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Like Chapter III, this chapter begins with hard but happy work. Here, however, the work is mostly for the windmill rather than for food. Something else is new, too: the pigs introduce a new policy of trade with their human neighbors, In fact, the pigs already seem to be becoming more like the old human masters themselves: they move into the farmhouse and sleep in beds. The animals take another look at the Seven Commandments and make a \"discovery\": the Fourth Commandment \"really\" reads \"No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.\" The reader discovers, of course, that the pigs have for the first time changed a written commandment.
Finally, the nearly finished windmill collapses during a violent storm. Napoleon \"knows\" the saboteur: Snowball! We know that the Lie has taken on a new form: the government now has a scapegoat to blame for its failures.
\"All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work, they grudged no effort or sacrifice\"--The first sentences of this chapter, like the opening of Chapter III, contain in germ the whole point. The first part of the chapter is parallel to Chapter III, and contrasts ironically with it. The animals\' subjection to the pigs has become increasingly evident--to us, but apparently not to them. The narrator relates the process with no comment; things seem to happen naturally, one after the other, as we have seen. This is one of Orwell\'s basic ironic techniques in Animal Farm: We know things the characters don\'t.
Thus the simple comparison \"worked like slaves,\" which could simply mean that they worked very hard, is here charged with meaningful irony: the animals may not know it, but they really are becoming \"slaves.\" Their sacrifice is not \"for the benefit of themselves,\" as they think, but, we soon realize, for their new masters, the pigs.
Again the Lie, the perversion of language, is part of the process of enslavement. The animals work a 60-hour week, and Napoleon announces there\'ll be work on Sunday afternoons too--\"strictly voluntary,\" but if the animals refuse, they\'ll have their rations cut in half. Apparently the word voluntary has been redefined. (In Orwell\'s next book, 1984, government slogans like \"WAR IS PEACE,\" and \"FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,\" are similar redefinitions--the last one strikingly so.)
Still, most of the terribly hard work on the windmill does seem to be voluntary. The windmill is Orwell\'s image for Stalin\'s attempt to push all-out industrialization and mechanization on factory and farm, and animals seem to believe in it. Boxer, above all--who works harder than anyone else--has two slogans, we remember, which \"seemed to him a sufficient answer to all problems\": \"I will work harder\" and \"Napoleon is always right.\" In the animals\' belief and enthusiasm lie the sad irony of the first part of this chapter.
A further step is taken when Napoleon announces his \"new policy\" of trade with the humans. (The allegory is precise: this is the New Economic Policy inaugurated in 1921 by Lenin and ended in 1928. In Animal Farm, it doesn\'t end, it intensifies.) This produces \"a vague uneasiness\" in the animals. They remember--\"or at least they thought they remembered\"--passing resolutions against dealing with humans, money, trade.
NOTE: Technically, they are wrong; no resolutions were ever passed on this subject. You could argue, though, that Napoleon\'s new policy certainly violates the spirit of Commandments 1 and 2--and it certainly violates the policies advocated by Major in his speech.
Four young pigs try to speak against Napoleon\'s policy, but the growling dogs shut them up fast, and the sheep\'s repeated \"Four legs good, two legs bad!\" does the rest. Terror and drilled conformity are effective weapons.
The attempt is made to persuade, however: \"Afterwards Squealer made a round of the farm and set the animals\' minds at rest.\" Notice that Squealer is always explaining things privately, after the fact: no public discussion is allowed. First comes force, then comes propaganda. The idea of not trading with the humans, he says, is probably based on \"lies circulated by Snowball.\" Thus, he continues to build on the lie begun in the last chapter and accelerated at the end of this one. When Squealer suggests they might even have dreamed the idea, because no such resolution exists in writing, they have to agree. Orwell was English, and in the British Isles, most of \"the Constitution\" is not written either; it is a collection of customs and legal precedents. You can see why this incident would be especially scary to an Englishman.
Once things are set in motion, they keep rolling. As, on their side, human beings begin to have a grudging respect for the animal-managed farm (although they still hate it), and as dealings with the humans pass unopposed on the animal side, the pigs themselves begin to take on a human lifestyle. They move into the farmhouse, where they sleep in beds. Notice how this is connected to the increasing personal power, privilege, and status of Napoleon. Not only do the pigs absolutely need \"a quiet place to work in,\" but the farmhouse is
more suited to the dignity of the Leader (for of late [Squealer] had taken to speaking of Napoleon under the title of \'Leader\') to live in a house than in a mere sty.
That\'s the point, of course. The pigs--especially one pig--are increasingly in the same basic situation as the expelled human masters; why then shouldn\'t they have all the trappings? But justifying this means changing the past again.
Although Boxer simply repeats his \"Napoleon is always right!\" Clover has Muriel the goat, a good reader, check out the relevant Commandment for her. She finally makes out \"No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,\" and we realize that for the first time the pigs have altered the written \"unalterable law.\" Orwell tells us with his usual irony that \"Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment mentioned sheets.\" And Squealer comes in with his usual speech about how the pigs have special needs. Then he ends with his customary Do-You-Want-Jones-to-Come-Back question. (The animals quickly \"reassured him on this point.\") The narrator informs us that this \"put the whole matter in its proper perspective.\" Orwell\'s irony passes into sarcasm where Squealer is concerned.
The end of the chapter seems to resemble the beginning. With the coming of autumn, the animals are \"tired but happy.\" They don\'t have much to eat, but the windmill makes their sacrifices seem well worth it. \"Only old Benjamin refused to grow enthusiastic about the windmill... he would utter nothing beyond the cryptic remark that donkeys live a long time.\" Cryptic wisdom, as we\'ll see.
Then one night the half-finished windmill comes crashing down in the middle of a storm. At the site of the ruins, Napoleon
paced to and fro in silence, occasionally snuffing at the ground. His tail had grown rigid and twitched sharply from side to side, a sign in him of intense mental activity.
Orwell doesn\'t want us to forget that the characters are animals--especially at key moments--as the description shows. This is a key moment, for Napoleon makes his longest speech of the book, a speech that sets in motion the terrible events of the next chapter:
\"Comrades,\" he said quietly, \"do you know who is responsible for this? Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill? SNOWBALL!... Snowball has done this thing! In sheer malignity, thinking to set back our plans and avenge himself for his ignominious expulsion, this traitor has crept here under cover of night and destroyed our work of nearly a year. Comrades, I pronounce the death sentence upon Snowball...\"
The speech is an illustration of the function of the scapegoat. If Snowball can be blamed for any failure, no matter the cause, then a. the Ruler remains infallible, whatever happens, and b. the emotions of the ruled can be played on at will. Napoleon announces that the windmill must be rebuilt at any cost, but it\'s going to be tough. He\'s going to need his scapegoat again.
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