In the fourth chapter Boxer is mentioned in the “Battle of the Cowshed”, when it tells us how his “very first blow took a stable-lad from Foxwood on the skull and stretched him lifeless in the mud.” This shows us how the Rebellion is starting to change the characters’ personalities. For example, Boxer was a very kind heartened horse “walking very slowly and setting down their vast hoofs with great care lest there should be some small animal concealed in the straw” but now he is turning more violent as we see in this battle. But with the shock of murder he returns to his kind-hearted self when he sees the stable boy dead. “I have no wish to take life, not even human life, repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears.”
In the fifth chapter Boxer is mentioned when Snowball has been expelled from the farm. “Even Boxer was vaguely troubled. He set his ears back, shook his forelock several times, and tried hard to marshal his thoughts; but in the end he could not think of anything to say.” This shows us how he cannot think for himself and how he depends on the pigs to touch and tell him what to think and do. It now tells us the second of Boxers’ slogans, “Napoleon is always right.” This motto is what helps Napoleon control the farm as he knows that Boxer will never go against his motto, therefore he has complete control over Boxer.
In the sixth chapter the animals build the windmill. Here it shows how much Boxer is needed and without him “nothing could have been achieved.” Again it shows how much the animals admire Boxer for all his work and also how devoted he is to his work. Later on in this chapter we see how much extra labour Boxer is doing voluntarily, “come out at night and work for one hour or two”.
In the seventh chapter it shows how much faith Boxer has in Napoleon because he “never lost heart”. Again here it shows how the animals find “inspiration in Boxer”, and how the pigs can use him for propaganda. For the first time, Boxer argues with Squealer for the honour of Snowball, “Snowball fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed.” They kept on arguing, but as Squealer knows Boxer so well he mentions that Napoleon said it and that was how the conversation ended. Then it shows how his character has changed again, from being kind and gentle to be a killing animal. “Boxer saw them coming and put his great hoof, caught a dog in mid-air and pinned him to the ground”, if he was the same as from the ‘Battle of the Cowshed’, he would have let the dog go immediately when realising his action, but now he has changed to be more harsh. So he “looked at Napoleon to know whether he should crush the dog to death or let it go.” Here again he shows his loyalty to Napoleon, because he knows that the dogs do not do anything without Napoleon telling them to, but even though he knows Napoleon ordered them to kill him, he still looks at him for orders. The last mention of Boxer in this chapter again shows us that he is not of “first rate intelligence”, and that the only thing he understands is working. So when he sees the massacre that he has just witnessed in the farm house he decides to work even more and to “get up a full hour earlier in the mornings.”
In the eighth chapter it tells us how Napoleon cunningly sold the timber to Frederick. When Napoleon was showing off the money to all the animals, “Boxer put out his nose to sniff at the banknotes, and the flimsy white things stirred and rustled in his breath.” This is ironic because Boxer is the only animal who had touched the ‘money’, even though he didn’t know what it was; later on he was sold for money to the knackers. In the ‘Battle of the Windmill’ he is mentioned and again shows how much Napoleon needs Boxer to control the animals, “and in spite of the efforts of Napoleon and Boxer to rally them they were soon driven back.” It also shows how violent he has become now. We see it from the battle ‘Battle of the Windmill’ when “three of them had their heads broken by blows from Boxer’s hoof.”
The first paragraph of chapter 9 is ironic because Boxer is so loyal to his work and the farm, and that is what sends him to his death. He says he has “only one real ambition left- to see the windmill well underway before he reached the age of the retirement.” The last words “age of retirement” is ironic because we know he will get sent to the knackers. In this chapter we start to see Boxer’s “great muscles” starting to lose their power. “In nothing that he said or did was there any sign that his strength was not what it had been.” The next page or two is full of irony and pathos because one of Boxer’s lungs goes because he is working too hard. “‘It’s my lung’, said Boxer”. But even then, all he could think about was, “I think you will be able to finish the windmill without me. There is a pretty good store of stone accumulated.” Then Squealer comes and announces that Boxer will be sent to “the hospital of Willingdon.” However, only after 2 days did the van come to collect Boxer. “For the next two days Boxer remained in his stall.” This chapter again shows how the animals feel towards Boxer that even “without waiting orders from the pigs, the animal broke off work and raced back to the farm buildings.” This is the first time that we see Benjamin excited and also directly involved in events on Animal Farm. “But Benjamin pushed Muriel aside and in the midst of a deadly silence he read: “Alfred Simmonds, Horse slaughter,” then he explained what the writing on the van meant by saying simply, “They are taking Boxer to the knackers!” When the animals appeal to the two cart horses to not "take your own brother to his death", they simply sped up because the "stupid brutes" were "too ignorant to realise what was happening”. This is ironic because Boxer used to be exactly the same, all he cared bout was completing his job properly. The last mention of Boxer in ‘Animal Farm’ is by Napoleon when he “pronounced a short oration in Boxer’s honour.” We see that even in his death Boxer is used for propaganda when Napoleon says, “I will work harder and Comrade Napoleon is always right, he said, which every animal would do well to adopt it as his own.”
In general we see Boxer as a very kind and loving animal. We see the extent of his kindness by seeing how close he gets to even the most cynical animal in the entire farm, Benjamin. Another reason why Orwell introduces Boxer into the novel is to show the extent of corruption that Animal Farm had gone to. We see this from Boxer especially, because even after all the hard labour, even extra voluntary labour, devotion and faith in the pigs and in Napoleon, he is still sent to the knackers without a second thought.
