Chapters 5-6

Test yourself

Chapter 5: Napoleon vs Snowball (Part 1)

Here are a few key features of Chapter 5, up until Snowball is chased off the farm:

Mollie's departure

Mollie leaves the farm to find a place where she is owned, but she gets sugar and ribbons.

Personality differences

Snowball and Napoleon disagree “at every point where disagreement was possible”. Snowball often “won over the majority with his brilliant speeches”, however “Napoleon was better at canvassing support for himself in between times”.
Snowball is presented here as popular and persuasive, while Napoleon is devious and underhand.
Additionally, this makes Snowball look naïve, as he is so focused on his plans and persuading the animals with his speeches that he overlooks the threat that Napoleon poses.

The windmill

Snowball makes plans to improve life on Animal Farm, including building a grand windmill. Meanwhile, Napoleon trains the sheep to bleat, “Four legs good, two legs bad” at crucial moments in Snowball’s speeches.
Napoleon “declared himself against the windmill from the start”. When he visited the shed, “he urinated over the plans”. This disgusting act shows Napoleon’s disrespect for Snowball and that he is willing to use threatening, underhand tactics to establish his own power.

The vote

At the Sunday meeting, the animals prepare to vote on the windmill. We hear that “Snowball’s eloquence had carried them away”.
Just at the moment where the animals would have voted in favour of Snowball, Napoleon calls his “nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars”. The dogs “dashed straight for Snowball” and he is chased off the farm. This is the start of Napoleon using violence and threats in place of democracy and fair debate.

Chapter 5: Napoleon vs Snowball

Here are a few key features of Chapter 5, after Snowball has been chased off the farm:

End of democracy

The animals are terrified. The nine dogs wag their tails to Napoleon as the dogs used to for Mr Jones.
Napoleon announces the end of Sunday Meetings, issues will be decided by a committee of pigs lead by Napoleon and the animals will assemble on Sundays to salute the flag, sing and receive orders, but there will to be “no more debates”.
The end of voting and debating signifies the end of democracy

New regime

“Squealer was sent round the farm to explain” Napoleon’s new regime.
Squealer explains that “loyalty and obedience” are more important than “bravery”, when one of the animals says that Snowball was brave in The Battle of the Cowshed.
He also suggests that their memory and understanding of Snowball’s actions is wrong and they will soon know what really happened.

Sunday

Old Major’s skull is put by the flag. On Sundays, three pigs and the nine dogs sit at the front with the other pigs behind them.
The rest of the animals face them and Napoleon reads out the orders for the week in “a gruff soldierly style”. The hierarchy and rigid, violent authority has been established.

Napoleon's windmill

Three weeks after “Snowball’s expulsion”, Napoleon announces that the windmill will be built and that it will take two years.
“Squealer explained to the animals” that Snowball stole the ideas for the windmill from Napoleon and that Napoleon’s opposition was Napoleon’s own clever idea to get rid of Snowball, as he had realised that Snowball was dangerous and corrupt.
The animals accept what Squealer says because he confuses them with his language and they are threatened by the growling dogs.

Chapter 6: The Power (or the Corruption) of Language

Here are a few key features of Chapter 6:

Slaves

“The animals worked like slaves”.
This is ironic as the animals are now slaves to Napoleon.
However, this simile also creates an incredibly sad atmosphere as it reminds the reader that the animals are unaware of their situation; they do not realise that they are not free and they are not working for their own prosperity.

Language for control

The pigs use language to control the animals. Work on Sundays is “voluntary”, but if the animals don’t do it, their rations will be “reduced by half”. This is actually a disguised threat which forces the animals to work.
Boxer works incredibly hard and gets up even earlier to carry and break the stone for the windmill.

Trade

Napoleon tells the animals that they will now trade with neighbouring farms in order to get the materials that they need for the windmill.
He tells them that “the needs for the windmill override everything else”. If they need more money, they will sell the hen’s eggs. Napoleon engages the services of a solicitor, Mr Whymper. Napoleon has broken Old Major’s rules by bringing capitalism back to the farm.
Squealer goes around the farm and convinces the animals that a rule against trade had never been passed; it must have been in their imagination or one of Snowball’s evil rumours.

Changing the commandments

The pigs move into the farmhouse, sleep in the beds and get up later than the other animals. Their laziness contrasts with Boxer’s hard work and devotion.
Clover asks Muriel to read The Fourth Commandment, but it now reads: “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets”. The pigs have corrupted language and the principals and Animalism.
Squealer manipulates the animals into complying with these changes by repeating that the pigs need a quiet place to do their “brainwork”.

Threat of Jones

Squealer also repeats the threat: “Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back?”
The repeated threat of Jones not only manipulates the animals into agreeing with all of the pigs changes, but it also makes the animals continue to believe that life is better and safer without Jones; the pigs are now in control of the animals thoughts and memories.

Snowball the scapegoat

One night, a violent storm destroys the windmill. Napoleon blames the destruction of the windmill on Snowball, claiming that he is a traitor who crept in and purposefully wrecked their year of hard work.
He passes the death penalty on Snowball and a reward for anyone who captures him. Napoleon has made Snowball the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong on Animal Farm. This tactic enables Napoleon to keep control as the rest of the animals are afraid of an invisible enemy, rather than realising that Napoleon has become an authoritarian dictator.

1Important Plot Features

1.1Plot Summaries

1.1.1Chapters 1-2

1.1.2Chapters 3-4

1.1.3Chapters 5-6

1.1.4Chapters 7-8

1.1.5Chapters 9-10

1.1.6Keywords

1.1.7End of Topic Test - Chapters 1-5

1.1.8End of Topic Test - Chapters 6-10

2Characters & Their Links to History

2.1Key Characters

2.1.1Old Major

2.1.2Snowball

2.1.3Napoleon

2.1.4Squealer

2.1.5Boxer

2.1.6End of Topic Test - Key Characters

2.1.7AO2/3 - Key Characters

2.1.8Exam-Style Questions - Boxer

2.2Other Characters

2.2.1Mr Jones

2.2.2Clover

2.2.3Hens

2.2.4Sheep

2.2.5Mollie

2.2.6Benjamin

2.2.7Moses & Mr Frederick

2.2.8Pilkington & Mr Whymper

2.2.9End of Topic Test - Other Characters

2.2.10End of Topic Test - Other Characters 2

3Key Themes & Orwell's Purpose

3.1Key Themes

3.1.1Education

3.1.2Power & Control

3.1.3Power & Language

3.1.4Equality

3.1.5End of Topic Test - Key Themes

4Language, Form & Structure

4.1Language, Form & Structure

4.1.1Form & Structure

4.1.2Language

4.1.3Symbols

4.1.4Narrator & Allegory

Jump to other topics