Chapter+7

Animal Farm Chapter 7



Summary

In this chapter, the animals work very hard to try to rebuild the windmill through the hard winter. However, Animal Farm begins to experience a food shortage. Napoleon starts trade agreements with Whymper and the outside world starts to acknowledge Animal Farm. The pigs move into the farm house and changed the commandments. With all of these changes, the animals start to get uneasy. The windmill is destroyed during the night and Napoleon puts the blame on Snowball. Then, the animals are notified that Snowball has been lurking around the farm at night causing more mischief then just destroying the windmill. From there, Snowball was blamed for all that has gone wrong within Animal Farm. The animals find out Snowball has been a leader of Mr. Jones during the time he was a part of Animal Farm, and has been secretly plotting against them since the start of the rebellion. Snowball is now a part of Mr. Frederick’s farm and many animals were executed for either knowing information about Snowball and not speaking up, or performing rebellious acts around the farm because Snowball had asked them to do so. Now the rebellion is over, and the only members that remain are loyal to Animal Farm.

Characters
Napoleon: Napoleon was ashamed of the lack of progress within Animal Farm, and he made orders to prevent the humans from noticing the food shortage they were experiencing. Napoleon spent most of his time in the farmhouse to avoid exposure to the public during this time. He accepted a contract through Mr.Whymper for four hundred eggs a week, which started the first rebellion of the farm animals. Napoleon executes all animals that have associated with Snowball since his expulsion, and now Animal Farm is more appealing to Napoleon.

Snowball: Although he is not physically present throughout this chapter, Snowball stirs up a lot of trouble. Whether he definitely ruined the windmill, or was the cause of all the rebellions or not, Snowball has all the blame. The situations and rebellions that Snowball was blamed for throughout this chapter caused all of the executions, anger, and discomfort for the Animals. Any animal that confessed to associating with Snowball was brutally slaughtered.

Boxer: Boxer's work ethic throughout this chapter is a motivation for the rest of the animals. He never lost faith in Animal farm, and through all of the obstacles they came upon, his work ethic never suffered. In the middle of the chapter Boxer adds “Napoleon is always right," to his motto” I will work harder."

Clover: Along with Boxer, Clover never lost heart. However, when it came to the executions that took place, Clover was very sensitive. She truly believed that Animal Farm had better expectations then that year before. At the end of this chapter, Clover's opinions on the slaughters make a huge impact.

Mr.Whymper: Even though he is a human, he does a great deal of favors for Napoleon. Without Mr. Whymper in this chapter, the outside population would find out about the food shortage, and suffering Animal farm is experiencing, and would find it a good time to take the animals down.

Squealer: Just like Mr. Whymper, Squealer helps Napoleon out. He works as a messenger throughout this whole chapter, and is often used to make announcements to the animals when Napoleon is not present. He really escalates the hatred and fear of Snowball within Animal Farm.



Stalin's Control Over Russia
Stalin had a command economy established so that the trade of Russia was regulated by the government, this is strikingly similar to how Napoleon, along with the rest of the pigs, controlled trade outside of Animal Farm. Just like Napoleon ordered the windmill built as quickly as possible, Stalin had a five year plan for the industry to grow. Both actions resulted in food shortages for the working class. Stalin had a non-aggression pact with Germany while Napoleon had a trade agreement with Pinchfield Farms, which represents Germany. Stalin had a secret police mounted to deal with political threats, very similar to Napoleon's dogs. The 7 Commandments are repeatedly altered throughout chapter 7; Stalin rewrote many documents to fit his needs. The similarities of Animal Farm and Soviet Russia, even if one is based off the other, are almost creepy. Animal Farm is made off of Soviet Russia so accurately that one could possibly pick out every single event and find the equivalent in Soviet Russian history.

The Pig's Rise to Power

 * Napoleon and the rest of the pigs continue to control the animals' knowledge of the outside world. This insures that the animals had no choice but to follow Napoleon, they had no way of disproving him.


 * Napoleon wanted to sell some timber to either Pinchfield or Foxwood, because of this the good or bad deeds of the two farms were based on Napoleon's agreements with them. The animals were dependent on what Napoleon told them. They could not feel any sympathy with the enemy or hate towards an ally thanks to this.


 * The pigs forced the hens to give up their eggs or face starvation. This is such a big turning point because egg collecting was one of the horrors committed by Mr. Jones.


 * Napoleon paints an even darker picture of Snowball by telling the animals that Snowball was the culprit of any incident no matter how small. This means Napoleon has asserted himself as the only possible leader.


 * Napoleon gets very drastic and orders any animals associated with Snowball to be killed by his dogs. He gets rid of any competition and insured that the only animals on Animal Farm were his supporters.


 * Napoleon raised himself to look like a hero to the animals; he messed with the history of the Battle of Cowshed.


 * The song Beasts of England is banned by the pigs. The reason being that Napoleon wants no ideas of another rebellion coming forth.


 * Throughout these changes, Clover was concerned that the Commandments were being violated, she had them read allowed by the goat each time a change was made. The pigs had changed the last few words of any commandment that did not go in their favor. They were messing with the laws of equality that had been agreed upon, therefore abolishing equality.

Quotes

 * "The ​plot was for Snowball, at the critical moment, to give th​e signal for flight and leave th​e field to the enemy. And he very nearly succeeded-I will even say, comrades, he would have succeeded if it had not been for our heroic leader, Comrade Napoleon..​."comrade, that Snowball was Jones's agent from the very beginning.." -Squealer (Page 80 of George Orwell's Animal Farm) [[image:TRUTH___PRAVDA_by_asyenka.jpg width="369" height="321" align="right"]]

- This quote represents how Squealer manipulated the animals into believing anything and everything he says. He uses his persuasiveness to loyally brag about how great and heroic Napoleon is and how Snowball is the enemy when in fact, it is Napoleon who is the true enemy to the animals. This quote is important in this chapter because it shows how Squealer represents the propagandists in the governments who manipulate people into believing them. Squealer has been said to be symbolizing the Pravda,​which the Russian newspaper of the 1930's. The Pravda has said to be altered by biased reports and it has been referred to as using more opinion based information rather than factual information, which altered the way Russians saw and thought about issues during the reign of Stalin and also in the Cold War against America.

--This quote symbolizes the common enemy created by the Pigs within chapter 7. It shows no matter what goes wrong, or who does what, the blame will fall on only Snowball.
 * “Whenever anything went wrong it because usual to attribute it to Snowball. If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal." - (Page 88 of George Orwell's Animal Farm)
 * This is relevant to exactly what Stalin did to Trotsky when taking over the country. Stalin took immediate control over the Soviet Union while Trotsky was too submissive to dictate a Totalitarian communist country. Stalin and his party members (just as Napoleon and the Pigs) convinced everyone that Trotsky was an enemy, which ultimately lead to his death. This book shows historical evidence of what can occur in a government when greedy overpowering rulers use their authority against others to benefit themselves. It also shows how these dictators can easily manipulate people into hating a enemy created only by the dicatator in order for him to possess even more control and bring down the common enemy.
 * "Beasts of England were th​e song of the Rebellion. But the Rebellion is now completed. The execution of the traitors’ afternoon was the final act. The enemy both external and internal h​as been defeated.." -Squealer (Page 86 of George Orwell's Animal Farm)
 * "Animal Farm, Animal Farm, Never through me shalt thou come to harm!" - New song by Minimus (Page 87 of Orwell's Animal Farm) [[image:animal1.jpg align="left"]]
 * - The first quote shows how Napoleon has abolished "Beasts of England" because it represents the Rebellion, which is now over, according to Squealer. Napoleon knows that he must make a new song in order for the animals to forget the old song. The animals are just being further brainwashed by the Pigs. The animals did not truly know the reasons to why they were trying to diminish the humans in the first place. They're putting all the strength they have to fight for their rights to freedom, when it is a lost cause at the end of the day. The Pigs are recieving more and more power each day due to the ignorance of the aniamals. They are being tricked by the Pigs to do all of the dirty work in order to be "free", when really the Pigs are simply using the animals to gain power over the humans.
 * - In the second quote, the new song represents how Napoleon’s new values are straying away from his old beliefs in Animalism and how Napoleon is starting to relate to how Mr. Jones in that he is running Animal Farm entirely by himself, controlling the decisions and actions of all of the animals. Napoleon and the Pigs also start to relate to the way Mr. Jones lives by going against the Commandments when taking part in drinking alcohol and sleeping in beds. Napoleon and the other Pigs' actions in this chapter forshadow the coming of a new philosophy with totally new values much different from the beliefs Old Major preached before his death. These new values stray away from the values everyone used to go by, which is why Napoleon does away with the old song.

- -These two quotes portray the initial goal, and the actual outcome. The first quote is about Clover, and the second portrays the difference between what she had hoped for Animal Farm, and how the farm ended up as the complete opposite of her goal. Reading these two quotes alone show such drastic change since chapter one when all the characters were so hopeful.
 * "If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak."- (Page 95 of George Orwell's Animal Farm)
 * "They had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes."- (Page 95 of George Orwell's Animal Farm)


 * It also symbolizes a chapter in the Soviet Unions history when people were convinced that communism was going to make their country prosper, when in reality it destroyed their country entirely and millions of people ended up killed. This is exactly how Stalin planned it to turn out. He had his army of deathly loyal soldiers that were feared by everyone (just like the dogs in the book). No one would speak their opinion if it was against the values and beliefs of Stalin (just as all the animals would not speak out about anything against Napoleon, even if they did think life was better before the Rebellion with Mr. Jones).
 * The second quote is very significant when referring back to 1984, in that 1984 was a fictional tale about a disastrous world where one man ruled entirely every aspect of life. Animal farm is also fictional, but historically represents the past tyranny dictators in the world and how life for Russians in the 1930's really seemed to be shockingly similar to Oceania in Orwell's 1984.