Chapter 1

Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for

the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the

pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from
side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicking off his boots
at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer
from the
where Mrs
barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed,
dones was already snoring.
there was a
As sOon as the light in the bedroom went out
Word
and flutteringall through the farm buildings.
Suring a

that old Major, the prize

had gone round during the day
on the previous
Iddle White boar, had had a strange dream
It
it to the other animals.
gnt and wished to communicate in the big
barn
all meet
had been agreed that they
should
 George Onwell

10
of the way. Old Maior
t.
safely out (so
as s o o n as
Mr Jones w a s
under which he had
though the name

he was always called,

wasso highly regarde
Willingdon Beauty)
been exhibited was
was quite ready
to lose an hou
on the farm
that everyone
what he had to say.
sleepin order to hear
on a sort of raised platform
At one end of the big barn,
his bed of straw, under a

Major was already ensconced on

lantern which beam. He was twelve years old
hung from a

but he was still a majes.

and had lately grown rather stout,
appearance in
tic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent
spite of the fact that his tushes had Before
never been cut.

long the other animals began to arrive and make themselves

comfortable after their different fashions. First came the three
dogs, Bluebll, Jessie, and Pitcher, and then the pigs who
settled down in the straw immediately in front of the platform.
The hens perched themselves on the window-sills, the pigeons
fluttered up to the rafters, the sheep and cows lay down
behind the pigs and began to_chew the cud. The two
cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very
slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great care
lest there should be some small
animal concealed in the straw.
Clover was a stout
motherly mare approaching middle e
who had never
quite got her figure back after her fourth
BOxer was fo
and
enomous beast, nearly eighteen hands hig
an

as
strong as any two A
white stripe down his noseordinary horses put togeu
gave him a somewhat r stupid
appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligend
but he was
universally respected for his steadiness
ness of
ofcharacter
char
 Animal Farm
11

and tremendouspowers of work. After the horses came

Muriel, the white goat, and
Benjamin, the donkey. Benjamin
was 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 - for instance, he would say that God

had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would
sooner have had no tail and no flies. Alone among the animals
on the farm he never laughed.
If asked why, he would say
that he saw nothing to laugh at Nevertheless, without openly
admitting it, he was devoted to Boxer; the two of them usually
spent their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond
the orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking.
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. At

the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who
drew Mr Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a

lump of sugar. She took place near the front and began
a

ilirting her white mane, hoping to draw attention to the red

Last of all the cat, who
ribbons it was plainted with. came

place, and finally

looked round, as usual, for the warmest
she
herself in between Boxer and Clover, there
Squeezed
without
purred contentedly. throughout Major's speech
ustening to a word of what he was saying
 George Orwell

12
presentexcept
Moses, the t -
All the animals w e r e now
u
tame gr
the back door.
who slept o n a perch
behind Vhen fa
raven, themselves comfortahi
they/had all made h
Major saw that
he cleared his
throat and began.
egan di
and were waiting attentively,
about the strano.
you have heard already ge
Comrades,
But I will come to the dream later. th
dream that I had last night.
not think, comrades
to say first. I do
I have something else
for many months longer, and before
that I shall with
be you
pass to you such wisdom as I have
on
die, I feel it my duty to
much time for
acquired. I have had a long life, I have had
and I think I may say that |
thought as IJay alone in my stall,
understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any
animal now living. It is about this that I wish to speak to you.

Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let

us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We
are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the
breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are
forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very
instant that our usefulness has end we are slaugh
come to an

tered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the

meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. INo
animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and
slavery: that is the plain truth.
But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it becaus
this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford
to those who dwell
a decent
upon it? No, comrades, a times

no! The soil of thousand u

England is fertile, its good, it"
climate isis good,
i
capable of affording food
in abundance to an enormous
 Animal Farm
13
greater number of animals
than now inhabit it. This
of ours would support a dozen single
farm

of sheep- and all of thern

horses, twenty cows,
living in a comfort and a
hundreds

that are now almost

dignity beyond our imagining. Why
COntinue in this miserable condition? Because then
of the produce of our labour is nearly
the stolen fron us by
Lman beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our
nroblens. It is summed
P up in a single word -Man. Man is the
only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the
scene, and
the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.

He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to
pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits.
Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives
back to them the bare minimum. that will prevent them from
starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labourtills the
soil, our dung fertilizes it, and yet there is not one of us that
owns more than his bare skin. You cows that I see before me,
how many thousands of gallons of milk have you given during
to that milk which
nis last year? And what has happened
of it
3nould have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop
as gone down the throats of enemies. And you hens,
our
how many of
how
wmany eggs have you laid this last year, and
The rest have all gone
e eggs ever hatched into chickens?
And you,
Jones and his
men.
to bringin money for
et should have?
bore, who
over, here are those fourfoals you
sold
Each was
been the pport and pleasure of your old age?
In retum
at a one of them again.
year old
ar
old- you
you will
- never see
 George Orwell

14
and all your
labour in the field
in the field, what
confinements
for your four
except your bare rations and stall? a
had
have you e v e r are not allou.
miserable lives
we lead wed to
And e v e n the
For myselfI
do grumble, for I.
not lam
reach their naturalspan.
old and haue
I a m twelve years had
oneof the lucky
ones.

children. Such is the natural life of a ni

pig.
o v e r four
hundred
the end. You un
animal escapes the cruel knife in ang
But no
one of you uil
in front of me, every
sitting
porkers who are

the block withina year. To that horrn

scream your lives out at
we all must come -

cOws, pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. Even

the horses and the dogs have no better fate. You, Boxer, the
muscles of yours lose their power,
very day that those great
Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and
boil you down for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when they

grown old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round their necks
and drowns them in the nearest pond.
Is it not crystal clear, the, comrades, that all the evils of
this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings
Only get ridof Man, and the produce of our labour would be
Our own. Almost overnight we could become rich and free

What then must we do? Why, work night and day, body and
soul, for the overthrowof the human race! That is my nessage
to you,
comrades:Rebellion! I do not know when that nebek
lion will
come, it might be in a week or in a hundreuyears
but I know, as
surely as I see this straw my fee
that
sOoner or later
justice will be done. Fix
beneath that

comrades, throughout the your eyeyour lives

And above short remainder ofy
all, pass on this who

message of mine to those

 Animal Farm
15
me after you, so that future
struggle until it isvictorious.
generations shall carry on the
And remember, comrades, your resolution must
never
falter No argument must lead you astray. Never listen
tell you that Man and the when?
they tell you animals have a common
interest, that the proSperity ot the one is the prosperity of the
thers, It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no
creature
except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect
unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle. All men are
enemies. All animals are comrades."
At this moment there was a tremèndous_uproar. While

Major was speaking four large rats had crapt out of their holes
and were sitting on their hindquarters listening to him. The

dogs had suddenly caughtsight of them, andit was only by

a

lives. Major
Swift dash for their holes that the rats saved their
raised his trotter for silence.

Comrades,' he said, 'here is a point that musf be settled.

rats and rabbits
-
are they our
Ihe wild creatures, such as
I propose this
friends or our enemies? Let put it to the vote.
us

question to the meeting: Are rats comrades?

an
it agreed by
taken at once, and
was
The vote was were
were
comrades. There
that rats
erwhelming majority who was
three dogs and the cat,
Oug four dissentients, the
sides. Major
voted on both
erwards discovered to have

Continued: remember

merely repeat,
have little to say. I
more
all his ways.
Man and
always your duty ofenmity towards
 George Orwell

16
Whatever goes upon two legs, is an enemy. Whatever goes

o r has
is a friend. And
wings, remember oalso
nd rem
upon
four legs,
that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resembde

have conguered him, do not adopthis

not
when you
hin. Even
must ever live in a house, or sloeep in
vices. No
animal
or smoke tobaco
a
bed
clothes, or drink alcohol, rttouch
or wear
trade. All the habits of Man
are evl. Man
money, or engage in
animal must ever tyrannize over his,
his own
And, above all, no
clever or simple, brothen
we are all
kind. Weak or strong, No
animal. Al animals are
animal must ever kill any other
enil

And now comrades, I will tell you about my dream of ast

night. I cannot describe that dream to you. It was a dream ofthe
earth as it will be when Man has vanished. But it reminded me
of something that I had long forgotten. Many years ago, whenl
was a little pig, my mother and the othersowsused to sing an
old song of which they knew only the tune and the three fis
words. I had known that tune in my infancy, but it had long
since passed out of my mind. Last night, however, it came bacs
to me in my dream. And what is more, the words oti the sons
also came back -

words, I am certain, which were sung by

animals of long ago and have been lost to memory for gene
tions. I will sing you my
that song now, comrades. I am Ou
voice is
hoarse, but when I have taught you the tune, y you
can

sing it better for

yourselves. It is called "Beasts of England".
Old Major cleared As he
ha
his throat and ing.
said, his voice began to Sing:
well e n o u g h ,a n d i

was a
hoarse, but he sang well eno
was

stirring tune, something between Clementi and

Curcuracha'. The words ran:

 George Orwell
18

Beasts ofEngland, beasts ofIreland.

Beasts ofevery land and clime
Hearken well and spread my tidings
Ofthe 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. Even the stupidest of
them had already picked up the tune and a few of the words,
and as for the clever ones, such as the pigs and dogs, they
had the entire song
by heart within a few minutes. And then,
after a few
preliminary tries, the whole farm burst out into
Beasts of England' in tremendous
unison. The cowslowed it,
the dogs whined it, the sheep
bleated it, the horses whinnied
it, the ducks guacked it: They were so delighted with the
song
that they sang it right through five times
in succession, and
1might have continued singing it all night if they had not
interrupted.
been
Unfortunately, the uproar awoke Mr
Jones, who
out of bed, making Sure that there was a fox in sprang-
the
seizedthe gun which always stood in a corner of yard. He
his bedroom,
and let fly charge of number 6 shot into the
a

buried themselves in the wall of the barn

pelletsb darkness. The
and the meeting
broke up hurriedly,
Everyone iled to his own sleeping place.
The birds jumped on to their
perches, the animals
down in the straw, and the whole farm was settled
asleep in a mam.
noment.