Animal Farm Chapter 3 Summary
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Setting
Chapter three of the animal farm takes place in the big barn.
Main Characters
The Hens – they are unintelligent laying hens on Animal Farm.
The Dogs - Jessie, Bluebell, Pincher, and the nine attack dogs provide the pigs with the brute force necessary to terrorize the other animals.
Muriel – she is a white goat and one of the few animals who become fully literate.
Boxer - he is a loyal and dedicated horse but quite naïve and gullible.
Mr. Jones - he is the original owner of an animal farm and a heavy drinker.
Clover – he is a gentle, motherly, and powerful carthorse
Benjamin- he is one of the oldest and wisest animals on the farm and among the few who can read properly
Mollie – he is a vain, white horse who, prior to the rebellion, pulls Mr. Jones’s cart.
The Cat – he is a greedy and self-serving farm cat.
Plot Summary
Every animal, down to the ducks and the hens, works hard to bring the hay in. The pigs are clever enough to figure out how to do this without tools that involve standing on two legs, while Boxer and Clover know the intricacies of bringing hay in. Because the pigs are so intelligent, they do not actually work and instead assume leadership positions. It takes the animals less time than it ever did Mr. Jones to bring in the hay, and the harvest is bigger than it has ever been. Throughout the summer, things work perfectly. The animals are thrilled to eat food that they produced for themselves and not have to share it with humans.
Despite the initial difficulties inherent in using farming tools designed for humans, the animals cooperate to finish the harvest and do so in less time than it had taken Jones and his men to do the same. Boxer distinguishes himself as a strong, tireless worker, admired by all the animals. The pigs become the supervisors and directors of the animal workers. On Sundays, the animals meet in the big barn to listen to Snowball and Napoleon debate a number of topics on which they seem never to agree. Snowball forms a number of Animal Committees, all of which fail. However, he does prove successful at bringing a degree of literacy to the animals, who learn to read according to their varied intelligence.
In order to help the animals understand the general precepts of Animalism, Snowball reduces the Seven Commandments to a single slogan: "Four legs good, two legs bad." Meanwhile, Napoleon focuses his energy on educating the youth and takes the infant pups of Jessie and Bluebell away from their mothers, presumably for educational purposes. The animals learn that the cows' milk and wind fallen apples are mixed every day into the pigs' mash. When the animals object, Squealer explains that the pigs need the milk and apples to sustain themselves as they work for the benefit of all the other animals.
Themes
- Language as power. From the beginning of the popular revolution on Manor Farm, language, both spoken and written, is instrumental to the animals’ collective success, and later to the pigs’ consolidation of power. The author illustrates how language is an influential tool that individuals can use to seize power and manipulate others via propaganda, while also showing that education and one’s corresponding grasp of the language are what can turn someone into either a manipulative authority figure or an unthinking, uneducated member of the working class.
- Class warfare. One of the main doctrines of Animalism, the ideology that Napoleon and Snowball develop, is that all animals are equal. However, it does not take long for the pigs to begin to refer to themselves as "mind workers†to distinguish themselves from the other animals, who work as physical laborers. Through this, Animal Farm shows how differences in education and occupation lead to the development of a class hierarchy, which leads inevitably to class warfare, in which one class seeks to dominate the other.
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