Animal Farm Chapter 6 Summary

Animal Farm Chapter 6 Summary

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Setting

Chapter 6 of the animal farm takes place in Farmhouse

Main Characters

Snowball – he is the pig who challenges Napoleon for control of Animal Farm after the Rebellion.

Napoleon – he is the pig who emerges as the leader of Animal Farm after the Rebellion. 

Benjamin – he is the long-lived donkey who refuses to feel inspired by the Rebellion.

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.

Mr. Whymper – is the solicitor whom Napoleon hires to represent Animal Farm to the outside world.

Mr. Pilkington – he is the gentleman farmer who owns Foxwood, one of Animal Farm’s neighbors.

Mr. Frederick – is the owner of the neighboring farm of Stinchfield.

Plot Summary

During the following year, the animals work harder than ever before. Building the windmill is a laborious business, and Boxer proves himself a model of physical strength and dedication. Napoleon announces that Animal Farm will begin trading with neighboring farms and hires Mr. Whymper, a solicitor, to act as his agent. Other humans meet in pubs and discuss their theories that the windmill will collapse and that Animal Farm will go bankrupt. Jones gives up his attempts at retaking his farm and moves to another part of the county. The pigs move into the farmhouse and begin sleeping in beds, which Squealer excuses on the grounds that the pigs need their rest after the daily strain of running the farm.

That November, a storm topples the half-finished windmill. Napoleon tells the animals that Snowball is responsible for its ruin and offers a reward to any animal that kills Snowball or brings him back alive. Napoleon then declares that they will begin rebuilding the windmill that very morning.

Themes

1. Revolution and corruption. Animal Farm depicts a revolution in progress. Like all popular revolutions, the uprising in Animal Farm develops out of a hope for a better future, in which farm animals can enjoy the fruits of their own labor without the overbearing rule of humans. At the time of the revolution, all of the animals on Mr. Jones’s farm, even the pigs, are committed to the idea of universal equality but these high ideals that fueled the revolution in the first place gradually give way to individual and class-based self-interest. Animal Farm thus illustrates how a revolution can be corrupted into a totalitarian regime through slow, gradual changes
2. Language and 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. Through Animal Farm, Orwell 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.

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