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Most readers have found this the most moving and memorable chapter in the book. By inventing the episode of Boxer\'s death--which, unlike other episodes in this allegory, does not stand for any specific event in history--Orwell has found a way to dramatize everything that\'s wrong with the new society. Here we can feel the full impact of the pigs\' callous betrayal of the working animals, their betrayal of the revolutionary ideal.
Fittingly, the first half of the chapter gives a general picture of how things now stand in the new society. The picture is painted with Orwell\'s usual irony. Watch for the themes of sacrifice (\"Boxer\'s split hoof\" at the very start is a tangible sign of this), hard times, the animals\' belief in the revolutionary ideal and hope for the future. (The new concepts of \"retirement\" and \"pension\" are signs of this.) And notice, in ironic counterpoint throughout, the obvious signs--obvious to us but not to the animals--that this society is a dictatorship and an oligarchy (rule by one single group, in this case, the pigs).
The themes all come together at the beginning of the chapter. Boxer is consoled in his thought of the windmill to be rebuilt yet again and by his belief in his coming retirement to the barley-field. But if we\'ve been reading carefully, we\'ve seen that the field was set aside for barley in the last chapter, when the pigs bought books on brewing and distilling after the drinking-party. We already have an ironic hint of what\'s to come. (Beer, we remember, is made with barley.)
\"Meanwhile life was hard.\" When it comes to hard times, Orwell is always as stark and simple as what he is describing. The winter is cold and food rations are reduced--except for the pigs and dogs--with this ironic justification: \"A too rigid equality in rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism.\" The narrator doesn\'t comment on this blatant contradiction of everything the revolution was supposed to stand for, but we as readers can\'t miss it.
Then Squealer rattles off lists of figures proving that things were worse in the past, and are getting better all the time on Animal Farm. \"The animals believed every word of it.\" For one thing, no one remembers clearly what it was like under Jones anymore. Once again, history is rewritten by the propaganda of those in power.
The farm prospers, but the animals do not. In fact their food rations must be cut again because money is needed for building materials. The signs of overwhelming inequality pile up, always presented without comment by the narrator, as if all this is quite natural. One afternoon there\'s an unknown \"warm, rich, appetizing scent\" in the air, the smell of barley cooking, perhaps. \"The animals sniffed the air hungrily and wondered whether a warm mash was being prepared for their supper.\" They feel a simple, limited hope; Orwell brings the feeling home to us with concrete details that tell us worlds about the animal\'s condition:
But no warm mash appeared, and on the following Sunday it was announced that from now onwards all barley would be reserved for the pigs.... every pig was now receiving a ration of a pint of beer daily, with half a gallon for Napoleon himself....
Then the social side of life is described: ceremonies and celebrations, all presented ironically as adding \"dignity\" to life, comforting reminders that \"they were truly their own masters.\" The Farm is proclaimed a Republic, and the animals have an election for President. \"There was only one candidate, Napoleon, who was elected unanimously.\" At the same time, history is rewritten further: Snowball, the pigs now claim, was not only in league with Jones from the start, but actually led the human forces at the Battle of the Cowshed! As Snowball gains in evil (fantastically), Napoleon gains in good (fantastically).
Moses the raven comes back with his tales of Sugarcandy Mountain. The pigs say these are lies (although they let him stay on the farm without working, with a mug of beer a day, interestingly enough) but many animals believe him: \"Their lives now, they reasoned, were hungry and laborious; was it not right and just that a better world should exist somewhere else?\"
This is the background for the story of the last days of Boxer.
Orwell sets the story up by making Boxer\'s collapse a dramatic event for the community, reminding us that it was his strength and sacrifices that saved the Farm again and again: there is a \"rumor,\" then the \"news\" that Boxer has collapsed, then half the animals on the farm come running. His loss of all strength is described in precise detail:
There lay Boxer, between the shafts of the cart, his neck stretched out, unable even to raise his head. His eyes were glazed, his sides matted with sweat. A thin stream of blood had trickled out of his mouth.
His thoughts for the next two days will be about his retirement to a corner of the pasture where he hopes to spend his last years peacefully improving his mind (\"learning the remaining twenty-two letters of the alphabet\"), if possible in the company of Benjamin. Squealer, full of sympathy, announces that Comrade Napoleon\'s concern for \"one of the most loyal workers on the farm\" has led him to arrange to have Boxer treated by a veterinary surgeon in the town hospital.
The next day, while the animals are weeding turnips (\"under the supervision of a pig,\" Orwell tells us in passing), Benjamin comes galloping toward them. It\'s the first time anyone has ever seen Benjamin gallop. \"They\'re taking Boxer away!\" he shouts. \"Without waiting for orders from the pig\" (says the narrator in passing, once again reminding us of the inequality that reigns here) the animals race to the farm buildings. They see a van and Boxer\'s stall is empty. They crowd around, shouting good-bye to Boxer. \"Fools! Fools!\" Benjamin shouts. \"Do you not see what is written on the side of the van?\" There is a hush. For the only time in the book, Benjamin, who knows how to read well but has decided that nothing is worth reading, does read something--the sign on the truck--out loud. It is the sign of a horse slaughterer. They all cry out in horror to Boxer to save himself, as the van drives off and they see his face at the small window at the back. And now Orwell gives us an image that fixes the scene in our minds, a sound that may stay with you long after you\'ve finished the book:
a moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs inside the van. He was trying to kick his way out.
Before he exhausted his strength working overtime for Animal Farm, \"a few kicks from Boxer\'s hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood.\" But not anymore: \"in a few moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away.\"
That\'s the last they ever see of Boxer. When Squealer comes in with a tearful picture of Boxer\'s last moments in the hospital, having received \"every attention a horse could have,\" his hypocrisy is particularly painful. So is his attempt to explain the \"foolish and wicked rumor\" that Boxer was sent to the knacker\'s (the horse slaughterer): \"surely they knew their beloved Leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that?\" The van had been the property of the knacker, and the vet who bought it didn\'t have time to paint out the old sign. \"The animals were enormously relieved to hear this,\" says the narrator. No comment.
When the pigs hold a memorial banquet in Boxer\'s honor, a grocer delivers a large wooden crate to the farmhouse, and the sounds of uproarious singing and finally of a quarrel and broken glass are heard late in the night. When the pigs get up late the next day, the word goes out that \"from somewhere or other pigs had acquired the money to buy themselves another case of whiskey.\" End of chapter.
NOTE: The description of Boxer\'s fate is full of irony. Once again the narrator pretends not to know something that we know because of him--but the animals don\'t know. The irony is at its bitterest here. And there is another irony in the story itself. Boxer\'s last sacrifice has been to be slaughtered in order to procure drinking money for the pigs. Major\'s prophetic incitement to Revolution--\"You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat\"--has been fulfilled, ironically, not by the human Jones but by the animals who have taken over the Revolution. The question dimly sensed by Clover earlier is implicitly posed again, with pressing force: if this is what you get, why revolt? What was the Revolution for?
This is a basic question. We can ask it about the Russian Revolution--and Orwell\'s answer about that will be made quite clear in the next chapter, in case we still had any doubts. But we can also ask it about revolution in general, or even about any attempt to make a more just society. You\'ll want to think about this question again when you\'ve finished the book.
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