Animal Farm

• Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes
• As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there was a stirring and a fluttering all through the farm buildings
• Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals
• Old Major


  The prize Middle White boar
• Old Major was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour's sleep in order to hear what he had to say
• Animals that arrived at the barn

  • The three dogs (Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher)
  • The pigs
  • The hens
  • The pigeons
  • The sheep
  • The cows
  • The two cart-horses (Boxer and Clover)
  • Muriel the white goat
  • Benjamin the donkey
• Boxer


  • An enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together
  • Not of first-rate intelligence, but universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work
• Benjamin


  • The oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered
  • He seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark
  • He never laughed
• The two horses had just lain down when a brood of ducklings, which had lost their mother, filed into the barn, cheeping feebly and wandering from side to side to find some place where they would not be trodden on
• Clover made a sort of wall round them with her great foreleg, and the ducklings nestled down inside it and promptly fell asleep
• Mollie


  • The foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap
  • She took a place near the front and began flirting her white mane, hoping to draw attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with
• The cat looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedly throughout Major's speech without listening to a word of what he was saying
• All the animals were now present except Moses, the tame raven, who slept on a perch behind the back door
• Major: 'Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired.'
• Miserable, laborious, and short

  The nature of the animals' lives
• No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
• The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep-and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining.
• Man


  • The only real enemy the animals have
  • The only creature that consumes without producing
• Man sets the animals to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.
• Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilises it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin.
• Every drop of the animals' milk and eggs has gone down the throats of their enemies.
• The animals' offspring are all sold at a year old - they will never see them again.
• The animals are not allowed to reach their natural span, and are cruelly slaughtered.
• Major: 'Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our labour would be our own. A1most overnight we could become rich and free.'
• Major: '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.'
• While Major was speaking four large rats had crept out of their holes and were sitting on their hindquarters, listening to him.
• The dogs had suddenly caught sight of the rats, and it was only by a swift dash for their holes that the rats saved their lives.
• It was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades.
• Major: 'Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.'
• No animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.
• Major sang the song "Beasts of England", which threw the animals into the wildest excitement.
• The uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who sprang out of bed, making sure that there was no fire.
• Geese and turkeys


  • All must toil for freedom's sake
• Beasts of England: 'Beasts of every land and clime, Hearken well and spread my tidings Of the golden future time.'
• The singing of this song threw the animals into the wildest excitement
• Almost before Major had reached the end, they had begun singing it for themselves
• The whole farm burst out into Beasts of England in tremendous unison
• The uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who sprang out of bed, making sure that there was a fox in the yard
• Mr. Jones seized the gun which always stood in a corner of his bedroom, and let fly a charge of number 6 shot into the darkness
• The meeting broke up hurriedly. Everyone fled to his own sleeping-place