farmer FREDERICK has itblown up.

NAPOLEON orders another windmill.

BOXER, the horse, who has always been loyal to the pigs, and whose

mottoes are "I will work harder" and "NAPOLEON is always right"

collapses as a result of too much work, age and battle wounds.

The pigs sell him to a horse butcher, and SQUEALER reassures the

animals that he had in fact been taken to a hospital, where hedied peacefully.

Slowly, all the principles of the rebellion are destroyed. The pigs

even start walking like humans, on two legs.

As they look through the window, where pigs and humans are having

a party, the animals realize that they can no longer distinguish who

is a pig and who is human. They both behave exactly the same.