ShmoopTube

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Animal Farm 1.2 The Biggest Ism… a la Shmoop. [A windmill]

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Okay, so we don’t really know if symbolism is the biggest ism of them all, but it’s

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the framework for Animal Farm, so it’s a big deal.

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Of course, you don’t have to agree with us…no egotism or fascism here. [A board with words ending in 'ism']

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Take the windmill, for instance. It was built, destroyed, and re-built three times.

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With all that investment of heart, effort, and even death, it must be a really important [Man with a cows head doing construction work]

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symbol in Animal Farm. Snowball’s motivation to build it was truly

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to improve the lives of the animals. The equation in his mind was this: hard working windmill

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equals leisure time for animals.

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Or to put it in Russian Revolution terms, modernize the country and everybody gets some

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party time…and eventually Sputnik. Napoleon peed on the windmill plans…a not-so-subtle [A pig with a Napoleon name label]

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gesture of his opinion.

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Stalin also disagreed with Trotsky, the Snowball of the real world, about modernizing Russia, [Stalin and Trotsky appear with Snowball and Napoleon as a pig]

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but at least he didn’t pee on Trotsky’s writing.

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He just had Trotsky run out of town and later assassinated. Which… Okay, it’s worse.

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The windmill became larger than life…like a long-armed, unattainable vision waiting

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to be tilted at by a shortsighted knight… [A knight in body armor appears alongside a windmill]

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…or destroyed in a storm.

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Well, somebody’s head has to roll for that one, and Napoleon knows just the man…er…

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pig to blame.

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Sorry, Snowball. They were your plans, right? [Snowballs head rolls across a field]

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It must be your fault the windmill collapsed in the storm, so off you go.

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What to do now? Build the windmill again, of course.

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More work, less food. But the sacrifice is worth it for the revolution, for the day [Lots of cows together]

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when all the animals benefit equally. But the darn thing comes down again.

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This time, it’s blown up by ruthless invading Nazis, played by invading human neighbors. [A bomb strikes the windmill and it disappears]

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This is a reference to the Germans invading Stalingrad in 1942. They were eventually defeated

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by the Soviets, but at great cost to both sides.

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The animals fought tooth and hoof to save their farm from the human invaders. [Animals fighting humans in a cloud]

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There were casualties, there was blood, and there was death.

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The animals won, but then they just had to build the windmill for a third time.

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And so they did, bigger and badder than ever. [Construction men with animal heads walking]

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But the animals never fully recovered.

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Napoleon became a curly-tailed version of Farmer Jones, and the animals were worse off than ever. [Cows stuck in a small dairy farm]

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The farm’s name eventually returned to Manor Farm.

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The same old inequality wearing different faces.

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Building the windmill three times symbolizes the difficulty of creating a new society. [Three windmills and a rooster appears]

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Old Major didn’t exactly leave his peeps a manual for how to assemble the new regime,

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so the pigs were able to fill in the blanks.

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But on the bright side, at least now we don’t have to feel bad about eating bacon. [Person flipping rashers of bacon]

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