In chapter eight, we are made to feel sympathy for the animals when the other farm starts to attack them. “…Whole of the big pasture, including the windmill, was in the hands of the enemy.” The animals had worked so hard on the farm and especially on the windmill and now the enemy attacks, all their hard work could be ruined. Orwell says, “was in the hands of the enemy” instead of just saying, “the enemy could destroy the farm.” Saying it is in the hands of the enemy makes you feel like the enemy is playing God and they can control what happens to the farm.
“The windmill had ceased to exist.” The animals had worked hard all year to build this windmill for themselves. They worked through the winter with hardly any food to eat, and now the windmill had just been destroyed. Using the word, “ceased” makes it feel like what has happened to the windmill is a real tragedy, “ceased to exist” has a lot more meaning then saying, “had been blown up.”
“We will build another windmill. We will build six windmills if we feel like it.” Squealer keeps saying, “we, we, we,” but really it is going to be the other animals who do all the work. Even if they cannot bother to try and build another windmill, they feel like they have to do it because Squealer said so.
In chapter nine: “Boxer refused to take even a day off work.” Everyone is rebuilding the windmill and Boxer is refusing to stop working even though he has got an injured hoof. He worked very hard anyway and now he feels it is his job to rebuild the windmill and he does not even want a day off work. He is too stupid to realise that he could badly hurt himself if he tried too hard, especially with an already injured hoof.
“Once again all rations were reduced, except those of the pigs and dogs.” The pigs and dogs do not work on the windmill or on the farm much, but they are getting more food than any other animals. The animals are working again to rebuild the windmill, in even worse conditions, and they have less food then the pigs or dogs who do not do any work.
“…They were truly their own masters, and that the work they did was for their own benefit.” The animals do not realise that they are doing all this work and getting nothing out of it for themselves. They are clearly not doing this work for their own benefit because the pigs and dogs are the only ones who get anything from it even though the other animals do all the work. And, the hens have to give up their eggs every week just to bring in profit for Napoleon.
Chapter ten is the last chapter of the story, and we are made to feel a lot of sympathy because of what happens to the animals after all their hard work and after all they had been through.
“The short animal lives fled by.” This makes you feel sympathy for the animals because they cannot really look after themselves properly and have to do everything Napoleon tells them to. They just died of starvation, usually, one after another. Orwell uses the word, “fled,” which is a good word because it makes you think the animal’s lives had just started and straight away, before they knew it, their lives were over.
“Snowball was forgotten. Boxer was forgotten.” This makes you feel sympathy for those two animals, because they are the animals who did a lot of work for the farm. Especially Boxer, because he did most of the physical work on the farm and building the windmill, he pushed himself to the extremes to get things done, and now he had just been forgotten.
“…without making themselves any richer – except, of course the pigs and the dogs.” Again, Orwell is repeating the fact that the animals who do all the work do not get anything, but the pigs and dogs who do nothing get all the food and other luxuries. Saying “of course” means that it obvious that only the pigs and dogs would get richer and it’s obvious that none of the other animals would.
“And yet the animals never gave up hope.” This creates sympathy for the animals because they have been through so many bad times and have hardly had any good times, but they still want to carry on working. They probably know that they are trying to hard, but they believe that they can make their lives better because Napoleon tells them they can, if they work hard.
“Amazed, terrified, huddling together…” This is three reactions of the animals being scared. By using these three descriptive words right at the start of the sentence, it makes you feel sorry for the animals and how scared they must be, straight away.
“Some animals are more equal than others.” This does not make sense but the animals read it and think that because it is a commandment it must be true, and that Napoleon and the other pigs and dogs have the right to tell them what to do, just because it says so in the commandment.
This story is all related to the Russian Revolution. The animals all correspond to one of the main leaders in the Russian Revolution, the story is called an allegory. George Orwell gives this novel an unhappy ending, because he is trying to make us realise that revolution is not a good thing and the end result of revolution is usually bad. In this story, the bad end result was that the pigs ended up taking over the farm, when the humans went, and they started to control all the animals. At the end of the story it is said that the pigs were actually starting to turn into humans.
